oregon afscme retirees local 88 michael arken for info: 1 ... · 503-239-9858 • 1-800-792-0045...

By Jason Heilbrun Delegate DCA

For the last year and half, I havebeen on Local 88’s ExecutiveBoard, and recently went throughstewards training. I’ve been very muchfocused on the business of our local,and frankly “The Council,” was forme a nebulous body represented by anabstract org chart of names that meantnothing to me. In the course of thisconvention, that all changed for me. Igot to meet, spend time, and havemeaningful conversations with peoplefrom all over the state. I got to witnesswhat this organization is all about andhow Local 88 fits in the broader con-text of our union. This was my firstCouncil 75 Convention, and I sin-cerely hope that it is not my last. There were a number of great ad-

dresses by prominent political and la-bor leaders, but what I wanted to shareis some of the personal interactionsthat I had, not because I’m trying todrop names, but to convey how engag-ing and accessible, not only they were,but how welcoming everyone was. Ofcourse there was spirited debate that attimes got emotional, but I always hadthe feeling that we we’re “all in this to-gether.” I had dozens of truly interest-ing conversations with people from allover Oregon. These were just a few.Newly elected Council President

Jeff Klatke, from Home Forward (for-merly Housing Authority of Portland).Jeff had personal conversations witheveryone from our delegation. Jeff lis-tened and asked questions of Beth Pec-cia, Deirdre Mahoney-Clark, and my-self. It was obvious that he took ourfeedback to heart, and I feel really con-fident in the direction we’re going as aunion. Newly elected Treasurer Marc

Abrams, of Oregon Justice Attorneys.I actually had a number of conversa-tions with Marc, but the chat thatmade the biggest impression on mewas the one between two proud dads,reflecting on our kids. Marc’s son isnearing the end of his college educa-tion. My daughter is beginning theprocess of choosing her college path. Mark Gipson, president of our sib-

ling Local 189 City of Portland, andnewly elected Executive CommitteeVice President (Congressional District3). Mark has been there for Local 88and you’ll meet few as passionate asMark. Richard Swyers, City of Salem.Richard came by on the last day of theconvention and had encouraging

words for our delegation. On my wayout of the Convention Center, I wason the receiving end of a fist bumpand hug. Chatting with Tari Hayes,vice president from the City of Albany,and a new Executive Board member,who I went through steward trainingwith. I look forward to Percy Winters

from the Health Department layingdown some wisdom at a future generalmembership meeting. Spending timewith John Talbott, from one of oursub-locals (Central City Concern), re-inforced for me what a great guy I al-ready knew John was. I’m so excitedfor our own Next Wavers KristinWray and Korie Erickson, who willbe representing us on the Council Ex-ecutive Board.Michael Hanna and Jeanne Ram-

sten, who somehow never seemed toget irritated with of my hours of ques-tions as we carpooled from Portland toBend and back. I feel very grateful tobe able to have spent so much timewith them and learned so much fromtheir experiences. I’m sure at times Imust have felt like an irritatingyounger brother following Michaelaround everywhere.I can neither confirm nor deny the

existence of video documentation ofan alleged karaoke performance ofSummer Lovin’ starring Faith Faddisfrom Local 3295, outgoing CouncilPresident Gary Gillespie, MichaelHanna, our own Staff Rep BryanLally, and myself. (Spoiler: Faith wasawesome, the rest of us somewhat lessso.) I feel so fortunate to have had such

an opportunity so early in my unionengagement, and I have a whole newappreciation of how Local 88 fits intothe bigger picture and the role that weplay in the Council. I will carry thisexperience with me as I continue onin my growth.

