Blast of
Summer
Finding a
place to cool
off during
excessive heat
‘City
of
Roses’
Court Pick
Derailed
Nomination
pulled after black
senator objects
See Local News, page 3
See Metro, page 9
Volume XLVII • Number 29
Established in 1970
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • July 25, 2018
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Photo by d anny P eterson /t he P ortland o bserver
Beth Blumklotz (left) and Jimmy Appelhanz are on the front lines of a wage dispute with Portland Public Schools. The Local 757 representatives of the Amalgamated
Transit Union say the school district’s final offer in wages for 100 special education bus drivers are not high enough to meet the high cost of living in Portland’s tight
housing market. A strike is possible.
b y d anny P eterson
t he P ortland o bserver
Portland Public School special
education bus drivers may go on
strike if they don’t accept the lat-
est offer from Oregon’s largest
school district to implement their
final offer for a pay raise, end the
negotiations, and finally settle on
a long overdue employment con-
tract.
PPS announced that it will im-
plement its offering of wage in-
creases as part of Tuesday’s school
board meeting; an amount that ne-
gotiators of the contract and other
drivers have been saying is unac-
Strike Possible
Final offer for school bus drivers falls short
ceptable since it was first proposed
in May. The drivers’ union will vote
in two weeks whether to accept the
district’s offer or go on strike.
A proposed resolution released
by the district Friday ahead of the
school board meeting, calls for
a special education bus drivers’
starting wage to increase from
$16.25 per hour to $17.96 per
hour starting July 25 — but that’s
still $1.04 lower than what the
drivers asked for.
“The positive is this was not on
the [school board] agenda before.
The downside is, it’s still below
what others are being paid,” driver
and union organizer Beth Blumk-
lotz told the Portland Observer.
Organizers have frequently
referenced a statistic from the Na-
tional Low Income Housing Co-
alition that a Portlander needs to
make more than $23 per hour to
afford a two bedroom rental. The
drivers are asking for a $19 per
hour starting wage, with yearly
step increases.
The drivers originally asked
for over $21 per hour, which was
parallel to what other PPS drivers,
who transport things like ware-
housing equipment, landscaping
tools, and food items, made. Un-
like those drivers, the special ed
bus drivers must get trained in
emergency response techniques
for children.
Since their previous contract
C ontinued on P age 4