At long last, Vigor Industrial has resolved a union grievance over damage to employee vehicles from paint overspray at the shipyard it operates in Portland’s Swan Island Industrial District.
As previously reported in the Labor Press, close to 400 vehicles were damaged by specialty marine paint particles in incidents in April and October 2023. Both times, windy conditions combined with insufficient containment produced a situation where workers came out to the employee parking lot at the end of their shifts to find their cars covered in tiny specks of paint that bonded to the body, lights, and glass of their vehicles. The company was reluctant at first to take full responsibility, but the Portland Metal Trades Council insisted it make workers whole.
“It’s the first time that I know of, and I’ve been here 36 years, that they’ve ever paid on overspray grievance,” said IBEW Local 48 member Roger Haslet. Haslet said the paint in his case was very visible — white paint on a black truck. “It was like the surface of the moon.”
To settle the grievance, Vigor agreed this summer to reimburse employees up to $1,000 of their insurance deductible if they had remedied the problem on their own. And for those who still had paint specks, Vigor paid for remediation by Attention 2 Detail Mobile Auto Detailing. A family-owned Beaverton company, Attention 2 Detail is often called out to deal with overspray incidents.
Company owner Notto Jensen said removing the paint involves coating vehicles in a lubricant and then buffing off the specks with a kind of clay. It takes four to five work hours to do each vehicle.
“When we’re done, it’s like gloss,” Jensen said. “A lot of these guys have never seen their car this good.”
The company wrapped up the restorations Nov. 12.
