Public Sector Accountability: HB 3342, the Public Dollars Accountability Act, will keep public employers from spending money to either promote or deter unions in their workplaces, as well as ensuring that our state laws around union organizing are enforced uniformly.
This bill is important since many public employers have hired union-busting law firms and consultants to interfere with their employees’ self-determination in organizing efforts.
On the Governor’s desk is House Bill 290B, which gives pay equity to nurse practitioners and physician assistants. The bill, which was a priority for AFT affiliated Oregon Nurses Association, requires private health care insurance companies to reimburse nurse practitioners and physician assistants the same rate when providing identical mental health and primary care services.
Faculty members of Local 2278 (WOUFT) joined with students and staff at Western Oregon University to hold a unity rally on May 22, 2013. Emily Plec, Local 2278 (WOUFT) President said the goal of the event was to "alter the 'divide and conquer' mentality that it’s either student tuition or employee wages. That one has to come at expense of the other.”
Classified employees at Oregon Coast Community College have chosen Local 6020 (AFTOCUE) as their union representative. Union authorization was given by a majority of these employees who signed cards to have a second unit added in the union representing faculty at the college.
David Rives was elected to a third term as AFT-Oregon President during the 2013 AFT-Oregon Convention in April. Belinda Reagan returns as Executive Vice-President.
Click here for highlights from Rives' 2013 State of the Union speech during convention.
OSU research assistants have overwhelmingly designated AFT Local 6069, Coalition of Graduate Employees (CGE) as their union representative in an election conducted by the Employment Relations Board (ERB). Inclusion of research assistants doubles the CGE bargaining unit to some 1,700, covering all OSU graduate employees. Graduate employees teach and assist in teaching undergraduate and graduate courses and perform valuable research in science, engineering, humanities, and many other fields.
“Teacher for a Day” in Portland Public Schools provided AFT-Oregon President David Rives with the opportunity to meet Local 111 (PFSP) members at Roosevelt High School, and observe their daily routine at a K-12 school. Public leaders and those such as Rives who serve on public boards were invited to spend time in a classroom with teachers and educational assistants.
A Federal Court has rejected Bill Sizemore’s effort to make a “federal case” of everything that’s happened to him over the last decade reaching all the way back to his 2002 jury trial where AFT-Oregon and OEA successfully sued his organizations under the state’s civil racketeering law. U.S. District Court Judge James Mossman dismissed all of Sizemore's claims “with prejudice,” a legal distinction meaning he cannot re-file the same claims.
Here are resolutions passed by delegates to the 2012 AFT-Oregon Convention.
