The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-03-20
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Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council reconvened on March 20, 2025, at 2 p.m. to continue a session begun the previous evening, with roll call showing the body present with one excused absence for a family commitment. The rules of decorum were read, and the council took up two agenda items concerning ratification of successor collective bargaining agreements: one with AFSCME Local 189 and one with the District Council of Trade Unions (CTU), both covering 2025 through 2027. Presentations described changes to wages, premiums, shift differentials, cost-of-living adjustments, personal holidays, leave access, and other provisions for each union, along with associated costs, though some cost figures were described inconsistently across the presentation. No members of the public signed up to testify on either item. Councilors asked technical questions regarding committee referral practices, bargaining strategy input, and the proportion of costs drawn from the general fund, with some information to be provided later in writing. A written statement from an absent councilor was read into the record. General discussion touched on labor relations, workplace culture, and budget considerations. Votes occurred on both ordinances, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger.
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2 Afternoon we are gaveling back into the council meeting that we began yesterday evening. It is March 20th at 2 p.m. We have two items on the agenda today. Both are approvals of labor union contracts. Keelan, could you please call the roll?
3 President Dunphy here. Smith. Canal present.
4 Ryan.
5 Koyama Lane Morillo here. Novick here. Clerk. Green. Present. Zimmerman. Here. Pirtle-guiney here.
6 And linly, could you please read the rules of decorum?
7 Thank you.
8 President. Welcome to the Portland city council to testify before council in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the council agenda at. Portland.gov/council agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's web page. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise, your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The presiding officer preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony today should address the matter being considered. When testifying, state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.
9 Thank you. Linly. We are moving into agenda item 14 keelan. Could you please read the agenda item?
10 Ratify a successor collective bargaining agreement with the American federation of state, county and municipal employees local 189 related to the terms and conditions of employment of represented employees in the bargaining unit for 2025 through 2027.
11 Thank you. And I believe we have anne-marie kevorkian, maddie and sarah daly coming up to present on this collective bargaining agreement. Is that correct? Maybe not. Okay.
12 You also have me.
13 Almost. Right. Thank you both for being here. If you can, go ahead and introduce yourselves and let us know what we need to know so that we can have some discussion.
14 Absolutely.
15 Thank you. Council president tracy warren, hr director. With me, I have anne-marie kevorkian, maddie, who is our lead negotiator. I'm going to pass it over to anne-marie, who's going to walk you through the afscme contract before you today for approval.
16 I never.
17 Feel so short until I'm near a. Phone. Good afternoon everybody. Council. As stated, I'm anne-marie kevorkian, maddie labor relations coordinator, and I'm bringing two ordinances to you today to seek council authorization to ratify the collective bargaining agreements for both afscme local 189 and the district council trade unions. Ctu, before I get into that, I just want to give some appreciation to the team that made the agreements possible. I had the pleasure of having an incredible team comprised of managers from bureaus across the city, operational support from bhr teams, the city attorney's office, and, of course, my colleagues in labor relations. The team came to the table fully invested in reaching an agreement with a collaborative spirit and a positive tone and dedicated long days and even some nights in reaching final agreements. And so I can't say thank you enough to all of them and their partnership. And then, of course, I'd be remiss to not give appreciation to our labor partners. In both teams. We had significant challenges ahead of us. And yet, despite the times in which we were far apart, we maintained composure and professionalism at the table with respect for each other and ultimately, the relationships cultivated over many years, and our commitment to reaching an agreement that focused on maximizing shared interests helped us cross the finish line. And so to those who sat across us from the table, from myself and the team, my thanks to all of them. So starting with the afscme agreement, just to give some background, afscme, this is afscme inaugural independent contract. Afscme and ctu made the decision to separate and bargain their contracts independently. The ctu contract is a decades old agreement. While contemplated and