Politicians call on Parry Center management to end strike

A strike at Portland’s Parry Center for Children reached the two-week mark Dec. 13 without any sign of a management change in heart, despite pressure from local and state government officials.

Parry Center, a 24-hour psychiatric residential treatment facility for children, has remained open during the strike, using managers and replacement workers from other facilities owned by the non-profit Trillium Family Services. Trillium spokesperson Chris Bouneff said management also reduced the number of children at Parry Center from its high of 36 to about 20, in anticipation of the strike.

The strike began Nov. 29 by about 85 workers who are members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 503, Oregon Public Employees Union. The primary issue is pay: At Parry Center, jobs working with children, which require a college degree or equivalent, start at $8.86 an hour and top out at $9.28. Workers want a raise, while management wants a three-year continuation of a wage freeze that has been in effect since June 2003. Bouneff said frozen funding from the state is to blame for the wage freeze, and adds that management’s offer includes fully-paid health care and a one-time raise of $0.38 an hour to bring Parry Center treatment specialists up to the pay at Trillium’s non-union units.

Parry Center’s child and adolescent treatment specialists say such low pay makes it hard to make ends meet AND repay college loans. It also makes it hard for them to stay at Parry Center. They say the resultant high turnover harms the children, who benefit from relationships with experienced caregivers and with caregivers who know them individually.

Trillium says its turnover is 16 percent — lower than the “industry average” of 46 percent reported by the Child Welfare League of America.

“That’s complete hogwash,” says Leslie Frane, Local 503 executive director. “We tracked it [for seniority purposes], and found that 64 percent of Parry Center workers had been there less than 18 months.”

On Dec. 8, the Portland City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling on Parry Center managers to agree to binding arbitration. A similar call was made by all five Multnomah County commissioners in a letter to both sides prior to the strike. In binding arbitration, a neutral third party would review testimony and evidence from both parties and decide the terms of the contract. The union has agreed but management has refused.

Multnomah County commissioners signed a second letter Dec. 6 that cites Parry Center management for violating a 2001 county resolution. The resolution calls on entities that get county money to support workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively. In the letter, commissioners charge that Parry Center has not remained neutral on its employees’ right to unionize, and that it has refused to bargain in good faith.

Trillium raises some revenue from charitable contributions, but it’s public money that pays 90 percent of the bills. And it galls union leaders the idea of tax money being used to bust a union.

“We don’t think the state has any business underwriting unionbusting,” Frane said.

SEIU leaders and AFL-CIO President Tim Nesbitt have asked Governor Ted Kulongoski not to extend Parry Center’s state contract, which expires Dec. 31, unless a settlement is reached. SEIU says that contract accounts for more than a third of Parry Center’s revenue. Except for the state hospital in Salem, Oregon has no other “locked” child residential units besides Parry Center. Parry Center has a locked “secure” unit and an unlocked unit.

The governor appointed a Willamette University law professor as a neutral fact-finder to determine if the childrens’ welfare is being served at Parry Center.

Seeking a resolution to the dispute, Oregon Department of Human Services Gary Weeks scheduled a meeting Dec. 15 with the SEIU’s Frane and Trillium CEO Kim Scott.

Union leaders have also prevailed upon State Treasurer Randall Edwards, who sits on the Parry Center board of directors, to weigh in with management and his fellow board members about their negotiating stance.

Elected officials might have remained neutral were this a purely economic dispute. But union leaders can point to management tactics that make it look like Parry Center is trying to bust its union:

• Demanding open shop: Parry Center is demanding that the unit become an open shop, where union dues would be voluntary. That’s intended to weaken the union, strikers say.

• Hiring strikebreakers: In the weeks before the strike, Parry Center tripled its pool of about 15 on-call workers with a wave of new hires, SEIU says. And at least some of those new hires were discouraged from joining the union.

• Threatening permanent replacement: The union has received no official notification, but Parry Center attorney Richard Alli Jr. of Bullard Korshoj Smith & Jernstedt told federal mediator Connie Weimer the day the strike began that if the union didn’t immediately call off the strike, management would make all replacements permanent. And Parry Center managers have reportedly notified the federal government that it has hired 16 workers to permanently replace striking workers. Bouneff told the Labor Press Parry Center has thus far made four permanent hires of treatment specialists and is advertising for replacement workers for kitchen staff and maintenance.

As U.S. labor law has been interpreted, employers may “permanently replace” workers in “economic” strikes, but not in “unfair labor practice” strikes motivated by an employers violation of labor laws. SEIU filed several “unfair labor practice” charges prior to the Nov. 29 walkout, and argues that the strike is an unfair labor practice strike. The determination will be made by the National Labor Relations Board.

SEIU organizer Mischa Novick says SEIU made house visits and phone calls to the new hires to explain the labor dispute, and most have honored the strike.

Emily Sparks, a recent hire, says management discouraged her from joining the union when she was hired. Sparks suspects she was hired as a strikebreaker, but says she decided to support the union because management hasn’t been honest with employees about the wage freeze; workers wages have been frozen, but top managers got raises when they moved into renamed positions.

“[Management] are all driving really nice cars and wearing really nice clothes,” Sparks said.

Though Sparks has been an employee less than six months, she said she’s striking for her co-workers, who make $9.28 an hour even after six years.

Strikers continue to maintain a picket line vigil from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the 3415 SE Powell Parry Center campus, and picketers are collecting strike benefits from the union. Local 503 is asking supporters to visit the picket line and bring canned food. And it’s calling on other unions to sponsor a striker by paying a striker’s COBRA health care payments. A handful of local unions have stepped forward to sponsor strikers, including American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 88; American Federation of Teachers-Oregon; Communication Workers of America Local 7901; International Association of Fire Fighters; International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 8; Portland Association of Teachers; SEIU Local 49; and the Teamsters Joint Council.

Novick says picketers spirits have been buoyed by the support of political leaders and by the frequent appearance of Local 503’s top leadership on the picket line. Local 503, with 40,000 members, is the state’s second largest union after the Oregon Education Association.

Also cheering strikers is support of the community, including several rallies called by the workers rights group Portland Jobs With Justice.

An evening drive time Dec. 10 rally doubled as a celebration of International Human Rights Day. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, ratified in 1948, includes the right of workers to unionize as a fundamental right on par with freedom of speech and religion. But the right to unionize is undermined, workers’ rights supporters say, when employers like Parry Center threaten to permanently replace strikers. Permanent replacement makes the right to strike meaningless.

A third support rally was scheduled for Friday, Dec. 17 at noon in downtown Portland’s South Park Blocks.

Plus, union supporters will picket Saturday, Dec. 18 at noon at Trillium’s Children’s Farm Home in Corvallis, 4455 NE Highway 20.

Striker Darcy Cole, a recent hire, said picketers have gotten nothing but support from parents going in and out of the campus, some of whom wave or stop to talk with strikers.

Cole, who has a bachelor’s degree in sociology, earns less than $9 an hour at Parry Center. It’s hard work, Cole said. “We get punched and kicked and spit in the face.”

Despite such difficulties, Cole said, making a difference in these children’s lives is rewarding work, and she wants to go back to work.

“I miss the kids.”

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