A look back at the year 2014 in Oregon labor

By Don McIntosh, Associate Editor

Some years will live forever in glorious memory. But for organized labor in Oregon, 2014 was not one of them. Here is a look back over 12 months of labor stories we reported.

Organizing

There wasn’t much union organizing in Oregon in 2014, at least as reflected in workplace unionization elections. According to our count, just 678 workers in 23 workplaces joined unions: 476 workers in 12 private-sector workplaces, and 202 workers in 11 public-sector workplaces. That’s in a state with 1.7 million workers that added over 40,000 new jobs over the course of the year.

The two biggest union organizing gains were the 172 Portland airport food service workers who joined UNITE HERE under a nationally-negotiated card-check union neutrality agreement with contractor HMS Host, and the 45 workers at Douglas County public health department who joined AFSCME using Oregon’s card-check law. The biggest union election loss was Metro Metals Northwest, where a group of 69 workers voted not to join the Teamsters. On the bright side, only one union workplace voted to go nonunion — a three-employee lottery deli in Wilsonville.

Collective bargaining

Over the course of the year, most large contracts we reported on either treaded water or made concessions.

The year began with one of the biggest union contract concessions ever made, to one of the world’s most profitable companies: On Jan. 3, an eight-year contract extension was ratified that will eliminate the pension, increase out-of-pocket health insurance payments, and limit future wage growth for 32,000 Boeing Machinists in Washington, Oregon, and Kansas. The workers got a $10,000 ratification bonus, another $5,000 bonus in 2020, and additional dental benefits of $500 per person. The extension (to a contract that wasn’t due to expire until September 2016) came shortly after Washington lawmakers gave Boeing $8.7 billion in tax concessions, the largest corporate tax subsidy in the history of the United States. In the wake of the vote, Fox and Friends’ conservative TV host Steve Doocy called the contract a victory against organized labor, and Boeing stock reached a new all-time high on the New York Stock Exchange.

In the public sector, Oregon union workers agreed to contracts that mostly kept up with inflation. [Inflation has ranged from 1.5 to 2.0 percent the last few years.]

• 2,900 teachers at Portland Public Schools got annual raises of 2.3 percent, a promise to hire 150 teachers, and two days added to the school year, in a deal reached two days before a scheduled strike. Teachers are members of the Portland Association of Teachers/Oregon Education Association (OEA).

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  2,900 workers at Multnomah County will keep pace with inflation in a new three-year contract with AFSCME Local 88 that also contains a phased-in $15-an-hour wage floor for the least-paid workers.

• 2,000 members of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 at TriMet will have somewhat reduced health care benefits in a new contract that included 3 percent pay raises Dec. 1, 2014 and Dec. 1, 2015.
• 1,600 workers at the City of Portland got raises of 0.9 percent the first year, and matching inflation after that, in a new four-year union contract with seven-union member District Council of Trade Unions.
• 1,400 members of University of Oregon Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation (American Federation of Teachers Local 3544) won raises of 5 percent a year, plus a $150,000-a-year hardship fund (in response to a proposal for two weeks guaranteed paid sick/parental leave) after striking for eight days with no loss of wages.
• 950 full-time faculty at Portland State University got raises of 1.5, 2.5, and 2.5 percent, a new salary floor of $40,000, and modest improvements in job security, in a new contract with American Association of University Professors.
• 500 OEA teachers in Medford School District got annual raises of 1.9, 2.5 and 3 percent, after going on strike for 16 days.
• At Metro, a new three-year contract for 300 members of AFSCME Local 3580 increases the employee share of the health insurance premium to 8 from 6 percent, and gives a 2.8 percent raise, followed by annual raises matching inflation. Laborers Local 483 got the same terms in a Metro contract for 500 workers at the Oregon Zoo and regional parks, except it got 2.5 percent the first year, and it got some new rights for temporary workers.

Meanwhile, in the private sector:

• 600 workers at NW Natural got a rejiggered wage scale with one-time increases averaging 7.8 percent, plus at least 3 percent in the remaining four years — and a no-layoff guarantee — in a new five-and-a-half-year deal with Office and Professional Employees Local 11.
• 570 support workers at Legacy Emanuel got wage increases of 2.5 percent a year in a new three-year contract with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 49.
• 300 hospital support workers, members of SEIU Local 49, went on strike two days in October at for-profit McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center in Springfield, but were still without contract at year’s end — a year after their old contract expired.

