You should have gotten an email on Monday, June 17, 2024 inviting you to participate in a Classification and Compensation study.
This is a part of our contract bargaining.
Author: CPPW Team
Bargaining Event – May 21
- Want serious raises in 2025?
- Want more fair remote work scheduling and in office exceptions?
- Ready to have cash out options for your vacation leave?
- Think we should evolve Management Leave into a fair & equitable Earned Leave policy?
Then, it’s time to show the City that you are ready to do something about it!
The CPPW Contract Action Team is calling out all CPPW members to come join us and highlight our priorities and our collective power to the City!
Tuesday, May 21
CPPW will be providing lunch
Noon – 1pm (Note: New Time!)
Portland Building Room 217 for lunch, Room 216 for Bargaining
RSVP now to let us know you’ll come
or that you can’t be there in person but want the digital swag to support remotely.
Healthcare FY2024-25
Update about the changes to healthcare costs in FY2024-25. The $25 per month surcharge to Moda and Kaiser standard plants is not ideal, unfortunately, this was the best option of two bad options for the biggest number of CPPW members.
Labor Management Benefits Committee (LMBC) worked on the benefits plan for how to absorb the double-digit increases for the self-insured (Moda) and Kaiser plans, 11.9 and 14.1 percent increases, respectively. The LMBC was unable to come to consensus on a path forward leaving. The City proposed making adjustments to control their own costs by shifting more of the costs on to members through increased costs, increased deductibles, larger copays, and much higher out of pocket maximums.
Labor rallied together to mitigate costs to members and changes to healthcare coverage.
CPPW presented information about this healthcare change during the April 2024 general membership meeting. The City required all labor unions to sign on to the FY2024-25 surcharge in order to avoid potentially much larger and certainly more ambiguous changes to the healthcare coverage for City employees. CPPW leadership put the proposal for a $25 a month healthcare surcharge to a vote of the general membership at the April 2024 general membership meeting. General membership voted to approve signing the letter agreeing to the surcharge.
Next Steps
The LMBC will convene beginning in May 2024 to work to understand healthcare cost increases, mitigate costs while maintaining high quality, accessible, comprehensive healthcare coverage for members. Beginning this process now means we will have more time to develop strategies for addressing the healthcare cost crisis.
Contract Action Team
The only way – only way! – to win a strong contract is to have an active and engaged membership. You would be a part of engaging people to stay informed and take action on issues that matter to our careers, our families, and our future.
The Contract Action Team (CAT) connects what’s happening at the bargaining table to membership and to the broader community. CAT leads the fight to support bargaining through coordinated communication, activities, and actions, while our bargaining team leads the fight at the table by making CPPW demands directly to the City.
Now there are two ways to connect with CAT for the 2026 CPPW reopener!
Contract Action Team Member & CAT Communicator
(Click through the links to sign up)
The network of members that organizes events and activities to support bargaining and other campaigns
You will:
- Get early information and insider scoop on bargaining issues;
- Be a point of contact for the union; hand out buttons, share virtual background with colleagues.
- Help with event planning. Events include: union visibility days, phone banking events, info sessions, bargaining day attendance, practice pickets, union socials, etc.
- Get information out to members – ask people to take bargaining surveys, message out bargaining information, give out bargaining update fliers.
CAT Communicator (A new option for 2026)
The mycelium of our union, moving information through the membership! Pass information out to your coworkers about bargaining, activities, and the union. Listen to your coworkers and bring that information back to the Contract Action Team.
You will:
- Keep information flowing from the bargaining table to your coworkers. Send out emails or teams messages to a small number of your coworkers to let them know what’s going on. (language will be provided!)
- Hand out physical fliers in your workspace (if able)
- Attend your union’s bargaining events and encourage your coworkers to join you
- Host lunch and learns or info sessions with the bargaining team and CAT members to meet with your coworkers about issues in your work group.
Bargaining 101
How this process works in 6 simple steps
- Team Building: Build a Bargaining Team! CPPW members elected a 9 member (+ 1 alternate) bargaining team from around the City to represent the whole membership at the table. See your bargaining team here. Then, hire a lawyer to support the bargaining team during negotiations – CPPW’s lawyer is Katelyn Oldham. Done and done!
- Scheduling and Agreements: Set ground rules with the City and schedule bargaining meetings – this happened on January 24th.
- Negotiations & Action: Each side exchange proposals and caucuses to negotiate at meetings – this will happen during meetings scheduled between March – July 2024. Union members are encouraged to participate in this process by attending bargaining sessions, offering testimony of your experiences, taking bargaining surveys to prioritize issues, and taking action to show the City how committed we are to winning a strong contract. The #1 way to get a strong contract is to have powerful action by the members during negotiations.
- Assess: The initial bargaining period is legally a minimum of 150 days, after that we see where we are at and what needs to happen. If needed, both sides can agree to continue bargaining or the process can go to mediation.
- TA: Tentative agreement is reached. The City send the tentative agreement to City Council for approval and CPPW sends it to our membership for a vote (you must be card signed member to vote!)
- Ratification Vote: When the the majority of membership (and City Council) vote to approve the tentative agreement – our first contract is ratified!