Dear Local 88 Family,
Thanks to all your efforts over the last week, Multnomah County has agreed to provide pandemic pay to frontline workers! This offer does not come with “strings attached” or conditioned on a roll over of our current contracts but is a stand-alone offer.
This has been a long time in coming and is finally a sign of appreciation and respect for the sacrifices and the hard work of frontline workers.
Details of the Frontline Worker Pandemic Pay Tentative Agreement:
- Frontline employees will receive a one-time incentive payment of $1,500 prorated by FTE, however, employees less than 1.0 FTE that worked additional hours between March 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021, will have those hours included in the pro rata calculation. The formula for determining this calculation will be worked out between the parties in the coming days. This incentive payment is subject to all regular taxes and withholdings.
- Frontline workers are defined as those who worked for the County at least 320 hours onsite or in the field between March 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021, and were required during the COVID-19 pandemic to maintain continuity of operations of essential and critical county functions. Essentially the requirement is that you must have been working onsite or in the field for at least 320 hours.
- Employees hired after July 1, 2021, are not eligible.
- Employees must be employed as of the date of ratification (anticipated November 12) to be eligible for the bonus.
- Eligible employees include regular, limited duration, on-call, and temporary employees.
This Agreement is subject to ratification by the membership and the vote will occur next week and run through November 12.
Moving Forward:
While this bonus for frontline workers is very meaningful, we all know there is more work to be done. The health and safety of our work sites needs to be paramount, we need to support racial justice and greater equity in the workplace for our members, and fair wages and just working conditions should be considered a right not a privilege. As we move into 2022, I want to remind everyone that collective bargaining is a powerful tool in our mission to further social and economic justice but the outcomes from bargaining are always going to be works in progress. Our union foundation is strong because of the tireless work of those that came before us, and we will continue to be strong because of the activism and commitment of our members today.We encourage all members to increase their participation. An easy way to do that is to fill out your bargaining survey. General Unit members can fill out the bargaining survey below:
2022 General Unit Bargaining Survey
Local 88 Physicians will be meeting on November 30th at 5:30pm to begin their bargaining preparations. Please register by clicking here.
Local 88 Dentists will be meeting on a date TBD in early December to begin their bargaining preparations.
In Unity,
Percy Winters, Jr.
Local 88 President
