Bargaining Update #12

Thank you to everyone around the County who celebrated International Workers Day with us! May Day is an important moment for us to honor the continued workers’ struggle. Later in the update you can read the speech Bargaining Team member Kristian Williams gave at our Union’s May Day celebration at the Multnomah Building. 

This week was both sides’ last opportunity to provide their initial proposals for bargaining. The County didn’t give any, but our Union gave the last 8 of ours. After this week’s session, we’ll only be trading counter-proposals. 

Union Proposals

New(ish) Article: Telework: 

• Made it its own Article for ease of reading & finding in the Contract
• Allow for temporary Out-of-State and International telework agreements 
• Hybrid and Routine Teleworkers to now get the same $40 internet stipend and $500 initial stipend for equipment
• Allow teleworkers to get Admin Leave when County facilities are closed and they can’t work from home; like if your power is out, you lose internet, etc. 
• Making the denial of a telework agreement subject to the grievance procedure

New Article: Childcare Services and Assistance

• Proposing a 100% County-funded Childcare Facility for its employees or; 
• Subsidizing child care for County employees up to $1600 a month. 

New Article: Joint Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

• Right now, the County does not include our Union or our input in promoting equity in the workplace in a substantive way. 
• This new Article aims to establish multiple things: 
  • A Joint DEI Committee between the County and our Union to ensure represented employees’ have a proper voice at the table
  • A minimum pay of $40/hr for employees who participate in equity or advisory committees
  • Mutually agreed upon shared definitions and standards around accountability, data collection, training, workforce diversity and equity principles.
  • Enshrine the need and value of DEI initiatives in the Contract rather than solely at the County’s discretion while the current federal administration tries to dismantle those efforts.

Article 26: General Provisions

• Requiring the County to pay for prescription safety goggles/glasses if they’re required for your job. 
• Not excluding personal vehicles from loss of personal property claims. 
• Increasing County reimbursement for bedbug infestation to $5000 and requiring notification to impacted employees when County is informed of an infestation. 

Article 29: Termination

• Changing this contract expiration date to April 30th rather than June 30th

Addendum A: Job Profiles & Pay Ranges

• Housekeeping, changing dates and updating the wage table to reflect our Compensation proposal.

Addendum B: Lead Worker Assignment and Pay

• We want all leads to get 12%, no more variable rates
• Allowing teams to request a Lead Worker if a majority of Lead duties are being assigned to non-lead roles. 
• When a team loses a Lead Worker and their duties are spread out on the rest of the team, if the changes are significant enough, our Union can demand to bargain over the changes. 

Addendum I: Office of the Sheriff

• Preventing more frequent shift bidding in the Department than the contract already states.
• Adding that no employee will be disciplined for not answering their phones during non-working hours or on their scheduled days off. 

Action Items & Events

1. Join over 600 of your coworkers to demand that we support our vital workforce which benefits the larger community. We’re in the final stretch before elevating this issue to our Commissioners. Sign the Petition! Stop the Layoffs.
2. We’re also starting our Fight for a Living Wage! By now, many of you have heard our initial compensation proposal, and it’s a big swing. In order to win a living wage, the County has to see our employees’ support and need for what’s fair. Share with us how a living or even thriving wage would change your life. Would you be able to comfortably afford rent? Build actual savings? What things in your life would finally be possible with a living wage? And If you’re someone already making a living wage, tell us what you’ve been able to do with it. 
3. During our April General Membership meeting, members voted to set aside $250,000 for a Strike Fund. We’re building a subcommittee to work on how it would be administered in the event of a strike and bring that proposal back to our membership. If you’d like to help, our first meeting will be virtual, May 12th from 6:30pm-7:30pm. Only Union members are allowed to participate. 

Did You Know? 

The Significance of May Day from Kristian Williams

In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions passed a resolution declaring May 1, 1886 as the date by which an eight-hour workday would take effect.  As that date approached, unions across the country began preparing for a general strike.

About 400,000 workers went on strike nationwide, almost a tenth of those in Chicago.  There, on May 3, the police fired into a crowd of strikers at the McCormick Harvester Machine Company. At least two workers died.

Anarchists organized a public meeting in Chicago’s Haymarket Square to protest the police violence. The rally was at first entirely peaceful. But when police moved in to break it up, someone threw a bomb into their lines. It killed seven cops and injured sixty.  The police then opened fire, indiscriminately. They killed at least four people and injured more than one hundred.

Nobody knows who threw the Haymarket bomb. But in the weeks following, anarchists, unionists, strikers, and even workers who just happened to be German or Bohemian immigrants were arrested. Many were tortured.

Eight anarchists were charged with murder, though it was clear that none of them had thrown the bomb. Most were not even at the rally that day, and those who were had stood on the speaker’s platform in plain view. They were singled out instead for their political views, the content of their speeches, and their published writings. Seven of the eight were sentenced to hang, and four were in fact murdered by the state. A fifth killed himself the night before his scheduled execution.

The survivors were later pardoned by Governor John Altgeld, who described them as victims of “hysteria, packed juries, and a biased judge.”

Since that time, May 1 has been celebrated around the world as International Workers Day. It has, for almost a century and a half, provided an occasion to mobilize for workers’ rights, for immigrant rights, and against police violence. It is also an opportunity to remind the labor movement of its radical origins, and to remind radicals of their deep roots in the struggle of the workers.  

May Day is a solemn day, a day of struggle; but it is also a joyous day, a day of hope.  On May Day we remember the sacrifices others have made so that we can enjoy rights that we largely now take for granted. And on May Day we renew our commitment to continue fighting for justice, for freedom and equality, to win a better world for those who come after us.

Email your Bargaining Team at bargaining@afscmelocal88.org with your questions.  Follow us on Instagram and Facebook and check out our AFSCME Local 88 website to stay up to date on all our Local’s news. 

We appreciate you reading, observing our bargaining sessions, and repping your green on Thursdays! Stay strong and stay united!