Latest / The Schmidt Show PDX / Strike a Deal

Transcript

Strike a Deal · The Schmidt Show PDX

• 0:04
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• 0:06
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• 0:10
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• 0:13
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• 0:23
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• 0:29
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• 0:32
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• 0:34
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• 0:40
  [music]
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back. I'm Mike Schmidt, former Multnomah DA.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Halloween candy vulture, the dad tax, is in full effect this year.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, your favorite part-time podcaster.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I hope you all got some candy or at least saw some cute trick-or-treaters
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: in your neighborhood. And most importantly, I hope you got your ballots in.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is our second to last episode of the season.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: As the election approached, we've mostly brought on guests connected to the November ballot.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: But this episode is airing after the voting has wrapped up.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: So today we're turning to a story that's been largely overshadowed by all the election coverage.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: It may affect our community a lot sooner than whatever comes out of yesterday's ballot count.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: The question is this.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: What happens if a big chunk of our city's workforce goes on strike?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: At 12.01 a.m.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: this coming Monday, November 9th,
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: roughly 800 city of Portland workers could walk off the job.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: The analysts, the coordinators, the victim advocates, and yes,
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: the people who run payroll for everyone else at the city.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: My guest today leads the union behind that strike notice.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Kerry Coe is president of the City of Portland Professional Workers,
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: a volunteer-run independent union that didn't exist four years ago.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to learn about the city's young union,
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: what's actually separating them from the city leadership at the bargaining table,
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: and what a strike would mean for the rest of us.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: But before we get to our interview today,
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: we turn once again to our trash news correspondent for our recurring segment.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: In the news.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Eleanor, what was in the news this week?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for asking, Mike. There is a lot going on.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: So I know this episode is coming out on a Wednesday,
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_03: which will be the day after the election, and most people's attention will be,
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_03: of course, on that, rightfully so.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_03: But we'll go ahead and give everyone a quick break from election news to talk
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_03: about another extremely important day we just had, which was, of course, Halloween.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_03: So I like to spend the day after Halloween scrolling Instagram to see what
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: the celebrities were wearing, like the way we do after the Met Gala.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't know if you know this because I think that we have different Instagrams,
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: but model Heidi Klum.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: I did see this.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_03: Okay. She's widely regarded as the queen of over-the-top Halloween costumes.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_03: And this year was no different.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: She went as a giant severed hand with her legs as the fingers,
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_03: which looked really cool and also very gross.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: So what my mind always goes to when I see costumes like that,
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: to again tell you how mature maybe I am,
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: is I want to know how she's expected to go pee in that thing
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: because she's wearing it to a party.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_03: And she said it took five or six hours to get it on her.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: So unless there's like a hidden trap door or something somewhere,
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_03: she's holding it all night at a party.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_03: And then this made me think about how I'd read somewhere,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: I used to see actually kind of a lot that in the olden days,
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: when women would wear big fancy dresses, it was too hard to go pee in them.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: So they just piss their pants all the time.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: And so when you see fancy people at parties...
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they just had pee pants.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's just what they were doing.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I was trying to do a little research in order to make more jokes about Heidi Klum.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: But then what I found out was that that was actually a myth
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_03: and that the undergarments were in fact built with like little contraptions
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_03: so that women could go pee and they weren't all pissing their pants all the time.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: And then sometimes they even would use like handheld chamber pots.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_03: And those were basically the same shape as gravy boat,
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: which just means if you see an antique gravy boat,
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: wash it out because it could have been an old toilet.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: In preparation for Thanksgiving.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yep. Keep that in mind.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: Not all gravy boats are gravy boats.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I did see an interview with Heidi Klum and last year you'll remember she wore
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: the worm and she talked about not eating or drinking for like a number of hours
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: before she got sewn into that thing.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe there's some strategy around this.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah. And all right, that makes sense.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_03: But nothing is going to change the fact that it was also probably like extremely sweaty.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, Heidi Klum doesn't seem married to glamour,
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: but I like knowing that she probably just like smelled really bad by the end
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: of the night.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: Okay. Another celebrity Halloween costume, Martha Stewart. Have you seen this?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: Okay. So she posted her costume and then immediately had to delete it.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_03: Because hers was of, she went dressed as a homeless person.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_03: So she had ragged clothes, messy hair, dirt on her face,
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: and even a cardboard sign that said, I am hungry, help me.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was pretty, it was not a good look.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so she immediately deleted the post and then posted saying that she was trying
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: to raise awareness on homelessness and hunger.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: And she said, I've spent a significant amount of time
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_03: and effort supporting charities that combat this ongoing social epidemic.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_03: But it should be noted that in that same carousel where she posted the picture
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_03: of herself as a homeless person,
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_03: she was also promoting her line of autumnal scented candles for QVC.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_03: So here the messaging gets a little bit muddled on housing.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: Like she says, she wants everyone to live indoors,
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_03: but then she's selling candles that smell like the outdoors.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_03: So mixed messaging.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_03: I looked them up and these candles range in price from $44 to $73 for candles.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_03: So I hope for her sake, she sells a lot of them because I have a feeling she's
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_03: about to publicly write some pretty huge checks to organizations that work
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: to help people experiencing homelessness.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Good, as she should.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: So, okay, non-Halloween news briefly.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: Oregon icon Tanya Harding is returning to figure skating next month.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_03: She plans to perform in Vancouver in a show she's calling Tanya and Friends.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't say, but friends are to be determined.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Who are these friends? Yeah, we don't know yet.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: Harding has been banned from competitive figure skating since having been convicted
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_03: of conspiracy in relation to the attacks on Nancy Kerrigan ahead
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: of the 1994 Olympics.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_03: But I guess since this isn't competitive, it's allowed.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_03: Anyway, since 1994, Harding has appeared on some reality competitions.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_03: She released a sex tape with alleged attack mastermind Jeff Gallulli.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_03: And she was in a celebrity boxing competition against Paula Jones,
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: the woman who had accused President Clinton of sexual harassment.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, it's been a pretty varied, storied career.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: But when asked by COIN TV about the show, Harding said regarding skating,
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: I just can't walk away.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_03: Interestingly, I just can't walk away is also what Nancy Kerrigan said
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: after her famous run-in with one of Harding's ex-husband's buddies.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Ouch.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's a perfect ending.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want to walk away, so I'm not going to say anything else about Tanya Harding.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Eleanor, for taking us in the news this week.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Where can people find you?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_03: You can find me writing the trash report in the Portland Mercury,
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_03: and you can find me on Instagram at Eleanor Joneser.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: All right. Thank you.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: And now on to my interview with CPPW union president, Carrie Coe.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Carrie, welcome to the studio.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me. Yes.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I feel like the news has been dominated by elections.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: And when people are listening to this,
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: because we're recording it a few days ahead of time,
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: it'll be the day after the ballots were cast and tabulation.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll start to get some of the results.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I felt like this story about what you and your union are going
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: through with the city has been kind of buried in all of the electoral news.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: So before we get into that, tell us a little bit about who you are and who you represent.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I'm the president of the union and I also am a City of Portland employee
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: and we represent 800 people around the city of Portland and we consider ourselves
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: the glue that holds the city together.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: So you might not see what we do necessarily,
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: but it is essential for the city to be held together and to be functional.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: So we represent people in every office and bureau around the entire city.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: People who do admin specialist work, coordinators, analysts,
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: all the finance people for the city.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: Communications, community engagement, those kinds of folks.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: If you like the summer programs in the parks, those are our members.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: If you like people out there coordinating the maintenance
