Oregon State Workers, The SEIU-DAS Tentative Agreement & Struggles Ahead

Most Oregon state workers whose unions bargain with the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) are moving towards settlement of their contracts quickly. The tentative agreement reached between SEIU Local 503, OPEU and the state has gotten the most media attention and will be the determining contract. Negotiations have been going on for eight months, with some high and low points along the way. Thousands of layoffs and closures have been avoided and the leadership of Local 503--its rank-and-file member-leaders and its officers and staff--deserves full credit for the advances made and the lines that have been held.

As we have written previously, state worker unions went into negotiations this year prepared to make contract concessions after winning some key legislative victories. The two efforts--the political effort at the legislature and the actual contract negotiations--took place in different time frames and pulled into action different groups of people. The broad social push for health care, workers' rights and social services was successful, at least in part, at the legislature because unions and their allies attempted to mobilize and they could depend upon a few legislative allies and because the far-right was in such disarray. Even then, some important battles were not attempted and others were lost. This translated in only a limited way into building momentum among union members to support an aggressive bargaining strategy. The world economic crisis and proof of that crisis here in Oregon retarded union members' militancy and insured that unions would not go into negotiations with all of their liberal and progressive allies behind them. In this round of bargaining there was little sense of a people's movement or a labor movement in place around core demands. Given that starting point, even a contract containing concessions but maintaining health care for workers, a salary step and union rights may be a victory. The SEIU bargaining team believes they met their goal of making sure that the union rank and file will not be stuck shouldering all of the costs of the economic crisis and the possible recovery.

The SEIU-DAS tentative agreement contains a one year step freeze, with steps resuming in September of 2010. This freeze is a huge sacrifice for union members to make. Some workers who receive a step this summer will have that step "rolled back" and restored later, but they will not lose money already received. The 24 proposed furlough days proposal has been reduced to 10, 12, or 14 days, depending on rate of pay. Workers who earn less than $2450 a month will take ten days. Workers who earn $2450 to $3100 will take twelve days. Workers who earn more than $3100 will take fourteen days. Some agencies will implement furlough days on a “floating” basis, but in most agencies, offices will be closed regular dates. Pro-rating accrual days and benefits for part-time and seasonal workers and implementing furlough days in institutions which need 24/7 staffing will be a real problem. The union also saved the tenth salary step; represented workers will get a step increase during the life of the contract. Still, this is a pay cut. Medical coverage as it is is safe if cost increases do not shoot over 10 per cent over the next two years.

The state continues to talk about classification studies, but no one should hope for too much from them.

SEIU will be holding their bargaining conference on Saturday, August 15th for bargaining delegates to review the tentative agreement and vote on whether to recommend ratification or not. A vote to ratify is almost guaranteed given the economic crisis and the lack of real options for workers now. These have been the toughest negotiations most state workers and union leaders have had to face in Oregon.

Some outstanding problems remain. We are all left wondering what happens to workers and unions if there is no real economic recovery in the next two years. The School for the Blind is closing, of course, and the media is no longer covering the story. This was a bitter defeat for kids, parents, the blind community, social services and labor. The Department of Education is rubbing salt in the wound, despite the efforts of the Department's HR people who are endeavoring to give workers proper advice as they face layoffs. One of the outstanding and never addressed issues state workers face is the lack of helpful coordination between managers, HR and agency administration; after awhile we begin to suspect that this is deliberate or, even worse, a form of telling incompetency that sabotages state services. This is never more glaring than when closures and layoffs go into effect. If agencies can't handle this, how will they handle furloughs?

Also, higher ed union contract bargaining is on-going and a list of take-aways and the typically belligerent attitude of Oregon University System (OUS) labor relations people remains. For almost 15 years now higher ed in Oregon has been pushing away from being a full partner and part of the state. There are a significant number of people in the OUS labor relations and political bureaucracies who want to see this devolution continue to the point that each campus is on its own and unions are broken there. Every bad stereotype of state inertia is present in the conservative higher ed bureaucracy. That bureaucracy gets its staying power from cooked political deals, a remarkably inefficient leadership which simply delays and postpones crises to its advantage and the old-school ties which are used to pull legislators behind programs and thinking which do not meet the state's needs. In this situation unions could sacrifice solidarity and allow higher ed to go the way of the School for the Blind in some way. The School and the blind students' needs also devolved. If labor remains allied only with its tepid allies and the pace of struggle does not pick up in Oregon and the progressive wings of the Democratic Party here do not advance on their own terms, we will see solidarity sacrificed and more cutbacks in social services and, eventually, more union contract concessions.

Some remaining questions are how, or if, unions will move beyond holding the line and regaining lost ground and lost power here; how unity can be built between all state workers and solidarity strengthened; why national healthcare has not been the priority we wish it were when healthcare has been such an important point for state workers and such a drag in contract negotiations; why and how the Democrats get to skate after not backing state workers more aggressively in contract negotiations; why are parents of kids at the School for the Blind forced to go into court in order to protect their kids and keep the School open and why are they there alone; and why at this moment unions take on such lukewarm allies when an expanded social struggle is needed.

The main danger at this moment is the "anti-tax" movement and its dishonest scare tactics aimed at overturning the state budget. They will certainly get their ballot measure on the ballot and will succeed in tying up unions, social service organizations and liberal and progressive groups for a time. A win for the ultra-right on tax issues is possible. It would open the door to "jungle economics" as a new struggle for another budget got underway and social solidarity was strained. This seems to be the right's entire agenda in a nutshell, in fact. A progressive win in that fight will require more energy, more creative thinking, more militancy and more and different allies than we have seen in this state worker contract fight and in the social services fights at the legislature.