Transcript

Ben Morris:
Hey everybody and welcome to the first ever episode of Stronger Together. The official podcast from your union SEIU Local 503. I’m your host, Ben Morris, and we’ve got a great episode today. Melissa Unger, our executive director is going to be here and she’s going to answer the big question, why is SEIU starting a podcast? And then we’re going to talk to her about where our union is at right now and where we’re headed over the course of the next five years. Then we have Adam Napier, a custodian from Portland public schools who’s going to be on a talk about a recent contract victory. Adam and his fellow coworkers won the highest wage increase they’ve seen ever in their sub local this year and they help make Portland schools safer and healthier for students. That’s a really inspiring story we can’t wait to have with Adam.

Ben Morris:
Then we’ve got Steve Demarest, the president of our union, who’s coming on to talk about our upcoming union elections. This year we’re going to elect more than 700 leaders around the state to positions that set our agenda for the coming two years. So if you care about the future of this union, that’s an important conversation to listen to. All this and more coming up right now.

Ben Morris:
Okay. We’re here in Portland with Melissa Unger. Melissa, thank you very much for joining us.

Melissa Unger:
Thank you for having me.

Ben Morris:
So, most of our listeners know who you are, but why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself.

Melissa Unger:
My name is Melissa hunger as you said, and I am the executive director of SEIU Local 503.

Ben Morris:
So, I think the first question we want to ask, which is what’s on everybody’s mind of course, is why are we starting a podcast?

Melissa Unger:
One is that, we just want to communicate with people as much as possible and as in many ways as possible. So, lots of our members get our emails, some get their updates through Facebook, some get in the mail, and this is another opportunity to communicate with members in a way that they may be communicating and listening. We also really want to take the opportunity to take a deeper dive in the stories that impact our members, which we can’t necessarily do on email and text. And I know I like to listen to my podcast while I work out so maybe someone can listen to this while they’re doing something else or cleaning the kitchen. And we really want to have an opportunity for members to have a voice. So, our goal over the time is to have a lot more members on the show, sharing their stories about being in a union, doing their work in their communities and in their work sites. And it’s pretty fun. I mean, this is my first one, but it seems fun so far.

Ben Morris:
I think it’s going to be a great opportunity to go a little bit deeper on things, like you said. Folks can read an email or they can get a message from us on social media, but having the opportunity to have someone on and talk for 10 or 15 minutes about a bargaining campaign is going to be really exciting. So, thank you for pushing for it. We’re really excited to do it.

Melissa Unger:
Well, thanks for making it happen.

Ben Morris:
So, the main thing I want to talk to you about today is our five year strategic plan. Where we’re at as a union and where headed and how that fits into the broader context of the labor movement in this country. And you recently authored along with a large group of member leaders, a five year strategic plan and there’s an introduction in there that I thought was a really smart analysis and I was wondering if you could just sort of summarize that for us.

Melissa Unger:
Yeah. I think the reality is, we have a lot of opportunity, but we also continue to face a lot of challenges. The increase in corporate power it’s really causing workers and working families to continue to fall behind. We have been under decades of legal and legislative attacks that have been funded by billionaires, corporations and CEOs, that have rolled back laws that built labor unions and stopped workers, all workers, white, black and Brown, from organizing unions. And as a result of that, income inequality has really reached historic highs, as we see it all of the time in our communities where families are struggling and families who go to work every day are having to work more jobs, spend more time away from their families just to pay their rent. And that really is the outcome of too much power in too few hands. So, that is the challenge we’re up against in the bigger broader fight we’re up against.

Melissa Unger:
I think the thing I’ve been inspired by and I think the opportunities that we have by having a strong plan moving forward is that, in spite of all of these realities and the doom and gloom that may be out there because of these increasing income inequality. We also have seen workers stand up and fight for themselves in lots of different ways. Whether it’s the teacher strikes that happened across the country or our own higher ad campaign here in Oregon to fight for a strong contract and to fight refers specked on the job, or workers even at places like Google standing up and making sure that they have a voice. The reality is that workers with their unions are standing up and making sure that they’re winning strong contracts and being heard. And then workers without unions are forming unions or they’re finding ways to have their voices heard to build that power.