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: on the wastewater treatment plant, those are also our members, people who do.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly. So a really wide variety of jobs under these really broad classifications.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: So about 800 members.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: How many employees does the city have?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: About 8,000.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: About 8,000. So your union is one of what?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: About 14.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: 14 unions.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so about 10% of the workforce. That's right.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty significant.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: When I introduced you, I said CPPW.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: What does that stand for?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we are the City of Portland Professional Workers Union, CPPW.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: And we formed in 2023 was when we sort of organized ourselves and had
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: a union election and had started fighting for our first contract.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Why did that start?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I know we just talked about there's 14 or so bargaining units
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: within the city, but you weren't part of one up until you formed.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Why weren't you part of one or why did you decide to become one?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we decided to form originally because especially over COVID,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: we saw we were consistently getting first on the chopping block.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: So we were not getting raises.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: We weren't getting our cost of living adjustments.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: We were the first to be considered for layoffs because we did not have union protection.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: And and at that time, you know,
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: everybody was really dispersed and having a hard time sort of advocating
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: in that space of everybody being operating under chaos.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so we decided to form a union and there had been other unions at the city
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: that had tried to organize our group before.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: And they had not been successful,
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: mostly because we represent these really broad and We have classifications
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: of a huge variety of different people that work all over the place
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: in the whole city.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: So we're not like one shop where you can walk in and organize the shop.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so that just created a lot of barriers, I think, for traditional,
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: maybe more traditional union organizing.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: And you're
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: remote, right?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Most of us are remote or hybrid.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Especially at the time, right? Because it's COVID, 2023 we're talking about.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that would make organizing challenging.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: It was extremely challenging.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: So as far as I know, we are one of the There are not that many work sites
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: that are remote or hybrid who have been newly organized in the last five
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: or six years. And we did that without the help of a big international union.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: So we were a dedicated crew of volunteers who went through the membership one by one
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: and talked to people about the value of coming together and fighting for our rights.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: And it worked.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Why not go with one of the bigger unions?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Why go out on your own as volunteers to get this thing started?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, because the other unions had tried to organize us several times and it hadn't worked.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: And at the end of the day, we were like, well, we think we can organize ourselves.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: We are people who we are the event planners for the city.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: We are change managers.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: We, you know, the transition team at the city.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: Those are our members, like everybody, people who are thinking about big projects,
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: breaking them down and making them happen.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's what our members do.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: So we were like, let's try to do that on their own.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then once we organized and successfully won our election and started fighting
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: for our first contract, we were like,
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: we think that our voices have value
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: and we want to maintain that really member-led,
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: member-centered organizing.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: Because we don't want to sort of have someone come in and like, be like, okay,
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: thanks for organizing. We've got it from here.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: We wanted to maintain just like strong member voices.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: And because of that piece about hybrid and remote work and really sort of bringing
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: to the forefront the issues that hybrid and remote workers are facing.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we were just, we felt inspired to try to take it to the next level and keep going.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: And we have.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And your union leadership, your volunteers. Yeah.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, everybody in the union is a volunteer leader.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: I recently went on full-time union leave,
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: which just means I still retain my city position,
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: but I've been let to go on leave to do union work. But that's new.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: That only started like a week ago.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: And because of the immense work of sort of founding a union.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then we have been hiring some like contract staff to come in and help us
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: with things that we need.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, the union is run by members.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Wow. Well, it kind of reminds me, you know, when I was running for office,
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: it's like you have your day job and then you have your running for office job
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: and it's two entire different jobs and things to do kind of similar that way.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: So tell us about some of your members.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we've talked about they're the glue people.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: They do a lot of the unseen things that hold our city together.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Give us a story about, you know, some of the work that's being done by some of your members.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so one of the ones I mentioned earlier sort of in passing but is true is all
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: of the park summer free-for-all programming, the movies in the park,
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: the concerts in the park, all of that is coordinated by CPPW members.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: Those are some of the event planners that we work with and community engagement professionals.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: The folks who are running the community engagement
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: for the new Waterfront Park redesign right now, those are CPPW members.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Anybody who does any kind of communications at the city except for – Except
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: for the PIOs, who are a different union, but everybody else's website updates,
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: boil water notices, emergency communications, all those folks are CPPW members.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: What about the raves on Mount Tabor?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Are you the DJs at the raves?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: We do have members that are DJs, but I don't think they're assigned to those particular events.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: One, you know, one I think job that people that we do
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: that people aren't often thinking about,
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: but that are really important is coordinating the emergency work around the city.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: So we represent the Bureau of Emergency Management,
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: the folks who come in and not only train net volunteers in the neighborhoods,
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: making sure our neighborhoods are equipped for emergency planning,
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: but also are coordinating other emergency responders all around the region
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: with the regional emergency coordination system of like any time,
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: like when the building was on fire in southwest or northwest Portland.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Our folks were out there managing that infrastructure so that the police
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: and they can all do their jobs and we're the ones coordinating
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: to make sure everything's happening.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: So from like my new things like getting payroll done
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: and making sure everybody's leaves go to these really big infrastructure projects
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: where Well, that's pretty important stuff.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious, how long have you personally been with the city of Portland?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: I have been at the city for 11 years now.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: I started off as a community engagement person in East Portland.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I have had several jobs around the city and I'm now
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: at the Portland Permitting and Development on the liquor licensing program.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure many of your 800 members have been with the city for lots of years.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm a little bit curious about what is your experience with this new form
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: of government that we have?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, the people of Portland voted to change our form of government
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: from that commissioner, leader of bureaus style where we had the five commissioners
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: and they would each take bureaus. Yeah.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Suddenly become the expert on housing or homelessness or public safety,
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: whether that was in their background or not,
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: to this more legislative form of government with the mayor who now appoints
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: the city administrator.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of change in the past couple years with that.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious what your perspective has been on that change.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the change, I mean, I feel like it was needed.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely the commission form of government was broken.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like you said, you cannot expect a random elected official
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: to suddenly know everything about planning.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: Or these massive wastewater systems.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: And that was silly to expect that.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: But the new system, so having a legislative body that handles various, you know,
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: legislative and budgetary tasks and then a mayor that can handle administration
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: and Makes a lot of sense.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: But what we're seeing in practice is that it actually has had this effect
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: that I think voters didn't vote for and that maybe wasn't anticipated,
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: which has created this huge sector of new management,
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: new very highly paid management positions.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: So we just saw in the last budget cycle how now we have a city administrator
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: and now we have a city administrator's office.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: And we were just alerted a few weeks ago that now there's two new service areas
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: that will have two new districts.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: Deputy city administrators on top of them, right?
