Portland School District continues to rankle unions

Steve Goldschmidt, chief of Human Resources at Portland Public Schools (PPS), was regarded by workers as a union-buster who twice pushed teachers to the brink of strike, and led the outsourcing of 300 custodians’ jobs.

So when PPS newly-hired superintendent Vicki Phillips fired him in February 2005, union leaders celebrated — and hoped his departure would signify a new era of goodwill towards the district’s unions.

A year later, they’re not sure much has changed.

Goldschmidt lieutenant Gregg Newstrand continued on as labor relations manager. And the district continued its “take-it-or-leave-it” negotiating posture, union leaders say.

At the school district, a two-year union contract can take one year to negotiate. And union workers routinely work without a contract: The old agreements expire without a new one in place, freezing wages, benefits and working conditions.

“The district’s uncertain financial picture makes settlement of monetary issues tough,” said PPS spokesperson Bob Lawrence.

Union leaders understand it’s a tight-budget era for local government, but haven’t felt they could trust PPS to treat them fairly.

To represent school district management in negotiations with these workers, PPS pays an outside attorney $190 an hour. The attorney is Richard Liebman of the Barran Liebman law firm; PPS in-house attorney Jollee Faber Patterson says the district is getting a special deal — that’s half Liebman’s normal rate.

Cafeteria workers, the lowest-paid workers in the district, say they don’t work for the wages; they work for the benefits — full-year, full-family health coverage for 171 six-hour days of work. For these workers, health coverage costs work out to $8.84 per hour. [Part-timers get less-expensive employee-only health coverage.]

The district now proposes to eliminate health benefits for new-hires who work less than full-time. [About two-fifths of the unit are part-timers.] And for the remainder, the district wants to cap its health insurance contribution at $779 a month, with employees paying any increase over that amount. They currently pay from $0 to $107 a month, depending on the plan.

“They’re not willing to move in any direction for us,” said lead cafeteria worker Deanna Gathman, who serves on the union’s bargaining team.

The two sides also disagree on wages, contract length and contracting out. Cafeteria workers want a three-year contract with 3 percent annual raises; the school district wants four years of 2.65 percent annual raises. Faced with the threat to job security from private companies like Sodexho and Aramark that run many school district cafeterias, workers want the chance to “bid” if PPS moves to contract out cafeteria services altogether. Management has refused that union proposal.

Cafeteria workers used to belong to the same SEIU local as the district’s 300-plus custodians (School Employees Local 140), but in 2002 the district terminated the custodians and hired an outside janitorial company to do the work. Local 140 was dissolved and the remaining cafeteria workers were merged into Local 503.

However, Local 140 challenged the school district’s action in court, arguing that it violated a state law that requires school custodians to be civil service employees. The law applies only to Portland. The case went to the Oregon Supreme Court, which ruled against PPS management in October 2005. PPS attorneys asked the court to reconsider. Local 140 lawyers think the court will “reconsider” by mid-year, and will uphold its decision. That could mean reinstatement and back pay for the terminated custodians, the union says, though the district would likely fight that.

For the cafeteria workers, as negotiations dragged on, they began taking their cause directly to the elected school board, attending board meetings and seeking to meet with board members. Only one board member, Dan Ryan, has met with cafeteria workers so far.

“These workers are treated as second-class citizens by the district,” says SEIU staffperson Shannon Strumpfer, who was assigned to help the cafeteria workers negotiate with management.

Newstrand, the PPS labor relations manager, resigned in January, but with attorney Liebman still in charge of bargaining, union leaders aren’t hopeful that the district’s approach will change.

PFTCE President Kathy Hornstein said when her union didn’t accept the school district’s offer, Liebman’s demeanor changed. “He took our counter offer, and shoved it back across the table without even reading it. He said ‘We told you what we were giving you and that’s it, take it or leave it.’ ”

Union leaders acknowledge that times are tough at PPS, but they feel disrespected, and they’re mistrustful of the district’s numbers.

“They’re tripping over dimes and nickels as they lose dollars,” said the DCU’s Blackburn.

Some, like Hornstein, think top administrators get secret raises.

Lawrence disputes that, and says the district has been in a belt-tightening mode since voters passed Ballot Measure 5, a property tax limitation, in 1990. Lawrence said just 4 percent of the PPS budget is spent on central administration, and the district has made all the cuts it can make without hurting classroom education.

After Measure 5, school districts got most of their funding from a state school fund — all property taxes in the state are put in a pool, which the Legislature divvies up. PPS backers say the Legislature’s formula disadvantages Portland, which has a higher cost of living, more special education students, and older buildings that cost more to heat and maintain. In recent years, local voters approved local property and income taxes to prevent cuts in the district. But the expiration of the local option property tax last year resulted in a $26 million budget cut. PPS’ budget went from $391.6 million for the 2004-05 school year to $365.7 million for the 2005-06 school year. The district reacted to the loss with a variety of cuts — including 250 teaching positions, 150 clerical and teacher assistant positions and a new approach to school lunches.

To save money, PPS no longer prepares food from scratch. Instead nutrition service workers repackage, heat and serve canned and frozen food, and the district contracted with a private company to make and deliver salads and sandwiches. The change cost 32 union jobs, and it meant the loss of some of the district’s best-loved foods, including cinnamon rolls and wiener wraps.

This year Multnomah County’s temporary income tax is due to expire, with the result that the district’s budget for the next school year is projected to fall $36 million, to $329 million, barring some further rescue from local taxpayers. As of press time, Portland Mayor Tom Potter was mulling whether to campaign for a new school-supporting tax on the May ballot.