Melissa Unger:
And right now, I think it’s really encouraging. The 60% of Americans say they would join a union. And we see that work popping up every day. Where workers are trying to find out how they have a voice on the job, how they get better standards and wages and benefits, but then also just how do they earn the respect that they deserve for the hard work that they do. So, while this continues to be a changing legal landscape for our union, we have, in spite of that, continued to grow. And we’ve been able to grow by 38% and from 52,000 workers in 2014 to be over 72,000 workers today. And that is because there’s more caregivers and will continue to be more caregivers and more public workers. But it’s also because workers are really seeing that with a voice they can change and impact both themselves but also in public work, really see how they can have an impact on quality public services.

Melissa Unger:
So, there’s lots of challenges we face and some of them are bigger than any one thing can do, but we also have lots of opportunities to take on those challenges together as a union.

Ben Morris:
So, where do you see SEIU 503 specifically fitting in to that, that landscape?

Melissa Unger:
We fit in I think in a lot of different ways. One, like I said, we represent 72,000 people today and we continue to try to make sure that by having a union, those workers are getting ahead. And so in 2019 we were able to really come off some of the best round of contract negotiations we’ve had in over a decade. And that has meant better benefits and real money in people’s pockets that allow them to afford the rent increases and the other increases are happening in their lives and not destabilize their family. So, that’s been something that’s been really positive, we’re really excited about and we have more work to do on that for sure. Because we still have many of our workers struggling to be able to afford the increasing costs of just being in a community nowadays.

Melissa Unger:
We also have been able to do some really strong representation. So, we have been able to really win some particular things for workers who have either been fired unfairly or have been being bullied by their boss or whatever the situation. We’ve been able to have their back. And so much about being in a union is making sure that someone has your back when you’ve gotten in trouble and you didn’t do anything. So, that’s one of the things we’ve been able to do is really have people’s back and provide that representation. And then the other thing is, podcast is an example of this. We’re really trying to figure out how do we communicate so people can be active and how can they get information about how to be involved in their union.

Melissa Unger:
And beyond our own membership, our members continue to prioritize working for all workers in Oregon and so we were able to be a part of some big wins since last year including paid family leave, which is a program that Oregon is going to be developing and we have the strongest paid family leave law in the country now in a lot of ways. And that was a big part of our members saying like this is something we need and everyone needs it, so let’s go make sure we win this. We also were able to really make sure that we increase funding for schools and our members like every other Oregonian, they have kids and they really prioritize school funding. We also know the school funding is a priority for everyone. So, we need to make sure that it’s funded so that we can also fund other critical services that our members provide, whether that’s caregiving or making sure that we’re taking care of vulnerable children or keeping our parks beautiful.

Melissa Unger:
In order to have a good state, we really need to make sure all these services are provided. So we were excited to be a part of that effort. And as we go into 2020 and as we wrap up 2019, we continue to have some really big challenges from anti-union groups and new laws and we continue to learn and adapt. And I’m proud of what we did in 2019 and proud that we’re going to continue to do that work as we move forward.

Ben Morris:
One of the most exciting things that I’ve seen us do is opening up the member assistance center, which is a new call center based in Portland with a 22, I think, member assistant representatives who are really increased our capacity to take calls from people. So, the idea here is that, with this new system online, if you have an issue at work and you need to talk to your union, you can call and get your question answered on the very first try. So, that’s something we were really excited to roll out that Melissa had a lot to do with creating and since we’re talking about it, let me go ahead and mention the number. The member assistant centers number is 1-8-4-4-5-0-3 SEIU. That’s 1-8-4-4-5-0-3-7-3-4-8.

