Portland city workers celebrate tentative agreement, end of strike

PORTLAND, Ore. (KPTV) - What was intended to be another rally for Portland city workers on strike turned into a celebration Sunday as the union and city came to a tentative agreement.

Starting Thursday, city workers have been striking for better pay.

Will Tucker, a Portland Wastewater employee, said over his nearly 17 years of working for the city of Portland, he said he’s seen cut after cut.

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“When it came time for contract, they wanted to snub their noses at us and say ‘you’re essential, but not when it comes to pay,’” Tucker said. “It just gets old after a while. I was ready to go as long as it took to get the city to knuckle under.”

If people like Tucker weren’t around, he said that would be a serious health hazard.

“When we’re doing our job, people flush their toilets and everything goes away, no one even thinks about it,” Tucker said.

They don’t think about what would happen if the services weren’t there.

“Let’s see,” he said. “You’d have sewage flowing into the river. You’d have sewage flooding out most of downtown. You could possibly have sewage flowing over the runway at PDX.”

The city of Portland said it met with leaders of the Portland City Laborers union for more than 12 hours of mediation on Saturday to reach the agreement. Early Sunday morning, Laborers’ Local 483 posted on Facebook that a “strong contract” has been tentatively agreed upon and the city said as of Sunday at 1 a.m., the strike was over.

The Sunday afternoon strike turned into a celebration.

“Now, it’s turned into more of a celebratory gathering,” Tucker said. “I think finally we’ve earned the respect of the city. Respect more than anything is what this is about.”

James O’Laughlen, a union rep, said the contract includes an average raise of 11% for union workers, and also includes standby pay. He said it was much needed compensation for people who are expected to be ready to come into work on a whim.

“This is a contract the city might not be happy with right now but is going to be happy with long term,” O’Laughlen said.

O’Laughlen said the contracted included increased incentives for positions that have been vacant that other workers had been expected to fill in.

Increased hiring should lead to “fewer mandatory overtimes where [workers] can’t go home to their families, because you’ll have a sufficient workforce to come into the city work,” O’Laughlen said. “I think it’s a win.”

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The contract will not be set in stone until the union workers vote over the coming week. If voted down, O’Laughlen said negotiations will continue.

The city said the new four-year collective bargaining agreement is retroactive to July 2022 and includes a minimum 13% salary increase for all PCL workers by July 1, with additional increases for some positions to make their pay competitive in the market.

“We’re grateful that we were able to maintain the essential services Portlanders rely on every day,” said Cathy Bless, Portland’s chief human resources officer, in a press release. “We’re also grateful that we can welcome our colleagues back to work, bringing their expertise to perform these essential services.”

The city said bureaus affected by the strike will be catching up from a backlog of work that was put on hold to prioritize essential services.

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