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Tentative Agreement with PPS

Custodians and Nutrition Service Workers Reach Tentative Agreement with Portland Public Schools
Feb 6, 2008 - Members of Service Employees Union Local 503 have reached a tentative agreement with representatives of the Portland Public Schools on a new three-year contract covering 300 custodians and 200 nutrition service workers in Portland’s elementary, middle and high schools.

The agreement, reached Tuesday night (Feb. 5) after more than nine months of contentious negotiation, preserves current wages for custodians and provides increases and other advances for nutrition service workers.
The school district had initially demanded custodians absorb wage decreases of as much as 34% and as recently as this week continued to press for cuts of 16-26%.

"This is a victory for workers and for safe and healthy schools," said Mark Freimark, custodian at Llewelyn Elementary School and a member of the SEIU 503 bargaining team.

"It affirms that qualified custodians are important to maintaining a proper educational environment and empowers nutrition workers who play an important role feeding 20,000 children every school day.

We are grateful for the support of parents, teachers, political and community leaders and members of other unions."
  Mark Freimark
Mark Freimark was the voice of our recent radio ad.
In 2002 the school district fired custodians and replaced them with contract janitors. The Oregon Supreme Court ruled the firings illegal in 2006 , leading to reinstatement of the custodians.

Throughout negotiations the union contended that the schools' insistence on reduced pay for custodians was a failure to appreciate the value of school custodians to the educational environment and the condition of school facilities.

Under terms of the agreement current full-time custodians will continue to earn from $13.25 to $23.62 an hour. Nutrition workers will receive an immediate 2.5% wage increase, a second 2.5% increase this July and a third 2.5% increase in July 2009. They will also receive Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a paid holiday for the first time.

The district will also begin paying as much $826 a month toward custodian and nutrition workers’ health insurance under a complex formula that now gives them an average of $698.

The union has scheduled a ratification vote for Sat, Feb 16.