Melissa Unger:
And just to add to that, I think it’s a really great example of something that is new in 2019 and when you think about it, we talked a lot about communication and representation. That was one of our efforts to make sure that any member at any point could reach us. We’ve also really tried to make sure that we have people who can speak in all the different languages our members speak. So, the reality is as we’ve grown as a union, we’ve continued to grow more diverse, and we have lots of members who speak lots of different languages and I’ve been really excited about bringing on the Mac, making sure that people can get ahold of us, but then also making sure that they can get ahold of us and communicate with us in the language that they speak. So, it’s been a really great effort and thanks for highlighting that. It’s been a really exciting new program.

Ben Morris:
So we’re already onto this, but I wanted to talk to you a little bit about what we’re doing in 2020. What we’re excited about over the next year and beyond.

Melissa Unger:
Yeah, I mean 2020 it’s an exciting year. First off, we are on the midst of our, we are 503 campaign, and we have three campaign is to elect 700 leaders. And to set our agenda for the next two years. We are a member ran union. It’s one of the best things about us and it means that we have to elect all the people who lead us. And so that’s what we’re in the midst of right now. It’s a big project. We’re excited about all the new leaders stepping up to run for offices in our union and the lead their sub locals and our statewide union. We also will have our general counsel in August. That is a big kind of convening, where hundreds of members come together to really set our path for the next couple of years.

Melissa Unger:
It’s a great example of members really leading with vision and opportunity to figure out where do we go and how do we take some of the pieces of our five year strategic plan and really put them into operation through general counsel. So we’re excited about that. And then we’re right back up at bargaining. So, we bargain, I mean, 2021 for 95% of our members. We also have an addition to the state unit and child care and adult foster care and home care in higher ed. We also are going to be bargaining our master nursing home contract. So all of these pieces come together in 2021 where it’s a big year where we can make a huge impact for our members. So, we’re going to prepare for that and make sure we’re getting tons of feedback through bargaining surveys of the sort to hear what they want us to be fighting for.

Melissa Unger:
So that’s a big part of 2020 and then, longer term we’re continuing to… These are pieces of our longterm plan. So, one is, we’re continuing to build our union. We’re really putting member leaders at the forefront, really telling their stories, leading, really making sure that we’re leading as a union in a way that impacts all of our members and that they’re having their voices heard. We are really, I think at publicly funded union. So whether you work at the department of fish and wildlife or you’re a home care worker, you’re funded through the state and we provide services that are really providing the services the state needs. So, one of the things we’re really excited about is really thinking about how do we provide quality public services.

Melissa Unger:
Our child welfare workers over the course of the last couple of years have been on the forefront of the fight for child safety and security by really saying, what do workers need to make sure that kids have the opportunity to find a safe, secure home. And we want to take some of the work they’ve done and really see how other workers can have that same impact in their work sites. And then beyond that, we’re also just our members are really committed to making sure that as we make gains, we’re making gains for all Oregonians. One, by making sure that they have the opportunity to join a union and have their voice heard, pushing politicians to pass laws that support working families like we did with paid family leave.

Melissa Unger:
And we’re really looking to continue to collaborate on important issues such as housing, which is a real crisis facing working families in Oregon. And then what really, our members have said loud and clear, that they want to link the fights around economic, racial, environmental, and gender justice. Because all of these things come together to building the type of Oregon where workers can get ahead no matter where you live, no matter what language you speak or no matter what color is skin that you can get ahead and we’re really looking forward to doing that in 2020

Ben Morris:
Great. Well, one last question for you. What do you want to see on the future episodes of this podcast?

Melissa Unger:
Well, I’m really excited about listening to the podcast, maybe not myself, but overall. But I’m just really excited about hearing members voices on this podcast. We have members who lead every day in their communities and in their work sites and hearing their stories about wins that they’ve been able to get, about fights at there and about how people can get involved. I’m really excited about that piece and I’m excited to listen along with our members statewide.