Jobs

Unions fought to defend and expand work for members, but had some disappointments over the course of the year. On Jan. 8, the Port of Portland withdrew plans to develop a deep water marine terminal on West Hayden Island. In February — after the Washington Legislature failed to act on providing its share of the funding for an Interstate 5 replacement bridge — a proposal by Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber for an “Oregon-only” project failed to win majority support in the state Senate. And in August, the Oregon Department of State Lands denied a removal-fill permit for the proposed Coyote Island coal terminal at the Port of Morrow near Boardman in Eastern Oregon.

Repeated protests and civil disobedience at the U.S. Postal Service failed to stop closures: 82 more mail processing plants are scheduled to close nationally starting Jan. 5, three in Oregon.

On the plus side, construction employment continues to pick up, and in October, Vigor Industrial completed installation of North America’s largest floating dry dock on Swan Island, with the promise of hundreds of good union jobs repairing and maintaining large cruise and cargo ships.

And in February, Parkrose School District rejected plans by the district superintendent to outsource bus operations, after an energetic community campaign by Oregon School Employees Association.

Politics

No game-changing labor-related legislation passed in the Oregon Legislature’s month-long legislative session in February. But in May, Portland unions helped defeat a badly-written Water District ballot initiative drawn up by big polluters and water users. And in July, Eugene became the second Oregon city to pass a requirement that employers provide paid sick leave. 2014 was also the year organized labor dodged a bullet (or at least a very expensive defense campaign) when Gov. Kitzhaber persuaded backers to withdraw a “right-to-work” ballot measure that would have made union dues strictly optional for public sector workers — in exchange for labor dropping ballot measures that would have raised taxes on big corporations and the wealthy.

In the November general election, labor helped defeat a “top-two primary” measure placed on the ballot by millionaires and billionaires, and helped add Democrats in the state house and senate, a victory that holds great promise for pro-worker legislation in 2015.

Labor also got involved early on to re-elect Democrat Jeff Merkley as U.S. Senator from Oregon. Merkley, who proved to be a real voice for working people in the Senate, easily defeated his Republican challenger.

Community Service

There’s also a side to local labor that doesn’t get much fanfare though it goes on throughout the year: building a better community through voluntarism and charitable giving. In 2014, there were many examples locally. Members of Iron Workers Local 29 volunteered to build an indoor practice facility for Oregon City High School baseball programs. Bowlers from 13 unions raised $11,000 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Union letter carriers collected 1.3 million pounds of food in Oregon and Southwest Washington in National Association of Letter Carriers’ annual food drive. Some 279 motorcycle riders raised $75,000 for Doernbecher Children’s Hospital through the Unions for Kids motorcycle poker run and chili cook-off, and a second motorcycle poker run organized by local Machinists raised nearly $3,500 for Guide Dogs of America. Over 300 union volunteers led by Oregon School Employees Association prepared and handed out more than 40,000 children’s books to school districts and nonprofits in east Multnomah County. And 100 volunteers helped 300 children of unemployed parents pick three gifts each at the annual “Presents from Partners” holiday party put on by Labor’s Community Service Agency and the Northwest Oregon Labor Council.

Gone but not forgotten

The local labor movement lost a number of prominent figures in 2014, including AFSCME Local 3327 president Steven Fritz, husband of Portland Commissioner Amanda Fritz, killed in a car crash Sept. 24. The list also includes notable labor union retirees: former Oregon AFL-CIO political director Lloyd Knudsen; former Iron Workers Local 29 business manager Tom Worley; Albany barber and longtime United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 555 member Garner Pool; Carpenters business agent Jerry Krahn; UFCW Local 555 union rep Jim Zuffrea; IBEW Local 48 officer Phil Parker; Pacific Northwest labor historian Ed Beechert; Machinists union rep Jerry Greer; United Auto Workers activist Ralph Rigdon; and University of Oregon Labor Education and Research Center professor Jim Gallagher. We ask that you remember them and their dedication to the labor movement. In the words of union martyr Joe Hill: “Don’t mourn. Organize.” That same slogan — “Don’t Mourn. Organize.” — could be applied to the year that ended Dec. 31. If 2014 wasn’t all that we hoped, let’s not lick our wounds, but commit in 2015 to organize and fight together for a better life for working people.