DCU members ratify Portland school pact — it expired Dec. 31

The school board will vote on whether or not to accept the contract at its regularly scheduled meeting Jan. 9.

Then the sides get to start all over again, because the contract’s expiration date is Dec. 31, 2005.

That’s right. The “letter of ratification” the union coalition sent to the school district also included an “open the contract” letter to secure bargaining dates in 2006.

“It sounds crazy, I know, but that’s how it worked out,” said Gene Blackburn, spokesman for the DCU, a group of 16 union locals that bargain jointly with the school district. Blackburn is a business representative of Teamsters Local 206.

The previous contract expired in June 30, 2004. The school employees had been working under that contract while bargaining dragged on.

Negotiating a DCU contract is complicated. First comes “main body” bargaining, under which all the unions are involved. Then locals break away for job-specific talks that represent employees — sometimes from different unions — in eight job classifications. For instance, the Teamsters represent warehouse workers and truck drivers under Appendix A of the contract. This appendix is bargained with its own set of wages, raises and language regarding working conditions. Bus operators bargain their own set of standards under Appendix F, as do maintenance and craft workers, classroom assistants, and so on under separate appendices.

The sides reached a tentative agreement on the main body of the contract relatively early in bargaining. The main body included a $764 cap on district-paid health insurance premiums. Any costs above that would be borne for the first time by employees.

Then, one by one, appendices were tentatively agreed to, until only two remained — those for the bus operators, represented by Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757, and maintenance and craft workers represented by a group of locals from the Columbia-Pacific Building Trades Council. At that point, the sides were far apart on health insurance co-payments and contracting out language.

Months of wrangling ensued. In October 2005, the school district declared an impasse in bargaining and filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the unions. Under state law, the sides had a 30-day “cooling off” period, after which management could implement its last offer and/or the unions could give notice to strike.

One round of mediated bargaining took place during the cooling off period. There were some slight improvements made, Blackburn said, but not enough to seal the deal.

On Dec. 12, 2005, the school district announced it was implementing its final offer of October — unless the represented employees voted by Dec. 20, whereby the school district would present the slightly improved contract negotiated in November.

Some union officials from the DCU were at odds as to whether or not to hold a vote, since a contract had already been implemented. In the end, they chose to present “the better offer,” and it narrowly passed.

Under terms of the ratified contract, each of the groups represented by the DCU will receive a one-time stipend or a wage increase in January, which will cost the school district about $375,000.

Health insurance co-payments will vary widely among employees, depending on what insurance plan they select, how many family members they cover, and which trust fund they are in. Co-payments reportedly can range from $5 to $193 a month.

Local 757, an outspoken critic of the co-payment plan, said the school district contract was the first in the last 14 they’ve negotiated that contains takeaways. “We are not happy about this at all,” said Jon Hunt, a business representative of the union.

© Oregon Labor Press Publishing Co. Inc.