mature and generally speaking, doesn't require substantial changes on each successor negotiation. So afscme chose to use the existing contract as their baseline. And I'm happy to report that much of the contract remains unchanged. Bringing the mature contract into this new collective bargaining agreement for them. However, with all negotiation, there are some changes. So I'll highlight those next slide. Just to give you some perspective, afscme is comprised of roughly 1040 to 1050 members across the city, represented in the bubbles here that you'll see many, many bureaus across the city. Next one, next slide and some of the highlights we made changes to wages, premiums, shift differentials and the cost of living allowance, including an increase in shift differential pay, a minimum of 1% increase in pay upon ratification, which for afscme will be March 5th, 2025, for the retro effective date, we provided a 2% longevity premium to employees who have ten consecutive years of service in the city. We added a new 5% premium pay for those who are in the police id tech classification, who work along, or who work in or in the jail. I mentioned the increased shift differentials already. We also provided a 1% across the board increase in July of 2026 and July of 2027. Additionally, we gave three additional personal holidays credited annually for employees required to be fully in. Person. We provided access to personal days and sick leave earlier, previously 90 day requirement. Now, 30 days of employment and employee can access those banks. We provided an opportunity for employees to cash out up to 40 hours of vacation per year, and then for employees that work in a hybrid or remote situation during a city closure where inclement weather may terminate their power or their internet accessibility, they'll remain in a paid status during those closures for up to 40 hours per year. Lastly, we also have have two full time equivalents that are able to now be out on union leave to perform work of the union. We've established a letter of agreement that will allow us to continue having ongoing discussions about the complexities of the business systems analyst classification and how that may be impacted during layoffs. We have allowed employees to be granted status when they promote or are reclassified into a higher level classification, and we've made some improvements to the language for employees that suffer a layoff if they return to the city and how that impacts their pay. Another important highlight is that we had some agreement on pay parity for certain classifications that were shared between Portland city laborers and ctu, and we signed a letter of agreement to provide lump sum payments for those incumbents and those shared classifications. There was also a creation of six new classifications in the water bureau, and several targeted adjustments for premium pays in the water bureau as well. Next slide. The cost of the agreement is not insubstantial. Roughly $20.9 million in new spending, with an additional 1.3 and one time investments for an overall total of approximately 22.2 million over the three years of the contract. Because the contract ends mid fiscal year in 20 26, 27, 27, 28. Excuse me, the total cost of the agreement is closer to 27.9 million. As we take those new costs into the full fiscal year. If there are any questions on afscme, I'm happy to answer those.
18 We've actually only read this one contract, so I think we'll see if anybody has questions here and maybe open up the other do questions and then have general discussion. Before we get into questions, though, is there anybody signed up for public comment?
19 No one signed.
20 Up okay. So councilors, are there any questions specific to the afscme contract?
21 Councilor Kanal madam president, it's not specific to ask me. It applies to both. But because afscme is chronologically first, I think it might make sense.
22 Yeah, go right ahead. If it's a technical question jump in now.
23 Yeah. So I have two questions. The first is would an ordinance to ratify a labor contract normally come through the labor and workforce development committee, or is that the intention. And that's more of an internal one. And I have a question for the presenters as well. It's okay if the answer is I don't know. I don't think we've.
24 Had a well, we've we've had a number of conversations about paths and where things go because collective bargaining agreements are often discussed in executive session in iterations leading up to this vote, there's already been a lot of council eyes on it. So at this point we're bringing them straight to council. But certainly if the chair of our labor and workforce development committee wanted to request having them come through committee, we would absolutely honor that request.
25 No.
26 Okay. Yeah. So thank you for clarifying. I'm not suggesting it. I just wanted to understand. Thank you, presenters for being here. My question that is for you is and I don't I mean this primarily around the non-economic parts, but I guess it could apply there to what is the process in your view for the city developing its strategy for bargaining? And how does council provide input to that outside of the context of an individual labor contract conversation?
