City of Portland Recreation Bargaining Update Thursday July 9th, 2026
/Hello Union Members,
Our last bargaining session took place on Thursday, July 9th. Thank you to everyone who was able to join us!
The bargaining team presented the following counter-proposals:
Article 10 Reporting Pay and Minimum Pay
With minor grammatical corrections, Recreation and the City have reached a Tentative Agreement (TA) on this article.
Article 15 Health and Life Insurance
After correcting grammatical errors and striking outdated language, we have reached a TA on this article.
The Union presented the following proposals:
Article 21 Union Representation
The Union proposed increasing the number of stewards, increasing the hours stewards have available for union work, and adding language to protect stewards from losing their healthcare while performing steward duties. The City countered with adding 1 more steward than what we have right now, only a few more hours, and kept language that could cause stewards to lose healthcare. They also proposed language that would restrict steward access to workers. The bargaining team was disappointed to see the City propose language that was so very anti-union at it's core.
Article 22 Payday
The bargaining team countered the City's proposal regarding timeframes for recouping overpayments and potential penalties for the City in cases of underpayment, and added language from current state law about the rights of workers who have been underpaid.
Article 30 Discipline and Discharge
The Union proposed language that would prevent the City from considering discipline that is older than 1 year or a different type of violation in the progressive discipline process. What we've experienced is that when an employee makes an error (is late, doesn't follow a policy correctly, etc), the City pulls violations from years ago and stacks them on top of the recent violation. That means that you could get an elevated discipline because you were late one time 10 years ago and then didn't follow a supervisor's directive last month.
Article 31 Grievances, Complaints, and Arbitration
The Union proposed having every step in the grievance process be the same amount of time, 35 days. This would be easier for everyone to follow, and would prevent deadlines falling on a weekend. The Union also proposed including the City Council President in the process, so that there was someone outside of the Supervisor/HR/Labor Relations loop to advocate for workers and enforce teh contract when the City violates it. Previously, the Commissioner in Charge played a role, and when the form of government changed, grievances no longer made it out of that Supervisor/HR/Labor Relations loop.
Wages, the cost of the contract and budget authority
The City had repeatedly told us they didn't have budget authority to bargain economical proposals, and then when they finally got it, the max they could "afford" was to increase the cost of the contract by 3%. We had a presentation from Courtney, the City's budget SME, in order to better understand how much the contract currently costs. Things like wages and shift differentials are easy to calculate, but it's unclear why the additional 3 personal holidays that most other contracts receive would cost the City any money. It was also clear the City didn't have a very clear or itemized breakdown of the cost of the contract, so we've asked them to gather more information.
Creating a 3% cap for wages, premiums, holidays, etc, is unacceptable. Our contract has a long standing history (we can't find a contract in our history that doesn't have this) of a COLA that is based on the CPI (meaning our wages increase with inflation). The City claims this is in order to achieve the financial stability recovery plan that they have, but the Union doesn't believe the City should balance it's budget at the expense of it's front line workforce.
What’s Next?
We will meet with the City again on Thursday, July 16th, starting at 9am. We would love for you to join us during your break or on your own time. A link for that session will be sent out soon. You can show support by renaming yourself on as your top bargaining priority- CPI COLA, Safety, Premiums, Good Union Representation (or simply use your job classification!)
In the meantime, if you feel strongly about any of these proposals, we encourage you to:
1. Share your feedback with your CAT member.
2. Complete the safety survey previously sent out.
3. Tell your supervisor that you want better union representation, intend to keep the COLA, demand a safer work environment, aim to maintain our long-standing overtime premiums, and deserve the same amount of personal holidays as other employees.
Thank you,
Recreation Bargaining Team
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Thank you all for your work!
In solidarity,
The staff and executive board of Laborers’ 483
Stay connected:
Email: liuna483@liuna483.org
Phone: (503) 239-5676 ext. 101
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Laborers' Local 483, 17230 NE Sacramento St. #203, Portland, Oregon 97230, usa
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