By John TalbottDelegate, Central City Concern

Being the representative for CentralCity Concern, a sub-local of Lo-cal 88 Multnomah County, I oftenhave to find ways to get my Sisters andBrothers motivated to take part in ourunion. The issues a county workermay have are often different than ours.We don’t have PERS, or current con-cerns with layoffs or even GarrityRights, but we are all in the union asone. Being at the conference gave me anew focus to take home to members

confirming our validity in the unionstructure. The workshop “Council 75Vision- A Road Map Ahead” showedme the role we all play in supportingeach other and what we can do to re-connect with the public we all serve.Having worked on a resolution for thecreation of a new Veterans Informa-tion and Assistance Committee withinour council, I networked with fellowveteran members representing folksfrom the Oregon Coast to JosephineCounty. I learned that while we mayhave different focused needs for ourmembers, we can’t get what we needfor them without working together insolidarity.

By Deirdre Mahoney-Clark Delegate, DCA

As your Local 88 Vice President, Iattended the AFSCME OregonCouncil 75 convention in Bend on theweekend of April 20 as a voting dele-gate.Delegates carry the voice and votes

of their local to the convention andhave the responsibility to vote onCouncil Officer candidates, proposedchanges to the Council Constitutionand any resolutions presented to theconvention body.Before voting can begin, a Creden-

tials Committee verifies the number ofvotes each local and delegate is author-ized to carry. As one of 10 Local 88members who were delegates to the2013 convention, I carried 302 of the3,020 Local 88 votes.After nominations are conducted in

accordance with Council Constitutionpolicies, a vote is taken at a time cer-tain point in the convention process.Each local is called up and asked ifthey will vote “Block” with all votescarried by one delegate or “NotBlock,” meaning each delegate willvote independently. Then the votingdelegates are checked in and given aballot with the number of their cre-dentialed votes shown. The delegatesthen vote the ballot as their member-ship has determined. It is important to note that Local

88 did not vote “Block,” and our del-egates were not required to vote thesame candidates. This is a direct rela-tionship between delegates and thegeneral membership meetings wherecandidates campaigned and were dis-cussed, and no candidate was unani-mously selected by our membership. Local 88 delegates voted democrat-

ically using the information presented

in the members’ meetings and throughconversations with each other and as agroup. The business of the Council takes

time, focus and debate of the attend-

ing delegates, and it is not easy work. Itwas a privilege to serve as a delegateand I am proud of the L88 memberswho carried their responsibility fullycommitted to the democratic process.

NOTICE OF VACANCY Election for Local 88 Secretary

AFSCMELOCAL 88

www.afscmelocal88.org503-239-9858 • 1-800-792-0045

6025 E Burnside, Portland, OR 97215

PAGE 6 NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS MAY 3, 2013

General Membershipmeets 7p.m. Wednesday, May 15, pre-ceded by a 6 p.m. stewards’ meet-ing.

Executive Boardmeets 6 p.m.Wednesday, June 5

Oregon AFSCME Retireesmeet10 a.m. Tuesday, May 21. CallMichael Arken for info: 1-800-521-5954, x226.

Meetings take place at the AFSCMEoffice, 6025 E. Burnside, Portland.

AFSCME Local 88 Calendar

My name is Korie Erickson andI have been a part of Local 88

for almost 5 years. I have been anactive member in Next Wave andour local for the past 2 years. It’simportant to have younger mem-bers involved. We are the future ofour union. Being a part of NextWave has taught me that youngermembers do have a voice and dohave a valid opinion that should beheard, and I’m learning valuableleadership skills that will help fur-ther our union and also I have de-cided that I want to get more in-volved than just being a Steward

and being on the Executive Boardfor our Local. That is why I havedecided to run for our local Secre-tary position. I want younger mem-bers of our union to see that we canmake a difference, that our voicesare being heard, and most of all, be-ing accepted by our senior memberswho have been involved in Local 88for many years. We are the future ofa growing stronger union, and I’mexcited to be a part of that future.Even if I do not get elected, I willcontinue to be active, seeking to getyounger members involved.

