For the first time in chapter history, PROTEC17 City of Portland members have formed a Contract Action Team (CAT) to support the bargaining team as they negotiate the next contract. Portland members were inspired by the actions of their fellow PROTEC17 members at the City of Seattle and the State of Washington as they navigated challenging negotiations over the last few years (as featured in previous Insight issues), as well as their experiences supporting fellow Portland City unions like AFSCME 189, LiUNA 483, and CPPW.
Similar to our last bargain, Portland members are negotiating with the City using Interest Based Bargaining (IBB), which uses a state facilitator and collaborative process of coming to consensus as a group.
While the Chapter had great success with IBB in 2022, this cycle of negotiations comes with several new challenges. City government was restructured in 2024, and the team is working with a new Mayor and City Administrator. In addition, this negotiations incorporates the results of the first complete classification review in more than 25 years, yet comes at a time of more challenging economic conditions. Given the landscape, the bargaining team knew that additional support for communication and coordination with members would be critical to successful negotiations.
PROTEC17 members Jeanette DeCastro and Daniel Morrison stepped up to the challenge and are co-leading the new CAT. They have brought enthusiasm, creative thinking, and a fighting spirit to their roles. With the support of PROTEC17 staff organizers, DeCastro and Morrison have increased the number of members regularly participating in weekly CAT planning sessions.
“The CAT is doing tremendous work organizing our members around this contract,” said bargaining team member Valency Astris.
“We are facing dire impacts due to years of bad elected and management decisions, and our CAT is directly helping us show our power at a critical moment,” Astris continued. “I’ve never had as many people ask me about what’s going on with our chapter as I have this year. More people are coming with questions and concerns, and are engaged… We have a long way to go, but we would be nowhere right now without the CAT.”
To date, the CAT has organized actions to engage and mobilize the broader Portland membership that include: button-making parties, coffee and donut tabling events, and a clap-in to cheer on the bargaining team. The member-designed buttons are very popular, and highlight a top contract priority – maintaining and increasing remote, hybrid, and flexible working options.
In addition to these fun and engaging events, the CAT also spearheaded a petition campaign where they mapped workplaces, held text banks, and did a huge amount of direct member-to-member outreach to achieve a 70 percent sign-on rate for a petition to the Mayor and City Council to demand a fair contract. The petition was hand-delivered on April 1 (pictured).
“Having a Contract Action Team has been fantastic,” said bargaing team member Emily Wilson. “It’s allowed me to focus on bargaining – which can be a lot of very important details – while also being able to plug into fun events like button-making organized by the CAT.”
The CAT is already brainstorming additional ways to keep up the pressure and continue to be visible in the workplace, and are coordinating with other City unions who are bargaining this year to launch “Worker Wednesdays” where everyone sports their union colors — stay tuned for the details!