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: These are $200,000, $300,000 positions,
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: and they're being created pretty frequently at this point at the city of Portland,
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: and it's creating this management bloat.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: We've seen management go up 38% in the last six years, while working staff have gone up 7%.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: So when Portlanders voted for the new form of government,
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think they were voting for a more functional system,
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: something that was more representative, that got more voices at the table, right?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: Because Five people is not representative of our city.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: But what that has turned into in some ways is representative council But now sort
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: of a bloated administration that just keeps growing and growing and growing
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: and is actually not responsive to the voters.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: So now we have deputy city administrators who are not elected,
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: are appointed and are like hidden within the city infrastructure.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: So if you as a human citizen want to get there and talk to them about issues
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: that you are impacting you with your water, it is really difficult to find them.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: And they're not accountable to you.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: They're accountable to the mayor.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: So it's created
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: a shadow government inside the system that runs everything.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: And then the council is actually over here trying to figure out how do they have authority?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: What can they do?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that's been a real struggle for council to figure out where that line is
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: in our experience over the last two years.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think they're getting closer, but...
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it's been a tough transition.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel like that is because of the design of the government or is
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: that because of the people we put in the positions in this first iteration
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: of the government?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we got Mayor Keith Wilson, first time elected official, but comes from a very...
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Business background, runs a trucking company,
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think brings that acumen into the way
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: that he sees how services could be delivered,
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: talks about efficiencies and things of that nature.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Is what you're describing because of the individuals who we elected
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: to run this new form of government,
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: or is it actually something in the design of the way that we built this system
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: to work? Do you have a sense of that?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: I think that it's with the current struggle lives with the people
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: who occupy those positions because they are building the city in their sort
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: of with their ideas and their approach.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: The transition set up a general structure and then they're like filling it
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: in and trying to figure it out.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I think instead of Sort of utilizing
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: the strengths that the city had in terms
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: of like a strong set of workers who were executing stuff across the board
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: and who already were coordinating very well,
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: instead coming in to sort of assume a lot about Assume there were a lot
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: of duplications and that a lot of people could be just like let go
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: because their work wasn't important.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: And assuming that we didn't have enough managers watching things when it's unclear
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: that that's true.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: And now city council is having to look at management scope of responsibility
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: and to see, actually, are you a manager that's actually managing anybody
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: or are you just a manager?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's created- There are managers that don't manage anybody?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they are trying to, yeah.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the questions during the last budget cycle was to do an assessment
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: of how many- Direct reports do managers have
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: because some managers do not have direct reports
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: or not enough direct reports like two or three,
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: but they're a very high level manager or and is that needed or is that not needed?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so it's instead of I think that instead of looking at the city transition
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: as an opportunity to like dig into the details of like.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: Coordinating across bureaus,
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: like coordinating budgets across bureaus and really looking at the details.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: Instead, we're getting new managers hired to sort of evaluate things
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: and put like strategy into place.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: But nobody at the city, for example, could tell you what is our total contracting out budget?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: How many people do we hire on contract every year?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: No one can tell you that.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: And as far as we know, no one's being assigned to look into things like that.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: So there are very like practical realities that are not being addressed.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: But these big sort of like visionary like sort
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: of statement projects are going forward that don't feel like they're actually having
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: an impact on real Portlanders and instead are creating new positions
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: that don't have any impact on day to day Portlanders real life.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, you don't have to look very far to see headlines or especially
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: on social media of people saying, oh, the city is broken and it doesn't work.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the city that works, right, but it's not working.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I think a lot of voters have had that frustration for years.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's, I think, why people voted to change our form of government.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm hearing you say is that maybe we haven't landed on the right cure
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: yet for that, that you and your members feel frustration about how
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: the city functions.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we do.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think that, you know, the movement to having a more representative council was,
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think, really important.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: We see better representation in council now than we ever have.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that Portlanders I think Portlanders do feel more represented by that,
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: despite whatever the Oregonian might say.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think if they were talking to everyday Portlanders on the street,
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: they would see themselves represented at council more than they ever have.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think that the other piece about how the city is administrated is a big question.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I think, you know, people...
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: Empower big elected officials like to, you know,
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: make things look like what they know and what they're familiar with and sort
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: of in their image.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that that's there's a danger in that because the city is not a business.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: The city is intended to provide services to Portlanders.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what our members do.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: And that is not what we see happening.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: We see the city sort of being restructured as though it needs to be an enterprise model.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, that's not true.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: You hear a lot of the focus, and it's election season,
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: so you couldn't really get away from it, of, oh,
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: it's the peacock block versus the mod squad, and it's this team,
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: team A versus team B, and that's the Dysfunction is the six versus six.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of people are spending a lot money to try to get one more person
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: to get their side, to have seven versus five instead
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: of this six on six. Yeah.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I've wondered to myself if that really is any kind of root
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: of dysfunction it's visible But what we are talking about are the things
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: that everyday Portlanders run into when they call the city for a service.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: They need some sort of response.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Stormwater, right?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I need somebody to get here.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: The street is flooding.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's backed up.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then when they don't get that type of response or permitting or so many things
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: that the city does, that's where I think people are actually frustrated. Yeah.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: Not with the perception of the six versus six and they don't agree or get along.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Do you agree with that assessment? Yeah.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what's happening at Council, I think people like to make a show of it, right?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: It makes for good sort of drama that, oh, there's this, yeah,
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: all of these contentious things happening.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, honestly, there's like funny and weird and dumb things that happen
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: at Council all the time. So that's true.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't think, I think it's mostly the drama of it.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: That makes for a good story.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: When in reality, the reason why people are disagreeing on council is
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: because they have fundamental philosophical differences about how
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: the city should function.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: And we do not need a city council that just like all thinks the same way
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: and has no real opinions.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, that's not what we need.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: We need like council to find a way forward.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think what Portlanders care about is
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: the fundamental issues
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: of like how are my parks doing?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: Is garbage getting cleaned up in my park?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: Are we going to be able to have summer programming for the kids?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: Are we going to be able to get our stormwater drain cleaned?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: Is stuff going to back up into my apartment or whatever?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: Those are the things that Portlanders care about.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: And those are the things that workers are dealing with every day.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: And the frustration that we experience is that we need more people to do that kind
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: of work in order for Portlanders to get the services that they deserve.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: So when you see the
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: City administration cutting positions and funneling money
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: to upper level management instead of, you know,
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: positions that are out there serving the community.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: This is part of the problem.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: And this was a huge fight in the last budget cycle this summer of like,
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: should we maintain, you know, the ceasefire program,
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: which does gun violence work in East Portland, right?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Which are our members that do that crucial work.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: And they're debating whether or not this work should happen while also voting
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: to put new decisions.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, deputy city administrators into position.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, what does Portland need?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know what the people on the streets would vote for.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's not another extra layer of bureaucracy.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: It would be the people who actually come and work with kids to prevent gun violence
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: in our streets.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I feel like, you know, on this program and others and in the ether,
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: we have a lot of us Portlanders seeing what's happening with the mayor
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: in New York City and just getting shit done.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the potholes getting filled. I know.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just and everyone, it feels like, gosh, wouldn't that be nice?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: But we know we just can't do that in Portland.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, why?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: Why can't we?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Why can't we be the city that works?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: That actually is like. Oh, yeah.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we were talking
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: about the
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: shoveling snow And, you know, snow is not our problem necessarily important.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: We have other issues generally, but like Montani is like, Hey, uh, there's a,
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: the streets are full of snow.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: I have to get it cleared.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: We have a bunch of people that could use a few extra dollars in their pocket tomorrow.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: They're going to get shovels and we're going to pay them.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I just felt like, God, we could never pull anything off that, that in Portland.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like you need a committee on the committee.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: You need to authorize a study of the shovels.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then this, and it's like, Yeah.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like what the frustration I sense from voters is not like
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: the philosophical divide between Peacocks and Mod Squad.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yes, we'd like them to work it out, but it's like,
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: just deliver on the services that we pay taxes for.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Is that, I mean, you are interfacing,
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: you and your members interface with the public on a regular basis.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: Is that kind of what you're hearing from people that you work with?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely. And I feel like that's why we see, I mean,
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: that's why the community voted for the Portland Clean Energy Fund, for example,
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: because they want to tax dollars.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: That are being extracted from our community to come back and fund the things that matter to us.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: And they want them to be big, bold, interesting projects that really make an impact.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like the preschool for our campaign,
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: the Portland voters sometimes are demonstrating that they want big visionary change
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: and they want to identify funding sources to make that happen.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: And they're not...