Ben Morris:
All right, well thank you so much for your time.

Ben Morris:
All right. In this segment, we’re joined by Adam Napier, who’s a custodian at Portland public schools. Adam, thanks for joining us.

Adam Napier:
Thanks for having me.

Ben Morris:
So, we want to talk today about this really exciting contract when you guys had, I’ve heard a lot about it and I want to give folks who are at home listening a sense of what you all went through and what she ended up winning at the end of the day. So, as a starting point, why don’t you tell me what things were like, go back in time to before the contract began, what things were like a year ago and where your starting point was for this whole process.

Adam Napier:
Well, I like to go back even further than that. There’s a long history of mistrust. We’ll put it like that. In 2002 all the custodians were laid off illegally. Oregon Supreme court brought us back, only about 130 of us came back at the time. And it was a tough transition because all the management that was at PPS were new, didn’t, didn’t know us from 2002. And contracts that were put in place then when we returned were not very good. They instituted a step pay in the contract, which we were never used to that was actually frozen at the onset. And again, going back to the mistrust part, when somebody loses their job for four to five years and then, we get it back by a court ruling. It’s hard to trust the management when you come back to that company again.

Ben Morris:
Yeah. So, you were laid off as part of this?

Adam Napier:
Yes. Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ben Morris:
And you were out for four years?

Adam Napier:
Yeah. 2006 when we came back.

Ben Morris:
Wow. So what did it feel like coming back?

Adam Napier:
It was exciting because being in the schools with the staff, with the students and the job itself, it’s a rewarding, fulfilling job. A lot of people don’t think that when you think about a custodian, but it’s mechanical. It’s not just cleaning, it’s the relationships that you build. I would go from elementary school and see the little kids at the elementary school and then I’d go work at a middle school later on down the road and I see the same kids. And you see them growing up. Same thing with the staff. You develop relationships.

Ben Morris:
Yeah. So, it felt good coming back.

Adam Napier:
Absolutely.

Ben Morris:
But how did it feel working again with management after having something like that happened to you?

Adam Napier:
Every decision that they made, every policy that they put towards us, it didn’t feel comfortable. Again, they’re going to try to find a way to get rid of us, rumor mills about civil service law that they were campaigning down in Salem to get rid of our civil service. And just the fact that how they treated our contract in 2006, 2007 I think is when it ratified.

Ben Morris:
Right. So coming off of all of this, going into this year’s bargaining campaign, were you optimistic?

Adam Napier:
Not at all. Not at all. So from 2006 until now, we have received on average about nine and a half percent wage increase. And using that 10 step scale that they wanted to implement in 2006, 2007, we received I think a total of five steps. So, people that have been around for 10, 20 years that’s maybe well, not 20 years I guess, but that started in 2006 only move very small amount. And then the percentage is, like I said, 9% over a course of what, 16 or, well, 13 years, 14 years, doesn’t even keep up with cost of living. I’ve seen the starting wage when I started in ’96 compared to minimum wage back in ’96 was about 130% difference. Now we’re looking at about 20% difference. So, they beat down the job so much that people can’t afford to do the job and live.

Ben Morris:
And this is true of custodians, it was also true of nutrition service workers as well.

Adam Napier:
It is. And in all honesty, there are members that are fellow members, brothers and sisters, but I don’t really follow their side of the contract that much. I’m there to support them, but I don’t know much about their numbers.

Ben Morris:
Sure. I mean, it’s a similar situation is my understanding. So, I mean, that’s sort of where you were coming into the bargaining round this year. When did you start to see something different? When did it start to feel different?

Adam Napier:
So, from the get go, our organizer or our negotiator, Evan, he immediately sent a letter to the district, calling them out on hiring a lawyer, which they had this lawyer before in past contract negotiations. He comes from a law firm that pretty much advertises union avoidance, I think is their terminology. And to have a successful bargained negotiation, didn’t feel comfortable is always the pressure and the, I don’t know the disrespect, I guess. So, I think from that day, people that sat at the table didn’t sit at the table in the past. We had the director from human resources, the COO from PPS sat at the table a number of times and two other contracts that I’ve sat on before. Those people were never present. The HR director, she was there every day.

