6/15 Bargaining Update

City Negotiators Slow to Act: This week’s scheduled in person bargaining session was changed at the last minute to a Zoom meeting by city negotiators. While we are sympathetic to the normal challenges of life, this marks the 3rd time that PCL bargaining sessions were disrupted or canceled because of the city’s unavailability. This unavailability is only one part of what we view as the city’s under preparedness for PCL bargaining. While we continue to urge the city to pick up their pace, we will not allow their slow progress to deter us from holding these negotiations to a timeline that best serves our members. State law bargaining minimums would urge a contract resolution by late October. A description of that timeline can be found at the following link. https://www.oregon.gov/erb/pages/pecba.aspx, while a PCL specific timeline can be found here. 

LiUNA 483 members are eligible to attend both online and in person bargaining sessions. We will forward future meeting times and locations as soon as they become available to us.  

Weekly Proposals:  In Tuesday’s bargaining session the PCL Bargaining team put forward changes to two articles. Article #14 Layoff and Recall, and Article #28 Recoupment of Overpayment and Underpayment. Our Article #14 Proposal offers laid off employees more time and additional options for the reappointment process.  Our Article #28 proposal reduces the city’s timeframe to recoup overpayments to 90 days and adds a financial penalty to the city for untimely correction of underpayments, payable to the member whose paycheck was mishandled. 

The city’s lone proposal was a change to Article #1 Recognition. Their proposed changes would expand the new hire probationary period from 6 months to 9 months. The union countered with a reduction in mandatory evaluations to address the city’s expressed concerns on insufficient time for managers to assess new employees, but no expansion of probation. 

Our proposed article changes will be uploaded to https://www.laborers483.org/city-of-portland-pcl for member review. 

Invite Us to Your Worksite: While last week’s site visits were a great start, the PCL bargaining team is still dedicated to speaking in person to everyone working under the PCL contract. We want your input on when and where our next workgroup visits should be. Please contact CAT Lead James O’Laughlen, james@liuna483.org or (503) 208-5699 to help organize these visits.