The newest union of City of Portland workers reached tentative agreement with the city May 22 on a first contract. The proposed contract comes as city leaders are finalizing the city’s budget, which is expected to include layoffs.
City of Portland Professional Workers (CPPW) unionized in June 2023 and had been in bargaining for well over a year before starting state mediation in March 2025. The unit consists of 800 coordinators, analysts, and other similar workers.
CPPW declared impasse in early May, paving the way for a strike as early as mid-June. In a strike authorization vote tallied May 21, with 88% of members participating, 92% voted yes. CPPW and the city reached the tentative agreement the next day after an 11-hour mediation session.
“We were fighting really hard to get this tentative agreement done before the city budget was finalized because we, our members, want a strong foundation to weather the chaos that everybody’s experiencing in the City of Portland right now, with all the transitions and the budget uncertainty and potential layoffs,” CPPW President Kari Koch told the Labor Press.
The charter reforms approved by voters in 2022 resulted in a new city council and mayor system, but changes to city bureaus and systems are still ongoing.
The proposed contract gives CPPW-represented workers a 2% raise as of July 1.
Koch said the way CPPW-represented positions are currently classified is a mess, with around half of the unit classified as “coordinator” despite having vastly different roles. The city is currently completing a reclassification study that will be used when the two sides meet again in 2026 to negotiate raises through the remainder of the contract, which ends Dec. 31, 2027.
Workers will also get an annual cost of living increase, which will be 2.4% for 2025.
Under the tentatively agreed contract, workers whose positions are cut can use their seniority to transfer to similar positions in the same service area, which includes multiple bureaus. The city wanted to only give those protections within individual bureaus, but in small bureaus, there may not be positions for a worker to transfer to, Koch said.
In a 15-hour budget meeting on May 21, city council made significant amendments to the budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1, 2025. More amendments are still under consideration. In early May, CPPW was informed that 18 members were facing layoffs, Koch said. It isn’t yet clear how the budget amendments will impact that number.
CPPW members will vote on the tentative agreement June 4 to 9.
Because of CPPW’s voting schedule and Portland City Council’s packed meeting agendas, city council won’t vote to finalize CPPW’s contract until after workers have received layoff notices. But the city agreed that the layoff processes spelled out in the tentative agreement will apply to workers who lose their jobs in the current round of layoffs, city spokeswoman Alison Perkins said.