In the fall of 2012, I was honoredand thrilled to be involved withthe successful library district cam-paign as the volunteer coordinator.This was a very fulfilling project forme, because it got me more involvedwith my union and with the politi-cal process in a way I had never donebefore. I was honored to testify twiceto the AFSCME Council 75 Politi-cal Committee, in hopes that theywould financially support the dis-trict campaign. I carried a tremen-dous workload for six weeks, split-ting my time between the campaignand my job doing outreach in Li-brary Early Childhood Services. Butit was rewarding to work with somany fantastic union volunteers andstaff. As a 20+ year employee for the

county I've worked a wide variety ofjobs from paging to reference andeven as temporary supervisor at theGregory Heights and Sellwoodbranches. Currently through our of-fice I am part of a team of three whodeliver library books to more than500 childcares, Head Start and pre-school classrooms and home child-cares throughout MultnomahCounty. I promise to bring to theexecutive board that same level ofenergy and enthusiasm. I believe mywork on the district campaignproved that I can "hit the groundrunning," and take on the secretarywork where Susan Palmer left off. Iam looking forward to bringing myleadership and teamwork skills toour Local.

2013 Oregon AFSCME Convention: Delegate Reports

Statement by Candidate:

Korie Erickson

Statement by Candidate:

Nicole Newsom

There is a vacancy in the unex-pired term of the Local 88 Secre-tary position--this is an officer-levelposition. An election shall be con-ducted to fill the Secretary positionfor the remainder of the term(through November 2013). ARUN-OFF election for the vacant

Secretary position will take place atthe May 15 General Membershipmeeting at approximately 7:30p.m. The candidates are Korie Er-ickson (DCHS) and Nicole New-som (Library), and their brief can-didate statements are below.

Vol. 114, No. 9 Portland, Oregon May 3, 2013

Official Publication of AFSCME Local 88

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Volume 114Number 9May 3, 2013Portland, Oregon

See Page 6InsideInside MeetingMeeting

NoticesNotices

By DON McINTOSHAssociate Editor

They’re “good will ambassadors”for the City of Portland. Wearing a uni-form and a badge and working in pairs,they keep parks safe and clean, andserve as the front line of outreach to thehomeless. Yet most of the City’s parkrangers make $11 an hour, have no ben-efits, and get laid off after nine months.Could they please have a union now?That was the message a group of parkrangers presented in a March 29 meet-ing with Mayor Charlie Hales. “It was nice for him to take the time

to meet with us,” says ranger SamSachs. “Unfortunately, they didn’t agreeto recognize the union.”Every one of the City’s 15 rangers

signed a card saying they want to joinLaborers Local 483, says Local 483 or-ganizer Erica Askin, and nothing re-stricts the City from granting unionrecognition at that point. “We certainly favor the workers’

ability to join a union,” said Hales’spokesperson Dana Haynes, “and welook forward to the park rangers beingpart of the Laborers union.” However,

Haynes explained, the mayor believesworkers should unionize through a se-cret ballot election, not “card check.” A2007 amendment to Oregon’s PublicEmployee Collective Bargaining Actgave public employees the right tounionize through card check, but pub-lic employers can still refuse thatmethod and insist on an election incases where workers are seeking to joinan existing union. For the rangers, it makes a differ-

ence: Having the state Employment Re-lations Board schedule a union electiondelays the process by a month or two.And that’s a problem for the 11 of the15 rangers who are classified as “sea-sonal” employees, most of whom willbe long gone by the end of the year.City rules require that the seasonals belaid off after 1,400 hours, the equivalentof eight months at 40 hours a week.Making seasonal jobs permanent

would be the Number One goal oncethey get a union.“We’re a unified group, the season-

als and the full-timers,” says Sachs. “Allof us who are permanent were seasonal

City park rangers tell Mayor Hales they want a union

Uniformed city park rangers argued that they’ve earned the right to permanent employment, and unionrepresentation, at a March 29 meeting with Portland Mayor Charlie Hales. By all accounts, Hales was cordial and agood listener, but in the end, rangers got the message: The City won’t voluntarily recognize their union; they’ll haveto show a majority through a state-supervised election.

