Staff at the Portland homeless service nonprofit Do Good Multnomah are campaigning to join Oregon AFSCME.
About 75% of Do Good Multnomah’s 270 workers have signed union authorization cards, said union supporter Davis Nafshun, a case manager at a shelter in Portland’s Old Town. On Aug. 7, workers asked the nonprofit’s managers to voluntarily recognize their union.
“We’re confident that we can win if it comes to an election,” Nafshun said.
Nafshun says workers are seeking higher wages, more robust staffing, and mental health support.
“It’s extremely rewarding,” he said. “The problem is that it’s a very emotionally intensive field. It just emotionally drains people.”
Do Good Multnomah contracts with Multnomah County to operate homeless shelters, subsidized housing, and mental health counseling. The nonprofit runs the county’s largest motel shelter, the 110-room Rodeway Inn in Northeast Portland. And its flagship shelter in the former Greyhound station in Old Town has a capacity of 90 beds.
Nafshun said the starting wage for a case manager or shelter staffer is $25.51 an hour. Workers accrue seven hours of paid time off every two weeks, but the employer contributes nothing to retirement. The downtown shelter, which isn’t air-conditioned, is also the subject of an OSHA complaint about extreme heat.
Oregon AFSCME already represents similar workers at Transition Projects, Central City Concern, Home Forward, and Lines for Life, which operates the 988 behavioral health crisis phone line.
