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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 6, 2017)
Street Roots • October 6-12, 2017 News Page 5 CBA, from page 4 weren t treated the same as other workers. They took advantage of people because they re afraid. They are not here legally in this country,” he said with the help of a translator. “One time I worked for cash, no receipts or anything, and they ended up owing me $3,000, and I couldn’t do anything about that.” His brother, Antonio Pulido, spoke of inadequate training and safety equipment. “Sometimes we weren’t able to attach ourselves correctly to do the work we had to do,” he said. “I have heard of many people who have fallen down and gotten hurt, and even lost their lives, without having the adequate equipment that they needed.” According to Oregon OSHA, there were 510 accepted disabling claims for fund compliance activities, increasing capacity construction-related falls and slips across the through community outreach and workforce state in 2015, the most recent year data is building. available. While CBAs would still be considered for Juan Sanchez, who now works for the select city projects costing $25 million or more Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters, under the city’s new proposed plan, advocates told the board that when he arrived in say that’s too few projects. Portland, the contractor he worked for “The smaller projects are more accessible deducted from his paycheck rent, money for for minority contractors because their bonding riding in the work van, and money to pay for capacity is not big, so why not try to extend the use of tools. After two months of full-time something that has diversity goals on all the work, he was paid $200. projects?” asked Kelly Haines, senior project “My story is repeating today,” he said. manager at Work Systems. “It would help with “Right now, somebody is working under the scale-ability, and that’s what the city of Seattle same circumstances that I worked under 18 has figured out.” years ago in this city.” Seattle uses a model similar to Portland’s Basom, who’s been investigating labor CBA structure, called Community Workforce complaints for the past 11 years said, “I’ve Agreements, on all worked dozens of these public works projects cases - worker costing $5 million or exploitation, more. underground economy - "1 fe e l we need th is n o w snore Haines worked over those years, and it th a n e ve r, We a re se e in g a closely with seems the most severe »? community groups to eossBmcisesi. beesn mb i? of these cases always draft the CBA model lie s a id , "IS we d@s/t a c t now^ comes down to the and said that since the P o rtla n d Is ju s t g o la g I© becom e Latino workers on 2012 resolution was residential-type a b ig g e r h o tb e d fo r w o rk e r passed, many projects construction projects.” e r p lo lta tlo B ," have still been ~ ere saso m One year ago, Street approved without it. P A C IF IC N O R T H W E S T R E G IO N A L Roots reported on these C O U N C IL O F C A R P E N T E R S “The biggest fight worker issues in was with the Portland Portland, finding that Building (remodel),” many taxpayer-funded she said, “because projects were also ripe that’s $200 million, with exploitation. Read the report at and we were very vocal in all the public news.streetroots.org/workerexploitation. venues, and we had dozens and dozens of Problems with worker abuse often lay with organizations representing tens of thousands subcontractors working under the prime of people saying ‘Use a CBA on this,’ and we general contractor. Typically, it’s Latino were unsuccessful. They did not apply a CBA.” immigrants working for these non-union While the city has goals for minority- and subcontractors who are most likely to be women-owned subcontractors on other city subject to exploitation, wage theft and threats projects, they aren’t always met. of retaliation if they speak up or attempt to “We have some modest utilization goals, and organize. that’s what we’re making exceptions on,” Basom believes widespread adoption of the Eudaly said. She said in some cases, CBA model on public projects will help change contractors come before council to be granted the overall face of Portland’s construction sites exemptions on meeting those goals. While she in a positive way. said there are legitimate challenges to meeting “I feel we need this now more than ever. We them, it’s in part because the city needs to are seeing a construction boom in Portland,” invest in developing minorities and women in he said. “If we don’t act now, Portland is just the building trades workforce, which CBAs do. going to become a bigger hotbed for worker “There also has to be a consequence if you exploitation.” don’t meet the minimal standards,” she said. He said because volunteers, including union The city delayed a vote on its new proposed representatives, on CBA oversight committees plan for projects in excess of $10 million, conduct much of the investigation into called the Community Equity and Inclusion compliance, “we feel this is a small ask from Plan, after nearly unanimous criticism from these public entities.” public commenters during a council meeting The board’s report also recommends that in July. CBAs continue to include a set-aside equal to 1 Commenters did, however, support an percent of the total project cost, which would amendment proposed by Commissioner Dan P H O T O B Y E M IL Y G R E E N Saltzman that would replace language to consider CBAs for projects costing $25 million with a requirement that CBAs are used on all of those projects. Michael Cox, Mayor Ted Wheeler’s spokesperson, said a vote on the city’s plan and Saltzman’s amendment is expected in late October, although it could be delayed another week or two. He said the reason for lifting the threshold for CBAs to $25 million was because it’s the city’s price point for meeting both community goals and efficiency. But Haines worries that in the spirit of being efficient, the city is losing the thoroughness in its Community Equity and Inclusion Plan that makes CBAs so beneficial. The new plan comes after an outside consultant’s evaluation of the CBA pilot projects that found while most goals were met, there was room for improvement. Since that report, labor and community groups have created an updated template for CBAs moving forward, intended to address concerns and fine-tune the agreements. The carpenters’ union plans to share the Workers Rights Board recommendation to fully implement CBAs on all projects with Multnomah County officials later this month. The county has used a model similar to CBAs, called Project Labor Agreements, on its new courthouse and health department headquarters. It publishes monthly reports showing how close it’s coming to meeting its equity goals online, however as of July, the courthouse project was falling short of meeting its minority workforce journey hour and women apprenticeship workforce hour goals. Lee Fleming, who has been instrumental in the county’s adoption of Project Labor Agreements, agreed that site visits and oversight are key to compliance. But the county, too, only utilizes its Project Labor Agreements on large, multimillion-dollar non-low-bid projects. A coalition of labor rights advocates, Metropolitan Alliance for Workforce Equity, have told City Council to vote no on its proposed plan. Advocates say that for CBAs to truly empower marginalized workers and put a dent in worker exploitation, more widespread implementation is necessary. “For years, immigrant construction workers in the Portland area have experienced substantial, illegal abuses on the job,” states the Workers Rights Board report. “Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) represent the most successful strategy available for combatting illegal abuse and under representation on publicly funded construction projects.” Jésus Pulido (right), a wood framing carpenter, speaks on a Workers Rights Board panel in July.