Local 757 president adds formerrival Heintzman to bargainingteam in show of unityAt an April 27 meeting to discuss bargaining

ground rules, TriMet management cleared upwhich media it wanted to exclude from observinglabor negotiations: gadfly bloggers, and the North-west Labor Press. Alert Labor Press readers will remember that

TriMet and Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU)Local 757 are in court over whether the public canbe excluded from their union contract negotiations.Customarily, such talks are closed to non-partici-pants by mutual agreement, but as Local 757pointed out, state law says that public sector col-lective bargaining is by default open to the publicunless both parties agree to close it. This time, Lo-cal 757 wants them open to the public, whereasTriMet has proposed the talks be observed only bycertain media. Bargaining was supposed to begin last Novem-

ber, but Local 757 initially declined to meet untilthe public access issue was resolved. Both sidespushed for an expedited court decision. But whenthe judge determined in early April that the case

would not be decided speedily, the union decidedit was better to start bargaining while still waitingfor the court decision.TriMet had proposed at the outset that access

be limited to “unaffiliated” media, a choice of lan-guage that the union interpreted as an attempt toexclude the Northwest Labor Press. TriMet laterrevised that language, proposing instead to allowthe “mainstream media” to attend — seemingly aswipe at critics on the left and right, to say nothingof bloggers and other “new media.” In effect, a tax-supported local government entity, its board ap-pointed by the governor of Oregon, is proposingto pick and choose which press to grant access to,while keeping the general public out. Local 757 asked TriMet to identify which me-

dia it considered mainstream. TriMet declined todo that, and the union suggested its own list of 16print and online media outlets, including the La-bor Press, plus television news generally.“We have no particular interest in limiting at-

tendance only to specifically named media organ-izations,” replied labor relations director RandyStedman in an April 18 letter to the union, “but in-stead prefer to have a mutually agreed ground rulethat defines the media for purposes of attendingand reporting on the proceedings. Any press or-

ganization meeting the definition agreed to shouldbe able to attend.” Details, Stedman wrote, wouldbe revealed at the closed-to-the-press ground-rule-setting session April 27, held at a secure locationowned by TriMet in the vicinity of Lloyd Center.

Ron Heintzman returnsJust as the meeting began, Local 757 President

Bruce Hansen made a surprise announcement: Hewould be adding former Local 757 president andATU International Union president Ron Heintz-man — his rival in last year’s union election — tothe bargaining team. “We are a union family,”Hansen explained in a written statement, “andwhen a family is threatened, differences in opin-ion need to be put aside, and we all need to worktogether to protect the family. In this case, TriMethas already signaled its intent to devastate its em-ployees both financially and in the quality of theirworking conditions.… Ron Heintzman has bar-gained every TriMet contract since 1988. Man-agement is trying to destroy all those gains.” At the meeting, true to promise, TriMet detailed

its suggested press ground rule: “representativesof the news media,” the public transit district pro-posed, would be defined as “a news-gathering rep-resentative of a commercial enterprise that ordi-

narily reports mainstream news in traditional print,FCC-licensed broadcast, or subscription electronicmagazine format.” Stedman told the union bargaining team that

neither the Labor Press nor the Portland BusinessJournal would meet that definition because they’respecialized, not “mainstream.” However, TriMetwould make an exception, he said, and let the La-bor Press and Business Journal attend. That wouldbe contingent, in the union’s understanding, oncertain bloggers being excluded.“Which bloggers?” the union wanted to know,

listing three by name that had been quite criticalof TriMet. Stedman, furious and using the “F”word, declared the meeting over.That meant that no negotiation sessions were

scheduled, something Local 757 had expected tohappen during the ground rule setting meeting.Stedman emailed Hansen the next day saying

TriMet is still ready to bargain, and that he stillhopes they can reach agreement “to open other-wise closed negotiations to the mainstream press.”“Once we have the union's proposals and a rea-

sonable opportunity to review them, we are willingto schedule substantive negotiations,” Stedmanwrote.

TriMet: Labor Press can observe bargaining, but bloggers out

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