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: We're afraid or ashamed to go after the people who are extracting money
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: from our communities and saying, put that back and invest in what really matters.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: The backbone breaks when it comes to the politicians actually making that happen,
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: right?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then sort of trying to undermine the voters or trying to constantly reassess
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: where that money goes.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: Or saying that, you know, it's putting too much pressure despite all the evidence
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: and somehow it's put too much pleasure on Portland when in reality people want that.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: People want that money to come back to Portland.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like Momdani is demonstrating that, that people want this.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: And if you have a strong backbone to follow that through, you can do really incredible things.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: And Portland has shown that we can do that and we have done that.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: We just have to keep doing it.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah. You mentioned contractors, and I wanted to let you talk a little bit
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: about that because I've heard you talk in other places about some of the ways
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: that the city has used contractors only to have Portland employees have to come
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: in behind them and clean up the mess.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me about some of what you've seen in terms of our reliance on contractors
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: and how maybe that's not always the most efficient or cost-effective way to tackle
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: a problem.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah. So contracting out services at the city of Portland,
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think to managers can look like a quick and easy solution.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, it is typically costing more money and causing more problems
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: than just having city staff do it.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: To begin with, even if what you have to do is hire a limited duration staff
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: or like not a full time permanent staff to do a temporary project.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: We've seen I can think of several examples off the top of my head.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: One is again the Waterfront Park Community Engagement.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: They outsourced that they contracted out that it went miserably
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: and the community was irate about it. How did it go miserably?
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, I don't even know all of the deep details of it,
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: but I know that people were very unhappy with it and pushed back and said,
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_02: this is not meeting our needs.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: This is not what we want.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: You're, you know, you're making enemies in the community instead of engaging them
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: in the project.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so they had to, you know, I mean,
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: bring in city staff who are community engagement professionals
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: and arguably should have been doing that work from the very beginning.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: And now they are assigned to redo that work. Yeah.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: Re-engage the community in what waterfront parks should look like and are doing a great job.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: But the money to the contractors is gone.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: We're not getting that money back, right? That's one example.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: We have, you know, the city contracted out a classification and compensation study
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: for workers, which is a thing that might typically be contracted out
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: if you don't have the right HR professionals.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: But they spent, you know, $750,000 on one on this study.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: And then we learned and The city agreed that it was a mess and a disaster
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: and basically a committee of workers spent time redoing that work.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: And now that Same contractor has been hired again for a second contract to do
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: a classification and compensation study.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: We have a third example of out in the community,
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: a contractor was hired to do like a physical construction project of some sort
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: or like an electrical project in which we have city workers that do that.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: They flubbed it so badly that the city was actually suing them.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: And while the city was suing them,
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: They were also looking at doing another contract with them on a different project.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: So this is the kind of mess that I'm talking
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: about where it seems like this easy solution for managers and it turns
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: into this huge waste of money that they could have just hired city workers.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: And the reason why that matters is because city workers are accountable.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: Contractors are not accountable.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: Once they're paid and their contract is solidified,
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: there's not much you can do besides sue them,
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: which obviously didn't go very far either.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_02: So we want to see workers being put together.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: On to jobs who care about our community, who are accountable,
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: who aren't going to waste the funds.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: And this is happening all across the city.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: So when you see an example of a contractor who flubs a job, city workers come in,
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: they have to fix it.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then you see that they are being rehired to do a different project.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, do you all communicate that to the mayor?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: So our colleagues at IBEW,
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: the Electrical Worker Union,
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: were actually the ones who identified that issue about a contractor being sued
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: and then looking to rehire them.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: And they have been putting this information forward to the mayor,
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: the city administrator, anybody that will listen and have basically been heard
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: but ignored. I put heard in quotes because When you're sitting there listening
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: but not doing anything about it, I think that's called being heard.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so we elevate these issues all the time in labor management committees
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: and rarely does it go anywhere because...
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: The city has other reasons for pursuing those things.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: But we have put in a specific, we, the labor caucus,
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: which is all the labor unions at the city,
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: have put in a specific ask to the administration and to council
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: to figure out your contracting problem and to assign somebody at the city
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: to oversee it and make sure that we're effectively
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: and efficiently spending our money.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: And we did get word that they were thinking about that.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll see what happens.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, heard.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly. Heard.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, do you feel like this administration is listening to the workers?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you all are on the front lines.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: You are seeing the problems before they become bigger problems.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: When you're having these conversations, I mean,
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: do you feel like you're partners or do you feel like they're heard?
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: No, I don't feel like we're partners at this point.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like what happens often is that we have meetings
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: that are very constrained topic wise where people will, you know,
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: certain people only talk to us about certain things.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, it often is like delivering sort of like delivering a speech
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: to us or listening to us.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: But like not there's no like engagement and interaction. Right.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: Of like, how can we move things forward?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: And part of it is what you described,
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_02: which is that our members are out there on the front lines.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: They are able to identify what's happening.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: They can see problems that are coming before they start.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: And through the unions, they actually might have more access
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: to elevate those problems than maybe like sort of a low level manager who has
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: to go up through a change of management in order to get to the mayor.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: They can bring it to us and we can hopefully have direct access.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's the whole point of a labor management committee is to be able to elevate those things.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not really happening.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we meet with HR regularly to talk about internal matters to like union issues.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: But these bigger systemic city matters, it seems often like they engage us after the fact.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: So. The big realignment this summer is a great example.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: The city on the actually the mandate of the former city administrator
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: and mayor Wheeler decided to do a huge realignment, right?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: Realign 10% of the city's workforce, meaning move people around.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: And on its surface, fine.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: Let's reorganize ourselves.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: Let's be smarter and more thoughtful and more strategic.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: But what that actually meant was that it was actually a cut exercise.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: It was like, how much can we cut?
