Metropolitan Alliance assembly gets labor boost

More than 1,200 delegates — including a labor caucus of 139 — took part in a May 13 Metropolitan Alliance For Common Good (MACG) assembly at the Oregon Convention Center.

MACG leaders negotiated with business leaders and government officials on proposals to ensure health care access, increase living-wage jobs and affordable housing, and improve public education.

The assembly also was used as a venue to collect ballots for the May 20 election, which included Measure 26-48 for an income tax in Multnomah County dedicated to fund schools, health care and corrections. Delegates collected 1,800 ballots and delivered them to election officials. [The measure was approved by a margin of 58 percent to 42 percent.]

“We call this action ‘balloting for the common good,’ a new step in non-partisan citizen power,” said Janis Elliot of First Unitarian Church, one of six co-chairs of MACG, which is comprised of labor, religious and community groups from the metro area.

Perhaps the most critical, immediate issue addressed in the assembly negotiations came out in discussions over saving the Oregon Health Plan. Currently, 150,000 Oregonians are due to lose coverage, including medications, on July 1.

“We are telling Oregonians to drop dead,” said Co-Chair Alan Levine of the Recovery Association Project. Adding 150,000 people to 440,000 Oregonians currently without health insurance brings the total of uninsured in this state to 590,000 —17 percent of the population. “This system is broken,” he said. “MACG will help, along with many others, to build a new system that works.”

Seven state legislators attending the assembly said they would support restoration of coverage for people now facing termination from the Oregon Health Plan. The seven were State Senators Avel Gordly and Lenn Hannon and State Representatives Alan Bates, Mitch Greenlick, Greg Macpherson, Lane Shetterly and Max Williams. Shetterly reported that Speaker of the House Karen Minnis also supports restoration.

Wally Mehrens, executive secretary-treasurer of the Columbia-Pacific Building Trades Council, announced passage of a Portland City Council ordinance (in collaboration with MACG) upholding, enforcing and tracking prevailing wage laws on construction projects that receive public money.

Don Kool, a business representative of Plumbers and Fitters Local 290, announced that the national AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust, with $3.2 billion in assets, has agreed to send representatives to Portland to meet with the Columbia-Pacific Build Trades Council, Mayor Vera Katz, the Portland Housing Authority and MACG representatives to see how it can help meet the affordable housing needs of Portland.

Additionally, MACG won commitments from Portland Business Alliance President Kim Kimbrough and developer Homer Williams to work with MACG to secure additional resources for affordable housing.

Portland City Commissioner Erik Sten and Mayor Katz (who did not attend but spoke through Sten) also vowed to hold the Portland Development Commission (PDC) accountable for developing 3,550 additional affordable housing units for families at 60 percent or below of the median family income between 2001-2011.

Katz and Sten will make PDC submit yearly reports to the City Council regarding progress towards these goals. Both will meet with MACG leaders by June 15 to form a blue-ribbon committee of community leaders to find new revenues for affordable housing for families at 50 percent or below median family income.

MACG won commitments from Superintendent Jim Scherzinger, chief academic officer Dr. Patricia Pickles and school board member Julia Brim-Edwards to form a partnership with Portland Schools Alliance parents to close the achievement gap and to support programs that increase Latino student achievement, including bilingual education and native language literacy,

Hannon, R-Ashland, and Shetterly, R-Dallas, and chair of the House Revenue Committee, said they will work to reduce the $25 billion in state tax credits and exemptions so Oregon schools have the money they need. The lawmakers said they will propose to the Legislature the formation of a task force — that includes MACG leaders — to find permanent solutions for Oregon’s school funding problems.

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