ILWU Local 5 reaches tentative deal with Powell's Books

Five months after their first union contract expired, union and management negotiators at Powell’s Books reached a tentative agreement on a new four-year deal. If approved by the members, the contract will cover 400-plus Portland and Beaverton bookstore employees, who belong to International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 5.

An emergency general membership meeting was already under way the evening of March 2 when the union bargaining team left a federal mediator’s office with a tentative agreement in hand. The two sides had been in mediation since January, meeting in separate rooms at a downtown Portland federal building.

The contract includes a signing bonus, annual raises of 2 percent, and some improvements in contract language covering discipline and workers’ right to have access to union representatives.

The most contentious issue was health care.

Earlier management proposals included doubling the premium workers pay for health care (currently $34 a month for single coverage), and adding a 10 percent co-pay for office visits. In the end, the company agreed to drop the co-pay requirement. The amount workers pay toward health care premiums will rise, but only to $42 a month for single coverage.

The new contract will run through Oct. 1, 2007.

Ballots were mailed out March 12, and are due two weeks later. Local 5 President Mary Winzig predicts approval.

Powell’s employees voted to unionize in 1999; it took them a year — and several short strikes — to get their first contract, a three-year deal that contained 6 percent annual raises. Campaigning for a decent second contract, workers conducted two one-day unfair labor practice strikes last November, and gathered with supporters Feb. 14 at their downtown flagship store to shower candy and songs on workers and Valentine’s Day cards on Powell’s chief executive officer Ann Smith.

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