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: Are there actually just extra people wandering around out there with no work to do,
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_02: and we can just lay them off, is what it turned out.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so we were pushing and pushing, saying, mayor, city administrator,
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: meet with the members, hear about what they do.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: Do an inventory of what are people's jobs and tasks before you lay them off.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: And we were consistently pushing on this and consistently heard, no,
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: we have to move forward really quickly. We have a budget to meet.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: We have a budget to meet.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: To the point where they did an inventory of people's work after the layoffs happened.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then ended up having to move people back around or bring people back
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: who they laid off, who they should not have laid off, or, you know,
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: put people back in different corners where they shouldn't have pulled them out
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: of that team to begin with.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_02: And this is what we're talking about.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_02: If you had listened to labor and to the members and taken an approach that was more
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: of a change management, a thoughtful approach,
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_02: instead of just running full steam ahead at an idea,
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_02: things would have been better for the workers and for the Portlanders who relied
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: on those services that were cut.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds slightly familiar to what we saw at the federal level.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you might call it doge for Portland.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's...
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's disconcerting to hear.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_02: It is because people talk about themselves as progressives at our city level, right?
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody calls themselves a progressive.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, unfortunately.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: Every single person.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually kind of a problem.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_02: They're moving forward these proposals that are mimicking exactly what happened
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_02: on the federal level and costing money in the same way that it cost
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: on the federal level.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: This is not a cheap exercise and this was not a cost-saving exercise.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, certainly not.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: When you have to bring back employees and I'm sure there are lawsuits
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: and there are severance packages and there's all kinds of things that go along
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: with a lot of those changes.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we haven't even sort of touched
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: on the fact how many executive level managers have left
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: and gotten severance packages.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's been a lot.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think we're up to 1.5 million and we haven't heard
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: about the most recent severance package yet, so it'll add to it, but.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is. I don't know how many people,
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: but it seems like they have gone through a lot of those high level executive jobs.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: I keep wondering how I can get one of those jobs where they get paid
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: for a year's worth of work to not work anymore.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_02: For a couple of months.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that sounds that sounds not so bad.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: OK, well, you know, it's election season.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so before we're obviously we're here because I wanted to talk
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: about the impending strike that may be coming.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're going to get to that.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: But it's election season. You're a union.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: I know a lot of unions get in the political game.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so but you're a very young union and volunteer staff.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so did you all make endorsements in this political cycle?
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: So we issued a scorecard.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: So we did have a group of members come forward and say, hey,
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: we want to put together a political scorecard on our values and our priorities
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: for the candidates and ask them to fill out a questionnaire and then we'll score it.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: And if they're an incumbent,
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: we'll also score what they did while they were in office and use that as a way
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: to let our members know, mostly,
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: how have these electeds been on the issues that you care about?
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so we issued that scorecard just for city council races.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: So we were just focused on city council. Yeah. Yeah.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: So you didn't do county or governor?
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: No, we didn't do any of that. You stayed in your lane.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: We did.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: For right now, and we might expand in the future, but for right now, that felt...
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: Do you, like me, you get text messages from friends being like, hey, who should I vote for?
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're in the know, right?
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: People are like, how has this person actually been while they've been in office?
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's informal though.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: So who got the A's in your scorecard?
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we had a lot of people who really, what we called it was,
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: are you aligned with CPPW values?
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_02: You're very aligned, you're somewhat aligned or you're not aligned at all.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, we had folks at the top who were like Jamie Evenstar in District 4.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: Jeremy Smith in District 4, Mitch Green in District 4.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: Those were some of our top scorers.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm pulling this from my memory,
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: so I'm apologizing in advance to everybody that I'm forgetting.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: But like, those are four, you know, those folks were very aligned with CPPW values.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: And, you Jamie, in fact, comes out of CPBW membership.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: She was a member when she worked at the city before she worked at Avalos' office.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_02: Just disclaimer.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: But we saw Mitch Green going to the mat for us during the budget
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: and really advocating for members.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: And that goes a long way, obviously.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then in District 3, we saw Angelita Murillo, Coyama Lane coming to the top of the list.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think we also...
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: Scored some other folks high, but those were the ones who rose to the top.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because you now find yourself in this situation with the city
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: where you're renegotiating this now opened contract,
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: did you have some people maybe kind of opportunistically suddenly be more open
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: to your positions? Yeah.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we did have some counselors who were incumbents fill out our questionnaire
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_02: and the members who scored it.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: So a group of members scored it and did the evaluation and everything.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_02: And they noticed that the things that they wrote
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: in their questionnaire were really different from some of the votes that they had
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: while they were sitting up there.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: And we definitely factored that in.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they learned. I hope so.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's always a learning process.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, the things we really looked at were like are you taking.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: Worker voices into consideration.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: Are you really prioritizing member jobs over sort of these management positions
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: or these big high level strategy positions?
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then where are you at on things like that our members really care about,
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: which is like equity, accessibility and and community partnerships.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_02: So those were some of the key pieces that we focused on and those folks
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: that we scored high do well on that.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, I really hope that anybody listening to this takes from it that,
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: you know, it's the workers who are the ones that are actually getting
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: the things done.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: There's the elected officials, the politicians, which I have been one.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was not the one in the trenches doing the job when I was the elected official.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now I had previously done that job,
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: but I was not the one doing it when I was the elected official.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's you and things change and facts on the ground change and what you are hearing from people.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you would hope That leaders would look to you all as, you know,
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: guidance and helping them to deliver the best that we can for the people
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: of Portland.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: There's no way that folks in those positions in the mayor's office
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: or administrator can possibly know whatever. I mean, how could they?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: I would not expect them to, right? And that's fair.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: But what's not appropriate is to sort of brush over it as though it doesn't matter, right?
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: Or as though it's not as important as, you know,
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: whatever your pet projects are or what have you.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's take a quick break there for a word from our sponsor.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I will be back with Kerry to talk more about what the union is going through.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: A quick word from our show sponsor, Dr.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: Adam Moret at Corbett Hill Wellness Center, people I know and trust.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Dr. Moret from Corbett Hill Wellness Center.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: Your back hurts.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: So where do you start?
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: First, we'll figure out what's going on.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: The answer isn't automatically an adjustment.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: Corbett Hill Wellness Center.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: Move acupuncture,
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: laser or shockwave well live well
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: visit corbitthill .com
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: So Kerry,
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get to what's happening today.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate all the backstory.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's so important to give people context and thank you for the work
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: that you do as city employees.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think it is, you know, like you say, it's not the things that we see,
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: but with Without you, we're going to feel it.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess that kind of takes us to where we are today,
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: which is there's the potential of a strike very near in our future.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: So let's go back to where this started. You had a contract.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, you're still within that contract.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: So the contract was reopened at some point.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: So take us to when did that happen? Why did that happen?
