By ANNA DEL SAVIO
At its Jan. 15 meeting, Portland’s new city council unanimously revoked approval to file an unfair labor practice (ULP) charge against the union representing 1,100 city workers.
In December, the city’s five-member city council had authorized the city attorney to file a ULP charge against American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 189 after the union organized “practice pickets” that the city said violated the collective bargaining agreement.
At the time, the city’s labor relations officials said they were still trying to resolve the issue through an internal process but wanted to have the option to escalate to a ULP. As of Jan. 15, city officials had not filed a ULP, so it wasn’t too late for the new city council to revoke approval.
The resolution to revoke ULP authorization was introduced by city councilors Eric Zimmerman and Mitch Green, two of the three council members representing District 4, which includes all of the city’s west side and a few southeast neighborhoods.
Green described the ULP authorization approved by the old city council as “unnecessarily antagonistic.”
Local 189 declared impasse with the city and entered a 30-day cooling off period in late December. At the time of the City Council vote on the ULP, a potential strike was looming.
“We have an opportunity to hit the reset switch on this relationship with AFSCME and turn down the temperature during this cooling off period,” Green said at the city council meeting.
All 12 members of the new city council voted in support of the resolution.
“While I don’t think it will change the overall economics of negotiations, I do think it can change how we go about those negotiations on both sides, and so that’s why I’ll support it,” Zimmerman said.
City Councilor Loretta Smith, who represents District 1 in East Portland, said she was voting yes in the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated in 1968 while in Memphis to support AFSCME sanitation workers who were on strike. Jan. 15 was King Jr.’s birthday.
Of the 12 city councilors who took office in January, Dan Ryan is the only one who served on the previous city council, and he was the sole vote against authorizing a ULP in December.
