Weekend negotiations fail, no new session scheduled
eastoregonian.com/area page/10-18-99
By MIKE FEDERMAN of the East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Union picketers huddled together along Westgate in the chill of the early morning outside the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution carrying signs that showed a green lightning bolt cutting through the words “On Strike.”
About 710 members of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees working at state correctional facilities around the state walked off the job at midnight Sunday.
Non-security AFSCME employees at eight prisons, including EOCI in Pendleton and Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla, and the Department of Corrections central administration struck this morning to emphasize their demands for higher wages.
There are about 110 non-security employees at EOCI, 13 at Powder River in Ontario and 10 to 12 at TRCI, depending on fluctuations in staffing while the facility is under construction.
Wearing buttons that said “2 and 2 Won’t Do” and “Pay Parity,” EOCI stationary boiler operator Rich Mattes walked the picket line with his black Labrador retriever. Registered nurse Gina Rackley was bundled in her husband’s camouflaged duck-hunting coat and hat.
The state has offered 2 percent wage increases for the next two years; the union’s counter request is for 3 percent annual increases.
Corrections counselor Alan Adams, AFSCME chapter president said non-security personnel are expected to supervise inmates and should be paid accordingly.
The state believes its wage offer is consistent with other settlements in Oregon and is above market, said Mark Hunt, labor relations official with the state Department of Administrative Services.
Union public affairs director Don Loving said the DOC doesn’t have enough money to hire enough corrections officers, so it uses non-security people to do security work. Non-security personnel supervise crews of inmates on work details outside the institution or at other government institutions doing projects such as landscaping.
They also supervise up to 30 inmates in kitchens where there are knives and other potential weapons available.
The union’s reasoning is that if its personnel are doing security work, their wages should be raised to the level of security staff wages. Loving said that, on the average, security personnel make 9-12 percent more than non-security staff.
Non-security personnel at prisons include kitchen staff, office specialists, nurses, maintenance workers, counselors, librarians and canteen workers.
The DOC will redeploy management staff to fill critical jobs such as health and food services, physical plant and supply delivery, other prison duties involved with work-based education programs, alcohol and drug treatment and religious services are expected to be curtailed, according to DOC communication manager Perrin Damon.
Prison security is still the DOC’s highest priority, according to Damon. Correctional officers are contracted under binding arbitration and are not permitted to strike.
At EOCI, Kathy Jackson, executive assistant to the superintendent, said the institution will have “enough staff to get everything done,” and expects to get management from other facilities to help.
She noted, however, that management personnel will probably be working about 12-hour days during the strike.
Sunday night union members at facilities around the state, including EOCI, held candlelight vigils. Non-security union members at the state’s largest correctional facility, the Snake River Correctional Institute at Ontario, were the first to strike at 11 p.m.
The union contract expired in June and a vote taken in August approved a strike by a 6-to-1 margin, according to union officials.
Negotiations began 10 months ago. Special sessions called by a state mediator on Friday and Sunday failed to break the gridlock over wages.
No further negotiations have been scheduled.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.