27 Thank you. Councilor Kanal happy to address your question. So our process has been that we work with the city management team, who has folks within their bureaus that represent the group that were negotiating the collective bargaining agreement with to gather feedback around areas in which they would like to see some changes in the collective bargaining agreement. And then what we do is we kind of vet those internally with city leadership, and then we typically start meeting with council and executive session to talk about what we're aiming towards and what budget might be appropriate to allocate towards negotiation process. And that's been the practice. I think, that we're still working through. What will be the practice with this new council, including your interests, and how you'd like to see that process developed? I would like to envision a process where we are developing the citywide strategies, coming to council and making sure that we are all in alignment before we get to the bargaining table.
28 Yeah, I just give two points of feedback on that. Is, is that the conversation around what budget to allocate is, I think, narrower in scope because there are non-economic things that I think may be of relevance to us as we try to think about what kind of workplace do we want this to be? What kind of culture do we want to have for our employees? So that's the narrower thing. The other clarification I wanted to ask is you said that after talking to the bureau management, you you said we kind of vet those internally with city leadership and then start meeting with council. In what way does city leadership not include council?
29 So when I talk about city leadership, I'm talking about the executive branch of city leadership and our internal structure. I don't mean to imply that council is not leadership for the city. We just view that as the legislative branch and our elected officials.
30 Okay. Yeah. Just maybe a technical semantic change, but I appreciate the clarification there. Thank you, madam president. Those are my questions.
31 Are there any other technical questions specific to the afscme contract? Okay. Why don't we open up the other contract as well? And then I know there are some folks who have general comments or discussion on both, and we'll be able to do that at the same time. Councilor Clark, could you could you keelan could you please read item 15.
32 Ratify a successor collective bargaining agreement with the district council of trade unions related to the terms and conditions of employment of represented employees in the bargaining unit for 2025 through 2027.
33 And anne marie, if you would like to move into the presentation on the dcu bargaining agreement, that would be fantastic.
34 Perfect. All right. Well, the actu, we can probably move to the next slide. The actu is a trade focused coalition and they limited much of their changes and requests to wages and premiums, leaving a good majority of their collective bargaining language intact and bringing just a few articles of change where we had not made updates to reflect current practice or needs for several cycles of bargaining. Next slide. So the actu is a smaller or smaller union, roughly 200 employees with the vast majority out in fleet and facilities, water and permitting and development. And again, these are all these are the trade classifications. So electricians, plumbers, painters o operating engineers. One more. I'm missing someone. Apologies. Plumbers, painters, operating engineers. Oh my gosh. And the mechanics. Sorry, mechanics if you're watching. So next next slide okay. So we did make several revisions to this agreement as well. Starting with wage parity for the shared classifications with Portland city laborers, particularly for the facilities maintenance technicians. We have a minimum of a 1% wage adjustment for all classifications, retroactive to January 1st, 2025, and introduction of a 2% longevity premium for a total of ten years of service with the city. A new premium for 3% on an employee's base wage for a mobile vehicle and equipment mechanic. An increase to the minimum callback time from three hours to 3.5 hours. That's the first time we've seen an increase in that in that provision since 1988. And then we standardized the standby wages to 24 hours per week for seven consecutive days. That's up from 18. Additionally, we provided three personal holidays credited annually for employees required to be fully in person. That's three additional personal holidays. We made changes to citywide closure language to provide our for our deferred holiday during citywide closures. For those employees who are required to report. And then some adjustments to the management and union rights language, particularly providing them 1040 hours of union leave. City paid time to conduct union business. We made improvements to the grievance language to keep a steady timeline, and also to confirm when grievances are advanced or are not advanced. And then we limited some of the essential employee deferred holiday language so that in the event of a sustained closure, we would have an opportunity to come together and meet and discuss how we would pay employees, you know, in case we had like an earthquake or something like that. We also I didn't highlight it here, but we had another pilot premium pay for some of our inspectors out in permitting and development who perform commercial work. And there is additionally one classification that we are doing pay parity, in addition to Portland city laborers, out of permitting and development through that classification is through afscme. And next slide. The cost for this agreement is roughly $6 million in new spending and $700,000 in one time investments, for a total of 6.7 million over three years. Like afscme, this contract will expire December 31st, 2027. So it's a half of a fiscal year for 2728. And so the full cost is roughly 8.3 million. When you talk about, you know, the expenditures moving into the last half of the fiscal year. I think that's a wrap up for the major highlights I'd want to point out. So happy to ask questions.