Ben Morris:
So, now you’re talking about working face to face with the people who are actually in charge, as opposed to going through…

Adam Napier:
Middle management and a lawyer.

Ben Morris:
Intermediary lawyer.

Adam Napier:
Right.

Ben Morris:
I mean, I could see how that would make a huge difference just in the dynamics of the table, right?

Adam Napier:
Yes.

Ben Morris:
Yeah. Well that’s great. And then I heard a lot about the school board actions that you guys built a campaign that wasn’t just about negotiating with management, but it was about bringing in the whole community around a theme of healthy schools and clean schools and safe schools. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Adam Napier:
Yeah, it, it actually even started before the campaign. We were having issues, just staffing issues. We weren’t getting custodians to apply to jobs. We were 50 custodian short throughout the district, spread thin, overworked, expect to do the work of two to three people. And I was having issues or I was noticing at my school that I was getting cases of different viruses. Viruses that are supposed to be reported to the CDC and Murcia, things like that. So, I went to the board and said, “Hey, something’s got to change.” And general public doesn’t know about this kind of stuff. We’ll send out a small cleaning team out to these schools that have quotation outbreaks and do a mass cleaning overnight and nobody knows what, what we had to do.

Adam Napier:
When I worked back in ’96 to the layoff, I never saw that happen. We had an ample staff to take care of the buildings. So, safety paramount. And then just after that, when we did start doing the bargaining, we did sit in front of the board couple times, a nutrition services and a custodian, and expressed a concern. I spoke one time and my main point was competitive wages. I counted the amount of people that went through my school in the last couple of years that I’ve been there, about 50 people, they’re leaving because of wages, they’re leaving because of workload and they’re going to other school districts. Our starting wage was not comparative to surrounding districts. I don’t know if they, well, they were obviously receptive to it, but at the time, I didn’t think they really were. It was-

Ben Morris:
Skeptical.

Adam Napier:
Right. Right.

Ben Morris:
But I mean, that makes sense though, right? If you can’t fill the positions and you’ve got these gaps in staffing, that’s going to reduce the quality of service, have a direct impact on the kids, the families, the employees, everybody. It’s all one big connected piece. Right?

Adam Napier:
Right.

Ben Morris:
Yeah. So, when you took that message to the school board, how did they respond?

Adam Napier:
So, I think there’s a few more actions that happened. One of the deputy directors had spoke too at one of our trainings.

Ben Morris:
This is an interesting story. So, I want to dig on this a little bit. Tell us what happened there.

Adam Napier:
Right. In her defense, I get what she was trying to do, but, what she did, she presented herself as a human being. She had a little PowerPoint slide of pictures of her family in her home, which is all great. But it’s acreage, it’s big and nice and fancy up on top of a mountain side and pictures of a fancy expensive wedding. And she’s talking to people that make… some of the part-timers are making less than $12 an hour. So people started grumbling in the auditorium and a petition that we had already had set up, started going around and we got a lot more signature on-

Ben Morris:
[crosstalk 00:24:16] the petition in the meeting?

Adam Napier:
Yes,.

Ben Morris:
Right in front of her?

Adam Napier:
Yes.

Ben Morris:
That’s pretty bold.

Adam Napier:
Well, hopefully she noticed it.

Ben Morris:
Right. Well that’s great. So then jumping ahead, when did this really start to escalate? When did you feel like you were gaining momentum and things were changing?

Adam Napier:
Well, to be honest, we started in June, July and it felt to me like the district wasn’t really wanted to play at all. Meetings were canceled, rescheduled, spread out. I remember in August we wouldn’t meet again until October and that was tentative. It wasn’t until really November then December, there was a week in December where we scheduled three meetings in a row and at the beginning of that, we were notified that the board was pressuring the district’s negotiating team to get it done. So we knew we kind of, I don’t want to say had them on the ropes, but they were being pressured from the other side.

