Multnomah County okays living wage

PORTLAND - A resolution setting a wage and benefit floor of $9 per hour for contract workers, with a cost of living escalator, passed the Multnomah County Commission last month. Custodians and security guards will be the first to benefit, with food service workers and temporary clericals to follow.

The Living Wage Campaign has been pressing the commission for a raise for over nine months and has been fighting to increase compensation and rights for contract workers for over four years.

Part of the new policy is already being implemented by Bob Kieta, facilities manager for the county.

"A few weeks after I started working there, Mightyclean went out of business and Everclean took over the contract. Because of the new Multnomah County living wage policy, I was interviewed by Everclean and was able to keep my job," said janitor Heather Byers in testimony read at the October hearing.

Not only did Byers keep her job, as did 99 percent of the Mightyclean janitors, but they now have a union contract with better wages and benefits, the Living Wage Campaign said.

"We're pleased with the resolution," said Jamie Partridge, chair of the Living Wage Campaign and a member of Letter Carriers Branch 82. "The policy improves not only wages and benefits but workers' job security and rights."

Contracts will be awarded based on a point system which rewards maximizing wages, accessible health coverage, sick leave, vacation and retirement benefits, and full-time work. New contractors would be required to notify and interview former employees displaced by a contract change. Contractors would have to post wage and benefit descriptions, inform employees of possible Earned Income Tax Credit eligibility, and allow county officials access to contractors' worksites and payroll and related documents.

"I want to thank the Living Wage Campaign activists who kept this issue on the front burner, said County Chair Beverly Stein. "They collected thousands of petition signatures and held a large public meeting."

Despite a sometimes contentious relationship, the chair and the campaign endorsed the new policy while realizing that much more needs to de done to bring all county contract workers out of poverty, Partridge said.

"This is work I would love to spend the rest of my life doing. But I can do it only as long as I have no children of my own to support," testified Eve Lyons, president of the Oregon Public Employees Union at Parry Center and a county contract worker at the abused children's treatment center. Workers at non-profit agencies are not covered by the new living wage policy.

The proposed resolution recognizes that "employees of non-profit social and human service agencies continue to experience low wages and a lack of benefits. The county's ability to affect those wages is limited because the Oregon Legislature controls the funding for those contracts."

Multnomah County and living wage advocates say they will work together at the 1999 Legislature for a substantial increase in wages and benefits for the employees of contractors that provide social and human services.

Commissioners Sharron Kelly, Lisa Naito, Diane Linn and Gary Hansen all praised the new policy while challenging the Living Wage Campaign to take on the legislative battle.

Yvonne Martinez, a member of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and chair of Jobs with Justice, accepted the challenge.

"We look forward to working with you," she testified. "We're disappointed, however, that our proposed language improving workers' right to organize is not in the new policy. We believe that the best anti-poverty policy is a union contract. We will continue to press for the exclusion of contractors who use public funds to fight worker organizing, who refuse union organizers access to worksites, who commit unfair labor practices, who refuse to allow worker grievances to be arbitrated by a neutral third party, and who refuse to recognize workers' choice of collective bargaining and the succession of collective bargaining agreements."

The Living Wage Policy for Multnomah County states that reducing the number of county residents living in poverty is an urgent benchmark and that the county desires to set an example of responsibility and to raise the market level of wages for employees whose current earnings place them below the federal poverty level. More than a dozen local unions and councils are affiliated with the Living Wage Campaign, including the Northwest Oregon Labor Council, AFL-CIO.