35 Thank you. Keelan has anyone signed up for public testimony on this contract?
36 No one signed up.
37 Okay, councilors, any questions specific to the ctu contract? Councilor Kanal.
38 Thank you. Could you speak to the percentage of the costs that you just went through, or a proportion that our general fund versus not?
39 Yes, but I'll need to bring it up. I don't have it right in front of me. Let me see if I can get that for you quickly.
40 Sorry to put you on the spot.
41 That's okay.
42 Oops. I have that.
43 It might take me a moment while I get this information. So I'm. I don't know if you'd be open to me answering a different question, and then I can come back to that.
44 There are not other technical questions about the contract in the q.
45 Fair point. Okay.
46 But I appreciate the respect for our time. If there were. And councilors, if there are not other technical questions, we'll open it up to general discussion about both contracts. After this question or this question and any follow up that councilor Kanal might have.
47 Going.
48 Why don't we move on to discussion while we're waiting for the answer? Councilors. Is there anybody who has general comments or discussion about both contracts? Councilor Green?
49 Thank you, madam president, and thank you for the presentation. I just would like to take this opportunity to note that, you know, as we looked at the cost of this contract settlement, I know that the numbers seem scary. They're in the tens of millions of dollars. But just as I just need a level set here, that when we look at these types of costs, we're talking about priorities. And, you know, city council in a previous year made the decision to not return tax increment financing dollars back to the general fund, but rather repurpose them for other uses. And so we're always doing that type of work at this dais. We're always making choices on how we want to use our public resources, and I'm happy to support contracts that invest in the work, the workers that make the city run. And so that's the lens I take as we as we look at this. It's I think it's a shortcoming to look at the cost side of this alone in isolation, without the benefits. And when we when we invest in our, our city employees, we give them the means to live in this city, to contribute to our economy. And it pays dividends. So that's just a comment I'd like to offer here at the dais. Thank you.
50 Thank you. Councilor. Do we have an answer to councilor Canals question or should we keep going?
51 Keep going for now, please.
52 Councilor Kanal back to you.
53 Thanks. I just wanted to note I've raised concerns about emergency ordinances in the past. And both of these are emergency ordinances. I don't think that this falls into that concern. I do think this is appropriate to use that possibility for, largely because we are we have expired contracts with both of these labor partners. And so just wanted to daylight that because it is a thing that we should highlight when we're using the emergency ordinance power and why. And I think this is one of the appropriate times to use it. Thanks. Thank you.
54 While we are waiting for an answer, our colleague, councilor Koyama Lane, vice president Koyama Lane is not here today. She had an excused absence for a family commitment, but she did send a statement that she asked that I read for her during discussion. I'm going to read this in her voice because that's how she wrote it. So the eyes are councilor Koyama Lane portlanders created and voted for this new form of government, one that allows for more diverse representation that we've never had before, representation that now includes someone like me, councilor Koyama Lane teacher Tiffany, a rank and file union member serving on council. I am proud to have helped bring a different tone to negotiations with our city workers. These contracts with afscme and ctu are the result of countless hours at the bargaining table. Trust is hard to build and easy to lose. I see this agreement as a positive step towards better labor relations and building trust, which will serve all portlanders better. How are we doing, anne-marie?
55 I'm only trying to circle through about 50 excel sheets, so apologies on the delay. I do know we have it in here, and I'm trying to work through teams as well to get that from someone.
56 Councilors. If there's anybody who would like to move their remarks from their vote to a discussion portion, we could do that.
