Oregon state employees get ‘living wage’ boost
Sunday, August 5, 2007 4:16 AM PDT
SALEM (AP) — Oregon’s largest state employees’ union has negotiated what it calls a living wage rate for state employees and workers at Oregon’s seven public universities.
Those making less than $15 an hour get larger cost-of-living adjustments than others over the next two years under a contract negotiated by Service Employees International Union Local 503.
The state will drop several of its lowest salary ranges.
The lowest-paid state or university worker gets $8.14 per hour but will earn at least $10.71 per hour by November 2008.
‘‘I think its overdue,” John Hess, who cleans the Department of Agriculture offices for $12.78 an hour after 16 years with the state, said.
‘‘They won’t have to make life choices, like get this medication or get a gallon of milk, or pay this bill or that bill.’’
Michael Ellis, a carpenter at Portland State University and chairman of SEIU’s bargaining team, said the union patterned its demands after the national living-wage movement, which has made inroads at more than 140 cities and counties since 1994.
‘‘It’s just foolish for us as a state or a nation to pay people so little that they need to use government services to support themselves,’’ Ellis said.
The state merely agreed to a two-year deal but is not establishing a new social policy, said Sue Wilson, who oversees labor negotiations for the state. The Oregon agreement won’t affect government contractors, though the union got tougher preconditions before the state can farm out public services to private companies.
The cost to the state is relatively modest.
‘‘We have very few people in these really low salary ranges,’’ Wilson said. ‘‘There are 76 state employees working at the lowest pay grades to be eliminated under the deal, plus an undetermined number of custodians, food service workers and others working for universities.’’
But the contract could establish a precedent.
‘‘It’s very significant to have the living wage concept approved for an even greater number of workers at the state level,’’ Kern said. ‘‘That’s exactly what were shooting for.
Oregon has the highest minimum wage in the nation at $7.80 an hour.
Tom Chamberlain, Oregon AFL-CIO president, said the SEIU deal sounds a lot like a living-wage ordinance.
‘‘Those usually are associated with cities that define themselves as progressive,’’ Chamberlain said.
Only one state, Maryland, has a full living-wage law.
Kulongoski once was a labor lawyer and helped draft the law granting collective bargaining rights to public employees.
But he angered labor early in his first term by demanding a a two-year wage freeze for all state workers and backing changes to the state pension system that cut retirement benefits for tens of thousands of public employees and reduced the pension plan for new hires.
It got so bad that Kulongoski was booed at a Labor Day picnic in Portland.
But he mended his fences and won re-election last year with union help, then named former teachers’ union lobbyist Chip Terhune as his chief of staff and former AFL-CIO and SEIU leader Tim Nesbitt as his deputy chief of staff.
Nesbitt said a true living-wage policy could be adopted only by the Legislature.
Steve Buckstein, senior policy analyst at the libertarian-oriented Cascade Policy Institute, criticized the deal, calling it an additional tax on Oregonians.