Ben Morris:
So, let’s jump ahead. When you guys settled a contract, what did that look like? How did it feel? What were the winds?

Adam Napier:
So, the winds was definitely the money and for our young custodians or newly hired that had been working for a number of years, that’s really what they look at and that’s what we concentrated on was a good starting wage for new custodians. 1495 was a starting wage and three other districts around us are paying over 16. So, we didn’t get to that, but we got really close. Basically what it boils down to is a 5% for the first year and then plus a step, well yeah, plus a step which is another two and a half percent and then the next two years is 3% and a step. So, people that were making 1495 by the end of this contract are going to be making 18 bucks an hour.

Ben Morris:
Right. My understanding is the 18.5% increase over the life of the contract, which is the largest in the history of sub local.

Adam Napier:
Yes.

Ben Morris:
Which is really outstanding. Congratulations on that.

Adam Napier:
Thank you.

Ben Morris:
Yeah. And there’s also another issue you guys want in the contract as well, which is just cause. I don’t know how much about this piece of it, but it’s a really important thing that we’ve put in every union contract, which is, if you’re going to be terminated, you have to be terminated for just cause, not at will, which means you can be terminated for any reason at all. Are you feeling a little bit more secure? You’ve colleagues talking about this? I was wondering about how this has landed with folks out there.

Adam Napier:
I think it was kind of lost on some folks, but I do understand it. I did a little bit of my own research and digging onto it and I have a family member who was a lawyer and she was like, “Absolutely it has to be in there.”

Ben Morris:
Got to be in there.

Adam Napier:
And for my understanding of it, it’s a huge wind that people won’t really see until it takes effect. So, once the ball salt starts rolling, they’ll probably appreciate it a bit more.

Ben Morris:
Right. So, just kind of looking back on the whole thing, it really strikes me that this was a campaign that was more organized, it went deeper, you had more member engagement. I understand that folks brought in other unions, like the Portland Association of Teachers and community groups to support the work…

Adam Napier:
ATU.

Ben Morris:
ATU, exactly. Yeah. And all of this stuff really helped move things along in a way that it never really had before. What does that feel like to have a front seats, all that?

Adam Napier:
It’s empowering. There’s other unions out there that… At the end of the day, we’re all brothers and sisters. We’re all trying to make things work and it’s not that we’re out for ourselves, we’re trying to better the school district, the cuts that have been made over the course of decades. They always want to go towards maintenance, custodial, bus drivers, nutrition services and even teachers. But it felt good. I’ll specifically want to talk about PAT because, on the last day that we were negotiating, PAT was notified and they started their own little button campaign and picture campaign for us. And pictures were sent to me on my cell phone during the negotiation, that last negotiation from my school. And there must have been probably in the cafeteria, a hundred teachers in there, with buttons and pictures and signs. So, if we had issues that day, I have a feeling we could have gone even further. Yeah, it was a good deal.

Ben Morris:
That’s great to hear. So, and my next question is what’s next for Portland public schools? What do you guys have planned for the future?

Adam Napier:
The fight still goes. And I was at a union meeting not too long ago and we were talking about this contract to prepare people to vote and I told them this is step one. We didn’t get exactly where we wanted to be, starting wage at 1573 right now. Other districts are, like I said, over 16. It’s the first step. There’s other things that we want to fight for. We used to have longevity, we want that back. The workload, the transfers, the right to pick a site like we used to have before. Management doesn’t want to hear about what we did in the past, but things worked in the past. So, we want to try to get that stuff back in there.

Ben Morris:
Well. Great. So, obviously you guys had a lot of success this year. Are there any lessons in this that you would flag for another SIEU member somewhere out there who maybe is struggling to get the same kind of momentum?