57 I'm also comfortable. The answer to this question is, I think, good to make transparent, but it will not affect my vote. So I'm comfortable moving on and receiving this in writing later, but I would like it to be publicized just for because I agree with councilor Green's point that, and I want people to understand that some of this is not the degree to which this contributes to the general fund is less than the total dollars we just saw. And I wanted to indicate how much that is for people who may have concerns at home, but I don't need the number right now to affect my vote. If so, that's more a note.
58 To anne-marie sent it to you later so that it was in an email, and therefore a part of the public record. Would that suffice for you?
59 Yeah, I think we could I could publicize it after that. Just to clarify. Yeah.
60 Does that work?
61 It works great. Yeah. Thank you.
62 Okay. Seeing no one else in the queue. And as these are ordinances, we do not need a motion. So. And I'll note, as councilor Kanal noted, these are emergency ordinances. So we are voting on them on first reading today at keelan. Could you please call the roll on item number 14. This is the afscme collective bargaining unit.
63 Homeless.
64 Thank you so much to everybody for working to get to an agreement. I think it really does show a new tone that we're trying to set as a council, and how we engage with our labor partners. And, you know, we know that we're in tough budget years, but when we invest in our workers who are making our city work, we're that is to the larger benefit of the city regardless of the budget. So I'm voting I. Dunphy.
65 Thank you to all parties involved in this. This is a hard one.
66 I Smith. I canal.
67 Thank you. We've had, I think, five broad labor conversations so far. Sorry if I forgot any one. Was the unfair labor practice conversation. Very grateful that that got resolved. One was the extension of protect 17. And then we have three unfinished conversations, two of which are up today, one with cp w. I'm excited to get those two to the next stage of approval, and look forward to hearing more about cp w of course, soon. To ask me specifically, I want to just observe. I pushed very strongly for the acp workers in the police bureau who work as id techs, who work in the jail to receive a premium for the work that they do as their counterparts do in other jurisdictions. And I really appreciate both the bhr folks for working on that and for and asked me for their adaptability on this particular point, because non-sworn employees in public safety have not always felt that they've been treated fairly or valued for the work that they do. And I'm excited to see the city adjust on this and committed to my role as co-chair of the community and public safety committee to support that valuation. So congratulations to me for achieving a contract they can support. And thank you to bhr for achieving a contract that we can to I vote yea Ryan.
68 Yeah. Good afternoon. It's great to see some of the labor partners here. I wish there were more. It's such a celebratory day, but you'll have to, you know, take it home to all of them. Right, rob I'm going to go ahead and read one comment for both of them. And I just want to make a few comments. I'm really proud that this council has worked to support labor to get to these collective bargaining agreements. It's not easy to get things like this to the finish line, and I experienced an all in effort from all of you. It was very refreshing to experience all of you arriving and moving this forward. I'm also really proud that this contract affords your membership good benefits and competitive compensation, which in our job market are family friendly. Health benefits are the envy of many and you deserve it. With this investment, we're building trust and loyalty with you, our public servants who interface with portlanders daily. We are a team working together to improve our services, improve our services that portlanders expect to be top of line. As many share with me, many share with me. The remaining in Portland is a tough choice. The bills from government have gone up and many say our services have gone down. As such, now is the time to shift our conversation to practices as a team. One city, one team. We must restructure as we move from bureau silos to the interconnected organization that we are and must become. In my experience, this organizational change to improve systems must include those who are closer to the delivery of services. We need the voices based on reality and their lived experiences. Simply put, management will need your members wisdom as we go through a charter driven organizational change. My hope is that our shared values will enable us to weather the challenging times we are facing as a city today and in future budget cycles. Relationships move at the speed of trust and today we are moving forward. Together. We will ensure that portland's best days are ahead of us I vote I Morillo.
