Image provided by: SEIU Local 503; Salem, OR
About The OSEA news. (Salem, Oregon) 1970-1981 | View Entire Issue (June 8, 1978)
June 8,1978 The OSEA News Page 2 'Wings,’ city deal curtailed parking The real parking crunch in the Mall area came at the conclusion of 1975; it “flew” in, one might say, on the Capitol wings. At that time the City of Salem said that it would not issue a building permit because Mall area parking did not comply. The city agreed to issue a conditional use permit if residential neighborhood parking around the Mall were decreased and if there were no major additional parking structures built. The later was necessary to prevent any fur ther deterioration of the downtown air shed, an air shed which would be strained with the addition of the city’s Pen ny-Lipman parking structure. Legislative action on parking came in the last couple weeks of the 1977 session, always a hectic time. An amendment to Senate Bill 31, a bill which addressed a wide range of Department of General Services activities, set parking fees in all state-owned parking lots at $20. For some employes, this would be the first time ever they would pay for their parking. In some cities in the state, state employes would be the only people in town having to pay for their parking. When OSEA lobbyist Bill Wyatt heard about this, he told then-General Services ad ministrator Larry Sprecher and State Rep. Rick Gustafson, whose committee was con sidering the bill,‘that he was opposed to such action, especially as it applied to any parking outside of the im mediate Capitol Mall area. Wyatt said that OSEA would oppose such a program until reasonable alternatives were available to state employes who worked in Mall-area buildings. Sprecher, who now heads the Executive Department, was being hit from all sides, Wyatt noted. State employes want adequate and inexpensive parking; the Legislative Fiscal Office wants the state’s lots to start paying for themselves, and the City of Salem wants to keep Mall-area workers from parking in neighborhood areas. The immediate result of this meeting was that state in stitutions were not to be covered by parking fees. There was a problem there, however, as will be explained later. As to other agreements, Sprecher’s and Wyatt’s “recollections split.” Wyatt maintains that they agreed that all outlying areas would not get parking fees. Following the legislative session Sprecher moved over to the Executive Department and Corinne Hayes was hired to head General Services. Apparently, however, the agreements made in the halls of the Capitol were not passed along. When General Services wrote its rules recently to implement SB 31, especially those having to do with parking, parking fees were set statewide - outlying areas and state in stitutions included. At an administrative hearing in Portland, attended by very few state employes, and at one in Salem in the Employment Division auditorium, to which Fairview Chapter 57 president Dottie Cobb brought over 400 institutional employes, Wyatt said that the parking fees should not apply to any em ployes outside the immediate Mall area. He added that the fee does not buy a license to park, but rather “a license to hunt” since the lots are over subscribed. At a meeting in Hayes’ office in May, she, Wyatt and others reaffirmed the free parking at the institutions; agreed to look at the parking situation for the outlying areas; agreed to a re examination of ALL parking rules, and potentially planned to hold more hearings. The OSEA News dates listed The OSEA News will be published nine more times between now and the end of the year. Basically, The OSEA News is published every three weeks on Thursdays. Here are the remaining publication dates: June 29, July 20 August 10 August 31 September October 12 November November December 21 2 23 14. The OSEA News is published every three weeks by the Oregon State Employes Association, a public employe labor organization. Editorial and advertising offices are located at 1127 Twenty-fifth Street SE, Salem, Oregon 97301. Second class postage paid at Salem. If The OSEA News is being sent to the wrong address, the address label on this paper along with the correct address should be sent to OSEA Headquarters, 1127 Twenty-fifth Street SE, Salem, Oregon 97301. Subscriptions: $3 per year. Postmaster: If undelivered, please send form 3579 to OSEA, 1127 Twenty-fifth Street SE, Salem, Oregon 97301. Grant promoted, resigns SALEM - OSEA’s first woman president resigned May 23 because of a promotion to a position excluded from collective bargaining. Marie Grant, 43, a motor vehicle representative in MARIE GRANT JON LUCKE the Motor Vehicle Division’s Albany office, started work June 5 as the manager of the mobile van operating out of DMV’s Bend office. Jon Lucke, of the Employment Division, has moved up from the vice presidency to act as in terim president until someone is chosen by the Board of Directors to fill out Grant’s term. Grant recommended, at a special Executive Committee meeting where she an nounced her resignation, that Lucke be named president and District 8 Director G. Louis Roberts be named vice president until the General Council delegates elect officers for a new term beginning in October. “I have mixed emotions about even going,” Grant said, “because I feel I’m leaving a job half-done. But I don’t feel I can turn down a promotion.” In her new job, Grant will supervise one other em- ploye and will travel 1,500 to 2,000 miles a month between Heppner and Lakeview giving drivers license examinations and issuing vehicle regis trations. Figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that OSEA was the third largest union in the country with a woman president while Grant was in office. Threatened rights SALEM - A threat that you’re in trouble if you exercise your rights under the collective bargaining agreement needs to be dealt with immediately. When that happened in the State Accident Insurance Fund (SAIF) recently, OSEA Employe Representative Peter De Luca acted so quickly it caught SAIF management off guard and they reacted in a way which later necessitated an apology from them. When De Luca was advised of this threat by the OSEA job representative on the scene, he decided to handle the case personally and in post haste. He and the job rep went into the office of the supervisor who made the threat and told him that he probably had invited an unfair labor practice charge. After De Luca left the ASIF building, OSEA Job rep resentative Ron West was called into the office of un derwriting director Wilbur Ewert, where he and un derwriting manager Dan Morley, West’s supervisor, grilled West. As Ewert and Morley put it in their May, 5 letter of apology to West, they “wish to apologize for the ex tensive questioning of Mr. West that occurred on March 3, 1978. . . .; for any conduct from which Mr. West concluded that he was in trouble for contacting OSEA or in accompanying Mr. De Luca in his visit that day to see Mr. Ewert; for any statement which indicated to Mr. West that he or any other employe does not have the right to contact OSEA or should not contact OSEA about any acts which they feel may be unfair labor practices; for directing that Mr. West explain the dif ference between a grievance and an unfair labor practice, and for directing Mr. West to prepare a written memo for delivery to Mr. Morley the following week which defined an unfair labor practice and a grievance and explained the difference between them.” That letter of apology was the resolution of OSEA’s unfair labor practice complaint that SAIF management had in timidated employes from exercising their rights under the contract and SAIF management’s counter unfair labor practice complaint. 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