Bargaining Update – Actualización de Negociación 8/3/2022

Good afternoon AFSCME local 88 members. My name is Eben Pullman. I am the lead negotiator for our union bargaining team and we’re providing this general unit bargaining update on August 3rd of 2022, after we just completed a bargaining session with Multnomah County last week and we’ll be bargaining again with them tomorrow on August 4th.

This bargaining update will also be done in Spanish by Manuel Arellano, who is a member of our bargaining team. So let’s get to it!

Our current wage proposal accounts for the inflation measured by the CPI that occurred between January 20–uh–January of 2021 compared to January of 2022 based off a long-standing practice with the county.

This calls for a 7.9 percent increase across the board retro to July 1st of 2022.

In 2023 and 2024 we proposed that the county provide a COLA based on CPI up to eight percent but a minimum of two percent.

Last week the county made a proposal to us regarding wage increases that we want to share with you.

In the first year of the contract they proposed a five percent COLA and a two percent bonus with a minimum of a thousand dollars per employee that’s prorated based off of your FTE.

It’s important to note and remember that this bonus only applies to the first year of the contract and does not get rolled into your wages in future years.

In the second year of the contract they proposed a 5 percent COLA on July 1st of 2023.

And in the last year of the contract they proposed a COLA of CPI but with a maximum of four percent and a minimum of one percent.

To show you a little bit about what the impact is of this wage proposal uh compared to the union’s position we’re offering this example of a Local 88 member making the median annual salary of sixty thousand dollars–sixty thousand two hundred thirty eight dollars per year.

In the first year the difference between the union’s proposal and the county’s proposal is that under the county’s proposal you’d be making 542 dollars annually less.

In the second year because that bonus does not get rolled into wages and because the county’s COLA is capped at five percent that difference uh changes to one thousand eight hundred and thirty three dollars up to a maximum of three thousand seven hundred and eighty three dollars less than the union’s proposal.

Finally, in the last year of the contract that expands to a difference between four thousand five hundred and twenty two dollars as compared to six thousand seven hundred forty two dollars.

In other developments, we reach a tentative agreement regarding salary placement practices on promotions and reclassifications for employees receiving KSA premiums and salary placement after demotion.

We also reached an agreement on retroactive increases for reclassifications as well as service credits for employees that retire that are three-quarters time employees–service credits for their retiree health insurance premiums.

In other developments, Multnomah County also dropped a major takeaway and attempted to… that attempted to force employees onto 60-minute meal periods.

The current contract allows employees to insist on a 30-minute meal period and we heard very loudly and clearly from our members that they wanted to maintain that right to take a 30-minute meal period so that they have more time for their families and their personal business on either end of the workday.

Some major proposals that the county rejected but that we’re going to continue to pursue: recognition of Indigenous People’s Day–the county rejected that proposal last week as well as our proposal to make more equitable paid practices related to bilingual pay.

Additionally they rejected our contractual our proposal to provide a contractual protection um allowing employees to reject work if it placed them in imminent danger.

And they rejected our proposal um against uh related to protecting your paycheck from forced deductions in the event of an overpayment.

Finally, the county is still seeking greater rights to assign mandatory overtime.

A few other major issues that we still have to resolve and that we’ll continue to work on…

The county is proposing that Kaiser members pick up a larger share of their medical premium. We’ve rejected this proposal.

Additionally, compensation and conditions for employees directed to work during natural disasters and community emergencies. We’re spending a fair amount of time discussing over all the conditions related to when and how the county can direct people to work during these types of events and what their compensation and rights are in the event that there’s a natural disaster or community emergency.