CITY OF PORTLAND- RECREATION BARGAINING

Hi everyone, the union and the city met this morning.  The union presented proposals on article 17, family leave and a Memorandum of Understanding for the Task Matrix, a document that outlines job duties between all positions and classification in Recreation.

For Article 17- Family Leave, the Union believes we are in alignment with the City, and are close to a TA.

For the Task Matrix MOU, the Union proposed creating a Labor/Management Committee to address any changes needed to the Task Matrix.

The city presented a package supposal that included articles 7- standard day shifts, article 8- shifts, 11- Working out of class, 13- holidays, 31- grievances, 34- duration of agreement, and wage scales.  

Article 7-The city remains dedicated to the desire that if you flex off any hours, those hours are not eligible for overtime premium.  They did, however, say that if someone is forced to stay past their shift as the EIC they could get those hours paid at the OT premium.  We see this as a good sign of movement from the city, but not sufficient to TA at this time.  

Article 8- the city proposed that shift differential will only increase by 3%, instead of current practice of %CPI.  They also stated they believe shift differential would only be applied to sick leave for the first 40 hours in a year, which we believe is not in alignment with current state law.  They also proposed a paid 30 minute lunch if you remain on site.

Article 11- They presented the same proposal from 5/21.

Article 13- they proposed 3 additional personal holidays if you work in person 100%, and a prorated amount if you work less than 100% in person.  

Article 31- The city shared they have no interest in involving city council in the grievance process.

Article 34- the city proposed the same duration that we had, which is 3 years.

Wages scales-

The city continues to agree with our proposal that facility techs get the same amount of step increases as other Schedule A employees.  We will counter that it is retro to 10/1 instead of upon ratification.

The lead preschool teachers have recently won their election to join the union again, so the city presented a wage scale for them.  The union will need to check in with lead pre school teachers to better understand the wage scale as it is set by Multnomah County.  

The city maintained our proposed 2% longevity at 10 years of service- their justification was parity with other contracts.

For COLA- the city proposed a flat 3% every year for the duration of the contract.  This is still a move away from the longstanding practice of a COLA that is based on the CPI, with a floor and ceiling of 1-5%.  

While the Union feels that the City is finally coming to the table with substantial proposals, it is not sufficient to TA.  

Next steps-

We will bargain again next Thursday, 10/15, at 9am.  

We plan on presenting a supposal for Schedule B and C at that session.

We also filed for mediation recently and have been assigned a mediator.  Our first mediation is scheduled for Thursday, November 12th.  We plan to continue bargaining with the city until our first mediation session and hope to TA as many articles as possible in the meantime.

Thank you for all your support!  Please reach out to your CAT if you have any feedback about bargaining so far.