69 This is a really good day and I'm really grateful for all of the work that went into this from our city partners, from our labor partners. I hope that you take this as a sign that this is a different city council that is ready to invest in you and have your back and take care of our city employees who do so much for us and who do so much for the city. So thank you so much. I'm so grateful for everything that everyone has done. I also want to specifically highlight councilor Koyama Lane in her absence. I know that she did a lot of work specifically to help out as well, and was very involved, and I think that her perspective on council and the role of the new government and having different voices here also made a big difference. And it's just very meaningful that we have people who are directly from the labor movement on council who understand that fight in a way that others might not be able to, or just feel it more closely. So I'm just very grateful for all the collaboration, and I look forward to working with you in the years to come.
70 I vote yea Novick.
71 Congratulations again to everyone involved. I just wanted to say that I'm particularly pleased by the three additional personal days for fully in-person workers. I think those of us who've gone back and forth between in-person and virtual and back to in-person over the last several years have we maybe didn't realize when we were always working in person all the time how expensive commuting is, not just in terms of money, but in terms of time. And it clearly takes up more time than three days a year. But I'm glad to see at least this nod to equity I.
72 Clarke.
73 No speeches, just a very sincere gratitude for the teams that brought us here and your involvement with us in executive session. Appreciate it all.
74 I Green.
75 No prepared speech, but I will speak. I just I would just say that this is what you get with an organized working class. When the rank and file can come together, have conversations, advocate for both their economic and also non-economic interests on the job. You can get to a point where you win a contract that you deserve, and I know that you you all on both sides of the table put in a tremendous amount of hours. And I really appreciate bhr human resources walking us through this and helping us understand big, complicated issues. So I vote I.
76 Zimmerman.
77 Thanks. I appreciated council president inviting me to the negotiating table. I think avoiding the strike was important. Appreciate everybody's work. Appreciate folks who leaned in.
78 I pirtle-guiney.
79 Bargaining well is hard bargaining. Well, when you're dealing with public dollars and public services is even harder. But it's an opportunity to evaluate our needs, evaluate our priorities, and find opportunities to do better, both for our workforce and for the portlanders that we collectively serve. A lot of the conversations we had through this process were about culture and how to approach setting culture at the bargaining table that hopefully permeates through the workplace and through our city as a whole. Things like respect, partnership, commitment to problem solving, and excellence. Because, as my colleague said, when we provide fair compensation, we can retain the best and we can provide the best services for portlanders. And I hope that that's what we showed this council is committed to, and the city as a whole, with our bargaining team represented here at the table, are committed to we're looking at some tough budgets, and we'll be asking a lot of our workforce, and we need to start from a baseline of respect, partnership, commitment to problem solving and to excellence. As we approach that work together, I hope that we've shown we're committed to doing that with you. Thank you to our bargaining team, to the folks from our labor unions, both sides of the table. For all the work that you put in to getting to very fair and comprehensive contracts, I.
80 The ordinance passes with 11 votes.
81 Thank you.
82 Could you please call the roll on agenda item 15? We have one more.
83 I forgot.
84 Disregard.
85 Sorry.
86 Still thank you though.
87 Unless I.
88 I Smith.
89 I cannot. Yeah just on this one. I also want to observe here that the point about supporting all public safety employees applies here too. There were eight ctu members noted who are Portland fire and rescue employees. And I want to make sure that even as we, of course, continue to support our firefighters, we're supporting them, too. I also want to piggyback off of councilor Novick comment about three additional person personal days for fully in-person employees. I support this and also think that this is something we should be mindful of that as we move into broader conversations about in-person and remote work, that there are costs associated with it and that we should be, you know, having that holistically. So congrats to the ctu for achieving a contract you can support. And thanks again to bhr for giving us one. We can too, and I vote I.
90 Ryan.
91 Hi Morillo. I Novick I.
92 Clark I.
93 Green I.
94 Zimmerman I.
95 Pirtle-guiney I.
96 The ordinance passes with 11 yes votes.
97 Thank you. Thank you very much, councilors. That concludes our work today. We will adjourn.