Adam Napier:
It’s perseverance, commitment. In all honesty, when I first started with the district in ’96 I was a union member, never went to a union meeting, never got involved, saw the contracts, was happy, whatever I got, I got. But then I got laid off and lost my job. When I came back, I said that’s not going to happen again. And I hear people complain, they need to step up. The handful of folks that do fight for the majority, we’re not always going to be there. We’ve put the call out and people are answering the call, which is a great thing. I was a little skeptical about car teams. Mike Brey and Evan [Pasture 00:31:25] were talking to me about that when we were doing this whole thing and-

Ben Morris:
That’s the organizers on staff.

Adam Napier:
Right, right. And anytime that we’ve ever had a union meeting, there’s not a big turnout. So, I was like, “Yeah, you’re not going to get any involvement.” But to my surprise, there was a good number of people that turned out for that stuff. So, we just need to keep the ball rolling and keep people going. What I’m afraid of is because of this contract people lay down and stop. Like I said, the ball, it needs to keep rolling.

Ben Morris:
You got to keep organizing.

Adam Napier:
That’s right.

Ben Morris:
Always organizing.

Adam Napier:
Right.

Ben Morris:
Great. Well Adam, thank you so much for being here. Congrats on the win. We are really looking forward to see what you all are able to do next.

Adam Napier:
All right, thank you.

Ben Morris:
Thanks.

Ben Morris:
Okay, we’re joined now by Steve Demaris, president of SEIU 503. Steve, thanks for joining us today.

Steve Demarest:
Well, thank you Ben.

Ben Morris:
So, before we jump in, I was wondering if you could introduce yourself to everybody. Tell us a little bit about your story. You’re a longtime member, you’re serving as union president. I think that’s a great way into this conversation.

Steve Demarest:
All right. Well I consider myself pretty much a lifelong Oregonian. We actually moved here when I was in high school way back in 1968 and graduated from high school here in Oregon. Went to school here in Oregon and then knocked around for a little bit. I think the term they adopted later was slacker and at one point looking for a job, I took a job with a state agency, the employment department, and that turned into a career as a public servant. It turned out I was fortunate in landing with that agency, because it was the agency where there’s lot of promotional opportunities. It was also an agency that was represented by what is now SEIU 503, back then it was OPEU. So, that’s how I got involved.

Ben Morris:
What does OPEU stand for?

Steve Demarest:
Oregon Public Employees Union.

Ben Morris:
Ah, that’s going way back.

Steve Demarest:
Way back.

Ben Morris:
Right. So, and when did you first start getting involved in the union?

Steve Demarest:
Well, actually was shortly after I started with the agency, I think sometime after I finished trial service, I was asked to be a steward. So, I agreed. I’ve always thought unions were a great thing. So, of course I joined as soon as I became a state worker. And whenever I asked, I almost always say yes.

Ben Morris:
So, when did you take the leap and decide to actually run for office and take a position at SEIU?

Steve Demarest:
Well, again, it was when I was asked, I was probably about 10 years after I started with the agency, which I’m going to disclose just how long I’ve been around. I started in 1980 and then I think it was in the early 90s, that I was asked to run for a sub local officer. Sub local being the employee department agencies local and pretty much held office since then of one sort or another.

Ben Morris:
So, eventually you ended up running for president, statewide president of SEIU 503 or what you currently are doing right now. So, what convinced you to do that? Tell us a little bit about what you’ve tried to accomplish there.

Steve Demarest:
Well, at the time I made the decision to run for president, which was back in 2016, it appeared that the Friedrich’s decision at the Supreme Court was going to result in the loss of a fair share income for public employee unions. And it looked like it was going to be a real moment of change and potentially a crisis for SEIU 503. So, I thought I needed to step and offer members the option of my leadership as president of 503, I ended up being elected. When I was elected at Friedrich’s had failed because the death of a Supreme Court justice. And I actually thought I was going to have some pretty smooth sailing as the president, but the presidency did not turn out as I expected it at all.