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then where are we today? Yeah.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we so we got our first contract
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: in June of 2025 after a long struggle.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was two years from our election date to the contract.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: And as part of that contract, what we learned was that.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: We have messy job classification.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_02: So we have coordinators.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a coordinator, for example,
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_02: and there are hundreds of people who are coordinators and we do hundreds
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: of different jobs.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: And this only matters
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_02: because that's typically how wages are structured is structured based
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_02: on what you do is attached to a wage system.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so as we learned more about the fact
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: that the city had created these huge buckets out of another, by the way,
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: messy classification system, Contracting out situation in 2018,
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_02: which I won't get into, but what that meant was that setting up
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: a wage system needed more time.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: We needed more time to look at who does what, right?
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: Who does what kind of job and how are we going to structure this wage system?
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: So in the first contract, we agreed to flat wages,
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_02: like flat wage increases across the board, and then to do a study with this,
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_02: the city would do a story on our classifications and how the work breaks down
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_02: and what it looks like on the inside.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then we would have that information to build out wages during your reopening.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: So when the contract was signed finally a little bit over a year ago, June of 2025,
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: it was kind of like, all right, we don't have all the information we need,
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: but we want to get this contract hammered out.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: So let's just do that and we'll come back to this job classification issue.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly. A contract is a critical document for more than wages.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_02: It has all sorts of protections and leave rights and all sorts Of Important things
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: for members and we wanted to get that solidified and not spend another year
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_02: or two years working on our first contract.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_02: So get it done and then reconsider wages now.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_02: And what we have come to is that we were working with the city to try
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: to set all this up and get us ready for our reopener,
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: which is only four articles out of a long contract.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: A contract is made up of articles, a lot of articles with a lot of detail.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: We're only doing four of them.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because essentially you're going back to that classification issue.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly. And we thought it would be relatively quick, right?
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like let's get it put into place, maybe six months of bargaining or something.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_02: We are now 10 months in and we are...
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: No further along than we were basically when we started.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: We have come to, you know, we came to, we bargained, we came to impasse,
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: then we started mediation, and now we are approaching a strike
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: because of the total lack of movement from the administration on our primary issue,
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_02: which is real wage increases that keep up with the cost of inflation.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: I hear inflation has been bad recently.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_02: Have you heard that?
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_02: Have you been to the gas station recently or the grocery store? Yes. Yes.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean, A, it's obviously it's the number one issue in our country right now.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you cannot literally turn on the TV or the radio or anything
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: if people still do that and see the political ads right now.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about inflation.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so do I have it right?
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like when this so you reopened and then I heard that maybe the mayor was trying
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: to do away with the colas.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we were not the only union and are still not the only union bargaining for a contract.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: There were, I think, at the beginning of 2026,
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_02: maybe like five unions that had open contracts this year.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: And of those, we were coordinating with folks to just try
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: to understand what was going on with their contracts.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_02: And the mayor issued a mandate to say,
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_02: we're going to try to eliminate cost of living adjustments in the contract as tied
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_02: to, you know, performance, as tied to consumer price index,
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_02: which is sort of the standard standard.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_02: How contracts judge inflation.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_02: And that is, by the way, a baseline, right?
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_02: That is the bare minimum because the CPI right now is like 3%.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: But if you look at any news article, any other source,
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_02: they'll tell you you're looking at 3.9, 4%, I mean, or more, right?
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_02: 8.8% in some cases, depending on what services you include, right?
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: Cost of living adjustments are not raises. No.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: That is, hey, we understand that the price of everything from electric to rent,
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: water, groceries, gas is going up, and we want you to live in our city.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_02: Right. We want to be able to afford to live in the city that we serve.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: So the mayor issued that mandate originally.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: This was months ago, and we were all shocked because...
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_02: Labor union contracts at the city of Portland have always included,
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_02: as far as we know, cost of living adjustments, which, as you say, is bare necessity.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's basic.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so we fought for months on that.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_02: We fought for months to be like, no, we actually,
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: our members are prioritizing cost of living adjustments, real ones,
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_02: not just like sort of fake numbers that get thrown out as a sort of gimme
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_02: or whatever.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so finally, we got...
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so the proposal started to include cost of living adjustments,
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: really bare minimum ones, but then removed any other kind of wage adjustment, right?
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: So these sort of bare minimum cost of living adjustments
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_02: that weren't actually keeping up with the current inflationary rise
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_02: and that were totally eliminating anything else.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_02: So we consider that to be Exactly.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_02: It didn't
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: actually like...
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't not it was not meeting the actual need that we were describing.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: It was just kind of like moving the cups around on the table, you know, like you do in a game.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so so we've been pushing back, obviously, and saying, no, we need real wage adjustments.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_02: Partially because since our union is new and since we've been
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_02: through this whole issue with our classifications, we don't have a wage step system,
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_02: which is a standard mechanism in a union contract
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_02: for just giving wage increases each year within the existing wage scale
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_02: that you have.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_02: And every other union at the city has this.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's standard.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've worked at the state.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: I've worked at the county. Both have it.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's very normal.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yes. And in fact, it makes bargaining easier because it's an established...
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_02: Cost within the contract and then you can bargain other things that workers care
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_02: about and the city cares about.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_02: So instead of us having that, now we have to fight,
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_02: we've had to fight for the last two years to get basic wage adjustments.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so by them saying no, no wage adjustments,
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_02: they're actually treating us differently than they treat every other union
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_02: in the city.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: And that's inequitable and we can't manage that.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_02: We have had the budget balanced on our backs for too long.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_02: We can't continue to have the budget balanced on our backs
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_02: while they inflate management and give golden parachutes away.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: So at the end of the day, because – The contracts only reopened
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: on the wage four points in the bigger contract,
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: but they're basically around compensation.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yes. One is about layoff protections, but yes, the rest are around compensation.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: Around compensation.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: So this part of the contract being reopened is really about money.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I imagine the mayor has a dollar amount in his brain and you have a dollar amount in yours.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, how far apart are we?
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah. So if you were to look at the dollar amounts in our final offers,
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_02: which we have to submit to the state after we declare impasse,
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_02: which are on the on the state website,
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_02: our dollar amounts actually don't look that different.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_02: We are.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_02: So what we're advocating for is essentially like a 7 percent increase across two fiscal years.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_02: Right. And that includes the COLAs and small wage increases and longevity,
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_02: because we want to keep long term workers around the city who have been Dealing
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_02: with a lot of the tumultuous nature for a long time now.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so the city is sort of like sticking up there like just the 3% cap.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_02: So the mayor, another mandate of the mayor from the beginning was a 3% cap,
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_02: like nothing above 3%.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: Over two years.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yes. And you can sort of manipulate that whatever you want to his bargaining teams.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so we've been obviously pushing back against that because- That's an inflationary pay cut.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: Inflation is going to go up more than three percent in two years, or at least it certainly has.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it has. And it's expected to next year as well.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so, I mean, we are sympathetic to we are sympathetic to the budget at the city of Portland.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_02: We are all the finance analysts in the whole city are part of our union.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: We everybody for the most part in the city budget office.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_02: We have a deep knowledge of the city budget,
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: and so we do not take it lightly when we put forward a contract proposal.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_02: We also have members who are just, our members are very committed public servants, right?
