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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (July 29, 2021)
COMMUNITIES WITH BENEFITS A community benefits bidding program allows public agencies to only accept construction bids from contractors paying living wages and full time benefits. Unions say they are a game changer. BY HENRY HOUSTON S everal union representatives are standing near Lane County Commission Chair Joe Berney. They’re at the July 14 tour of Lane Transit District with Secretary of Transpor- tation Pete Buttigieg and Congressman Peter DeFazio, promoting a trillion dollar infrastructure bill being debated in Congress. It’s the first time that many of the union reps have seen one another since the start of COVID-19. While I’m introducing myself to them, one of the reps tells me that unions love Berney. That statement of adoration comes weeks after the Oregon Legislature passed Senate Bill 420, which lays a framework for state and local government agencies to adopt a community benefits bidding protocol. That’s an agreement that a public agency will accept bids only from contractors and businesses that meet a certain criteria such as offering year-round family health benefits and appren- ticeship programs for historically excluded populations. In 2018, Nashville Soccer Holdings and community groups designed a similar “community benefits agree- ment” to build a Major League Soccer stadium in Nash- ville, Tennessee. Among the contract benefits that were included to gain the support of the local Nashville commu- nity, the developers agreed to build affordable housing, pay stadium workers a living wage and include minority workers. In Oregon, Berney spearheaded the community bene- fits journey from idea to actual law. He says he assembled a team of union representatives to lobby Lane County government to adopt it, which involved jumping through legal hurdles. He then authored SB 420, which lays a frame- work for other local, regional and state agencies to adopt community benefits bidding protocols for public projects, including construction work funded through tax bonds. Union representatives from the International Asso- 8 J U LY 2 9 , 2 0 2 1 ciation of Sheet Metal Air Rail and Transportation, Local Union No. 16 (SMART); International Brotherhood of Elec- trical Workers, Local 280; and the University of Oregon’s Labor Education Research Center tell Eugene Weekly that the community benefits bidding protocol could lead to a rebirth of the labor movement in Oregon — and maybe throughout the U.S. Growing the protocol took most of Berney’s first term as Lane County commissioner. His next goal is to expand the county’s community benefits bidding past construc- tion to include more services that Lane County provides with contractors, including custodial and nursing. “Originally I didn’t intend to run for a second term. My presence is needed to push through this. I truly believe that the conditions are ripe and we’re about to enter a new labor movement in our country’s history,” Berney says. “This will be Oregon's contribution to the labor movement and workers’ movement and to be more fair and provide more dignity and ability for people to live a life and enter the working class.” PAYING THE DUES Back in May 2018, at a Democratic Party of Lane County results watch party for the primary election, local Demo- crats were jammed inside a room at Roaring Rapids Pizza Company. After the 10 pm results came in, showing Berney’s increasing lead over then-incumbent Sid Leiken, Springfield City Councilor and Teamster representative Leonard Stoehr introduced the new commissioner-elect to the crowd. During his speech, he brought up rumors among local conservatives that Berney was making secret deals with unions. “So I was wondering, where’s my cut?” Stoehr laughed. Throughout Berney’s 2018 campaign for the Springfield seat on the Lane County Board of County Commissioners, part of his platform was about investing in the working Illustrations by Chelsea Lovejoy class of Lane County, which he says included addressing climate change by creating new jobs and having more workforce equity. “After the campaign I was wrestling with how to move money to local communities, including Springfield, to local business and hiring local workers. I didn't want to be another bullshit politician,” he says. “So I came up with a way to codify and make a thing of all the values I tried to express in the campaign.” In 2019, Berney’s first iteration of the community benefits bidding program was tied to the construction of a new Lane County courthouse, a bond that voters shot down. Then called a community benefits agreement, if the bond had passed, the winning bidder of the court- house would have agreed to not only pay living wages but also offer family health benefits, prioritize diversity and equality in the workplace, incorporate sustainabil- ity in the project’s design and construction and utilize apprenticeship programs. During the campaign for the bond measure, Kail Zuschlag, assistant business manager for the Interna- tional Brotherhood of Electric Workers, Local 280 and Berney both say the community benefits agreement polled well with voters. In the county’s final poll taken months after the bond failed — out of the 49 percent of participants who knew about the community benefits agreement — 42 percent favored the courthouse if it were built by local contractors. Nearly a year after the bond measure failed, on Oct. 20, 2020, Lane County commissioners adopted a pilot program for the community benefits program. It requires the county to prioritize contractors that offer on the proj- ect a living wage and an employer-paid full-family health coverage plan on projects that exceed $1 million. “With Berney’s determination, he knew how to get it done and the right folks to talk with,” SMART union orga- E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M