Steve Demarest:
The executive director I thought I was going to be working with, stepped up to take a position at the international as a vice president. So we’ve got a new executive director, Donald Trump was elected shortly after I was elected. And then of course that eventually resulted in the Janice decision and we did lose a fair share payment. So, it’s been an interesting time as president. My goals when I tried to do is be a face for the union, both internally and externally, to keep members involved and, and to, to build up 503, to face the challenges we have ahead of us.

Ben Morris:
Well, it’s been a pleasure working with you, I can say, from where I’m sitting.

Steve Demarest:
Thank you Ben.

Ben Morris:
So, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about internal elections. I know it’s something a lot about this year, we’re getting ready to elect 700 leaders to various positions throughout the entire state and these folks really drive forward our work. So, from your perspective, what is this process all about?

Steve Demarest:
Well, this process is about the way we operate our union. Well, as I said, we’re a member run union and what that means is that we’re a democracy. Our union is run by members who are elected to lead it. And there’s actually two waves of election that we have every even numbered year. 503 is organized into locals or sub locals and that’s based on a person’s employment that determines what sub local you’re in or if you’re a retiree. So the first wave of elections is to elect the sub local officers that are going to govern that local, but also that sub locals bargaining delegates, their general council delegates and in some cases their stewards. Then we’ll have a second wave of elections later and that’s when the 503 governing officers are elected, including the statewide officers and the board of directors.

Ben Morris:
So, if someone was, those who’s listening to this, was interested in moving our union to take a position on something or they wanted to make sure that a certain priority was set in bargaining, what might they do to get that to happen?

Steve Demarest:
Well, still step up and run for office. There’s a lot of different opportunities that are available to people. They can be a sub local officer, a president, a vice president, secretary, treasurer, chief steward and contribute that way. If they’re interested in bargaining or making sure a certain proposals get forward, they can run for bargaining, delegate for their sub local. I encourage everyone who has any interest at all to run for general council delegate. General council is just a fantastic experience and you get to find out what the union’s all about and decide what the union’s priorities are going to be for the next two years.

Ben Morris:
So, you’re probably our resident expert at general counsel. Would you mind just telling folks a little bit more about what that is and what goes on there?

Steve Demarest:
Yes. General council is the Supreme governing body of SEIU 503. It’s essentially a legislative body. It passes amendment to our governing documents. It passes policies that will determine what core SEIU 503 takes. It’s held every two years, every even numbered years in the summer. Traditionally in August is when it is going to be again, this year. The location isn’t always the same, but this year it’s going to be in Eugene. It’s almost 500 members from every corner of the state and every occupation that we represent come together, interact, learn about the union and make important decisions about the union’s future.

Ben Morris:
And the starting point for that of course is all these elections that we’re getting ready to do. And if anyone out there is interested in learning more, I’d recommend you visiting our website seiu503.org\weare503. We’re combining our information about the nomination process, timelines for elections and you can also go and look at who is currently in leadership positions right now, including Steve and Melissa and other folks and read their bios. Lots of information being pulled together there. So thank you so much Steve, for coming by to talk us through all this stuff. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Steve Demarest:
I’m not going to add anything but I’m going to repeat something. Please step up and run for election and in particular consider running for general council delegate.

Ben Morris:
Thank you Steve.

Steve Demarest:
Thanks.

Ben Morris:
Okay. That’s it for the first episode of Stronger Together. Thank you all so much for joining us. We’re looking forward to releasing a new one of these at a rate of about once a month. There’ll be available on Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Make sure to share with your friends and coworkers and give us a review. It helps new people find the episode, and if you’re looking to follow us in other places, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter @SEIULocal503 on Instagram @SEIU503 or you can go to our website for news and updates, seiu503.org. Looking forward to upcoming episodes, diving into other workplace issues, and talking about the challenges and opportunities in 2020. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Thanks for tuning in.