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: They could be making more elsewhere, right,
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_02: with the skill sets that they're bringing,
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_02: but we're committed to the city of Portland and the work we do.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so we don't take this lightly, and we have looked very thoroughly at, like,
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_02: what do we think the city can afford?
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_02: And we actually think that this is very affordable.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_02: We think that the budget is about priorities and the prioritization problem
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_02: that we see coming forward from the mayor and others.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: So make for me the city's argument, if you will.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: Is that pretty much the argument, hey, we're out of money,
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: really wish we could do more, but that's it?
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I don't think the last part.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think their argument is-
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_02: We have definitely heard consistent feed from the mayor
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_02: that they don't have enough money, that the budget is not doing well.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_02: But we've also heard him say, separate from that,
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_02: that he feels like the city has been financially irresponsible with its workers.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll just let that land.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_02: Financially irresponsible with its workers.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_02: Coming from a CEO of a company, what that means to me is he wants to crush wages, right?
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_02: He thinks that people are overpaid when in reality people are paid a fair wage,
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_02: but it is below what is now the standard.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_02: Our average wage is below the median income
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_02: that the Portland Metro Chamber itself is saying is required for households to have
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_02: a standard of living in Portland, right? Right.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_02: He has a philosophical fight to pick, I think is what we see.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_02: There's a budgetary component, but this is a philosophical fight.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_02: And we will fight that one tooth and nail because actually city
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_02: of Portland workers make a wide range of incomes and deserve to be able to afford
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_02: to live in the city they serve.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_02: As far as the budget goes, the budget is tight.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_02: We are not going to argue with that,
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_02: but the city has to look at where they're spending money
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_02: and how they're spending money and look at those priorities.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_02: And we don't think that they've done that effectively.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: I take it some of your argument because we've now had this conversation is, well,
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: you seem to be hiring high paid executives and also firing high paid executives
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: and spending money there.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think anybody objectively watching
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: You can't help but know
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: about the Moda Center deal and finding the millions of dollars for that pledge
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: to try to keep the Blazers in town.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think it makes sense for the city to be making investments there.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not against that, but it's hard to say, oh, we got that for this, but not for you.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to keep you at 3% over two years, which is absolutely going to be below inflation.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_02: Where the city is spending their money, I think, should absolutely be up for question.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_02: And when they're telling us that they don't have enough money,
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_02: but then we know that they're hiring, they're doing a management bloat.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_02: When management is up 38% in the last five years,
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_02: but the number of workers at the city is only up 7%,
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_02: you can see that there is a distinction of how they are prioritizing their money.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_02: Those management positions are not cheap positions.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, with the recent realignment,
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_02: we did an information request to learn about which managers had been brought
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: in as a part of this.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_02: We learned that while they were asking our members to be laid off
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_02: and to take demotions, we had a set of managers who were getting $25,000.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_02: One was getting 87% increase in their wages.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_02: And these are 84%, excuse me.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_02: And these are some of the people who were orchestrating the realignment, right?
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_02: So that is the exact distinction of like, oh, you're being laid off and you're getting a raise.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so when it comes to our contracts,
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_02: we are not asking for more than as reasonable and more
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_02: than other labor unions are getting.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_02: And we do not believe that the city can't afford it.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_02: We believe they're not prioritizing it.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_01: So this is going to be a big week for you. Yes. Coming up.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so this episode will go out on November 4th,
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_01: which also happens to be one of two days of mediation that you're going to enter
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: into before you potentially actually go out on strike. That's right.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: So take us on the timeline.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_01: What's next?
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_02: So we will be in mediation.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I hope all day on the 4th to November.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_02: And try to reach a deal.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_02: Our union absolutely wants to come to a deal.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_02: We think we're presenting something reasonable that the city can come to.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_02: We think this is a philosophical fight that the mayor's having.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_02: So let's get in a room and let's work it out.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_02: And the state mediators will be there to hopefully help us with that.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then we will be we in the meantime are building up our.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_02: And
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_02: so we're spending
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_02: a lot of time and energy having one-on-one conversations,
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: helping people understand the rules and regulations,
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_02: helping people understand what it will feel like to not go to your work
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_02: and instead go out to the picket line, which is a huge problem.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_02: Mental shift, right?
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_02: For people who are so committed to their work that they do essential services.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_02: We have members who work in the PPB, for example,
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_02: who do victims advocate work and their job is to go out with detectives
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_02: and police officers in these like Horrible situations of human trafficking
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_02: and sexual violence and support the victims through that. Right.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_02: And they you know, we have other folks who are providing the sort of like records
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_02: that are needed to child welfare so that they can determine
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_02: if children should be able to stay in the homes.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_02: These are critical jobs that people will step away from.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_02: And they do that with a heavy heart of knowing that, like,
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: if we can't step away and go on strike for what we deserve,
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_02: then we're We will just be under the thumb of the city forever.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_02: But these jobs are really critical.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_02: And this is what's going to be missing when people go out on strike.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's so tough because you believe in the work, which is why you do the work.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what you're there for.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't imagine, you know, you're thinking to yourself, hey,
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: I show up to work because, you know, and I, as the former district attorney,
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_01: those victim advocates are crucial in helping people.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: The fear
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: that they have to go through to talk to law enforcement,
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_01: be interviewed over and over again.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea that they might have to do that without somebody there
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: by their side is, you know, and I know the people doing that work also can't fathom
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_01: that being the case that somebody might have to go through that without them.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we hold this they hold this work very close to them.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that, you know, one of the reasons why folks like that are like,
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_02: like really taking it seriously that they might have to go on strike is
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_02: because those jobs, the city treats those jobs like entry level positions, right?
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_02: They are one of the lowest wage scales, right?
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_02: They are not being given the respect they deserve, despite their impossible task, right?
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_02: They are on call.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_02: 24-7 for two weeks at a time over the entire year.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_02: And some of that on-call work is uncompensated right now.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_02: And we are fighting to get that changed in our contract.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_02: So those workers are doing the work that Portlanders need and they are being
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_02: in some cases uncompensated for it.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_02: And that is that's not fair.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_01: We do not, as a society and as a city and as a county, as an estate,
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: invest enough into resources for victims of crime.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of those things that we just don't do enough for them.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that trauma that they have to go through, that manifests in health issues,
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_01: that manifests in other ways that are negative to society.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems like something that we really should take care of.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's incredibly hard work for the staff who do it.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's such hard work.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_01: The trauma that they absorb and the wages that they get,
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_01: it really should be a more compensated position.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_01: So the fourth mediation, the eighth mediation,
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_01: and then no resolution, the ninth,
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: you're on strike.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_02: We've declared that we will be going on strike November 9th if we do not have
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_02: a settled contract by then, a tentative agreement.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_02: So we are preparing for that possibility,
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_02: even though we're going to be working with the city to avoid it up until that point.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_01: What does that mean for your members being on strike?
