Following the recommendation of a joint work group, the Metro regional government is preparing to hand management of Portland’5 Centers for the Arts back to the City of Portland, which owns them. In August, unions representing Portland’5 employees learned the City is looking to contract out nearly 450 union jobs.
Portland’5 refers to five city-owned entertainment venues: Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Keller Auditorium, and the Brunish, Newmark, and Winningstad Theatres that share the building across the street from the Schnitzer.Workers there are public employees. Most are union members: 275 stagehands in IATSE Local 28, 120 ticket-takers and ushers in IATSE Local B-20, 14 stationary engineers and 27 custodians in Operating Engineers Local 701, 12 security officers in ILWU Local 28, and 7 marketing and administrative workers represented by AFSCME.
Metro has managed the facilities under an inter-governmental agreement since 1989, but effective June 30, 2027, it’s handing management back to the City. That comes after a joint work group met last year and concluded that declining revenues at the venues is sapping their ability to fund capital improvements and leading to a backlog of deferred maintenance.
Now it seems the City doesn’t want to manage Portland’5 either. In early August it notified the Portland’5 unions that it wants to hire a contractor to manage the facilities and wants a deal signed by the end of December. But the city administrator’s office is saying the contractor won’t be required to hire existing employees or recognize their unions.
The news prompted immediate alarm.
“They have to negotiate with us over the terms of contracting out,” said Local 28 business representative Rose Etta Venetucci. “They’re saying they can do whatever they want.”
City attorneys told IATSE’s attorney Elizabeth Joffe that the City doesn’t have to bargain with the two IATSE locals because it doesn’t currently employ IATSE members and doesn’t have a contract with the union. But the intergovernmental agreement says that when that agreement is terminated Portland’5 employees become employees of the City.
On Aug. 20, the two locals filed a legal complaint with the Oregon Employment Relations Board (ERB) saying the City is unlawfully refusing to bargain over its plan to contract out. Joffe is asking ERB to move quickly before it’s too late to undo the City’s plans. The other Portland’5 unions were expected to join with similar complaints.
This is tragic, an outrage and should be fought in public and in the courts. The proposed contracting out and rank hubris of the process and the City Attorney are a disgrace to Portland, and to Oregon. So is the silence of elected officials.
This is a step that will be followed by others. This step always is followed by more steps. Because it isn’t a step. This isn’t an act. It is a philosophy. It is system. And it is code that says as long as I keep mine today I all good.
Let me remind that City Attorney: you have the salary you have, your good public pension, the vacation benefits, holiday time off, family leave, legal protections and health insurance because low paid people like ticket sellers fought, held picket lines, were brutally injured, lived out their lives with disabilities – and in the cases of more than 700 Americans – died so you could have the above. Look around: every day Americans are standing up for what is right. Resignations are happening. So maybe you rethink. Maybe you stand-up. Maybe next time you have enough respect to read all the paperwork. And maybe you learn to say thank you.
Next: Where is the review of these kind of contracting out schemes? This is a rich data set. There is no review because these schemes always cost more in the long run. Where is the benefit:cost analysis, where is the impact analysis? There is none. Disgraceful.
Where is the analysis for hollowing out the job market in this community? What happens to crime? What happens to shoplifting? What happens to emergency rooms? What happens to families? How many kids don’t go to the dentist? The short-run dollar saving are easy. Lets calculate the costs.
What are the net savings? How much? Who wins?
To be clear this is a proposal to trade 450 living wage jobs with health insurance and workplace protection for 450 jobs that will not pay a living wage, that will have zero or near-zero insurance in year one and none by year five.
The winners: every city employee who is not being asked to share the pain and therefore not given the opportunity to join the fight, the city budgets that don’t have to trim the fun lines such as air travel, per diem, training, conferences, and office equipment; elected folks who are apparently wanting this to fly under the radar, and ticket buyers (via lower facility costs). If you spread the “savings” of killing these living wage jobs over all ticket sales from last year what is the increase per ticket? Lets ask those people of they’d prefer to pay the extra ticket cost or trade family jobs for minimum wage jobs.
Where is the new city administrator? What his view? Tell me he is has taken a stand. Tell me isn‘t hiding and hoping this slips through the cracks.
True story: I met a 40 year old medical doctor last week. Nice lady. Works for Kaiser. Good gig: 25 hours per week, $450,000 per year, and full benefits, six weeks of vacation. Like I say, good gig.