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they are going without compensation.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's some form of relief for a little while or how does that work?
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, when you are on strike, you are not paid.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_02: So people have to just accept the fact that when we go on strike, we will not be compensated.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_02: And there is, you know, there's always the possibility,
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_02: depending on how strong the strike is, of being able to like negotiate for wages.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_02: But that is absolutely not guaranteed.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_02: People should just assume they will not be paid.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_02: Can't take vacation or sick leave or anything like that.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_02: And what it looks like is putting all of your computer equipment aside
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_02: and going downtown to City Hall to join the picket. Wow. Yeah.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I imagine you all are raising a strike fund looking for, you know,
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_01: the potential of resources.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, all kinds of things, food banks, things to help get people through.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_02: We are.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_02: We have a hardship fund that we're building and it's on our website, cppwunion.org.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_02: On the front page, you'll see a link to the hardship fund,
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_02: which is for members who have an extraordinary situation, medical emergencies,
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_02: things like that, who, you know, really cannot afford to go without that work.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_02: To try to help people feel like they can go on strike and still stay in their home or whatever.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_02: So we welcome donations from individuals, organizations, other unions,
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_02: and then we welcome people to bring food and, you know,
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_02: and just support down to the strike line.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody will be welcome to come join us 9 a.m. at City Hall.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_02: We might start earlier than that, but people would be welcome to join us then.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_01: So for Portlanders who maybe aren't tracking this issue,
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_01: maybe this is the first time they're hearing about this,
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_01: or maybe they're not going to listen to this episode in time and they're going
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_01: to wake up on November 9th.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_01: And if this isn't resolved, what's that going to look like for our city?
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of the work that we do is directly working with community members.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, for example, at the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability,
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_02: we represent the garbage, recycling and compost system.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_02: These are the folks who work on, you know, apartment garbage issues.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so we might see that apartments,
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_02: a garbage overflow that could be exacerbated by slow response from the city,
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_02: degraded living conditions in those days, assuming that, you know,
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_02: if things continue.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_02: We have the folks who do emergency...
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_02: So if a water main breaks, it's our job to figure out what's needed to fix it,
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_02: to coordinate those services to get down there and make sure
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_02: that the tap water is flowing for residents and for commerce.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so if that's not happening,
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_02: we're going to have some serious issues with how emergency water main breaks
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_02: and sewage breaks are handled in the city.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_02: So those are just right away at time of year for that.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_02: I know if anybody has a public records request that's going in and that's going
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_02: to be, you know, things like that will be delayed on the inside of the city.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_02: And a big one that is Portlanders might not notice right away,
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_02: but the city will notice is that we manage all the payroll for 8000 workers
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_02: and a lot of it is manually entered.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so that payroll is going to be a real struggle for the city.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_01: Wow. So your 10% of the workforce goes out and maybe
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_01: the other 90 starts seeing some interruptions in pain.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you'll have a lot more people on the line with you if that becomes the case.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, obviously I think...
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_01: The strikes are hard on everybody.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's an interruption in services, the employees obviously,
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_01: and it hurts the trust of the government to deliver on the services and the promises
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_01: that they make to community members and to show that they can be good stewards
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_01: of our tax dollars because ultimately, They're expensive.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_01: Strikes are expensive because the city is going to have to figure out a way to move forward.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_01: That can often involve paying other people more or contractors or other ways to try
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_01: to deliver the things that they have to deliver.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it is just a suboptimal result for everybody if a strike occurs. Yeah.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly. Nobody wants a strike.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_02: It is a tool of last resort when we feel like we have no other options and the mayor
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_02: and administration refuse to listen to reason.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so we know that a strike is expensive for the city.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_02: And we ask that they instead put that money into our contract. Right.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of paying overtime to other workers, instead of.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_02: Potentially trying to bring people in instead of having the incredible number
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_02: of meetings that they're having right now to do strike preparation
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_02: with high level managers all across the city.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of doing the $11,000 a day mediation, which is what it costs,
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_02: instead put those costs into our contract and build trust with your workers,
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_02: with Portlanders, show that you'll do what it takes to keep the city running.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_02: Because we have no interest in going out on strike.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_02: We would much rather be doing our jobs,
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_02: but we also cannot continue to work for less and to not be able to afford to live
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_02: in the city that we serve.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Carrie, I wish you the best of luck. I'm rooting for you.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm rooting for our city.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm rooting for our administration to get this right,
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_01: because I think we're all going to be better off if this can come
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_01: to a good resolution.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for the work that you do, all your members do to serve this city.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope that this gets resolved.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_02: Can I put in a quick call to action before we end?
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_02: So if folks are interested in supporting,
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_02: you can find our hardship fund on our website,
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_02: but you can also call 311 and ask to be connected to the mayor's office
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_02: and show your support for city workers by leaving a message
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_02: for the mayor's office asking him to settle this contract.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_01: All right. Thank you. Thank you very much.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks to my guest, Kerry Coe,
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_01: for helping us unpack a labor fight that could affect all of our lives very soon.
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, nobody wins in a strike.
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_01: Strikes cost money.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_01: They interrupt city services.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_01: They're hard on workers.
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_01: They shake our faith in local government's ability to deliver.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_01: And most of all, the services we all rely on won't be there for the people
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_01: who need them the most.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_01: Let's hope city leadership and union leadership can come together
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_01: on a fair contract, one that honors the contributions of our city's workforce
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_01: while being responsible stewards of our limited tax dollars.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_01: As always, thank you to the sponsors and thank you to Corbett Hill Wellness
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_01: for being our season sponsor.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_01: Please support the businesses that support this show.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_01: If you'd like to sponsor next season's programming, please reach out.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_01: These civic conversations are possible because of the sponsors who support our work.
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_01: Our final episode will be next week.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_01: We'll wrap up the season and the election results.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope you tune in for the grand finale.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_01: As always, if you've appreciated this content, please like, subscribe,
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_01: tell a friend and leave a review.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_01: Until then, stay engaged and we'll see you next time.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_01: A quick word from our show sponsor, Dr.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_01: Adam Moret at Corbett Hill Wellness Center, people I know and trust.
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Dr. Moret from Corbett Hill Wellness Center.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_00: Feeling good isn't just about getting rid of pain.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's about being able to walk, hike, garden, exercise,
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_00: or simply keep doing the things you enjoy.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we look at the whole person with chiropractic, massage, acupuncture,
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_00: naturopathic medicine, laser treatment, shockwave therapy, and more.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because the goal isn't just feeling better today.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's staying active and feeling your best.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Corbett Hill Wellness Center.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Move well, feel well, live well.
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Visit corbethill.com.