City of Corvallis Workers Declare Intent to Strike

CORVALLIS, OR – Today, workers at the City of Corvallis, represented by Oregon AFSCME Local 2975, filed a 10-day strike notice with the Oregon Employment Relations Board.

The union bargaining team submitted a revised proposal two days ahead of the final scheduled mediation session on Friday, September 25th in hopes of securing a fair contract, but they received no counteroffers from management and no indication that there would be any movement toward resolution.

“This is not the outcome that we wanted, but our members deserve wages for the work that we do for this community,” says Evan Newton, a Land Use Planner and President of Local 2975. “We’ve been told over and over by management that we do not deserve long-term investment, despite the fact that we are losing highly skilled workers and institutional knowledge at an alarming rate.”

One of the biggest sticking points in contract negotiations between workers and city management has been the concept of honoring longtime employees with additional pay scale steps or longevity pay for years of service, a common practice in many city and county contracts. Management has stated that they are “philosophically opposed” to the idea, and that they have no interest in investing in workers after they have reached the top of the pay scale. Nearly two-thirds of current city employees are at the top step.

The city’s workforce has experienced a 77% turnover in the past four years. According to a recent survey of union members, 56% of current City of Corvallis workers have looked for other work in the past year.

Another major area of concern is management’s proposal to increase the percentage that workers pay toward their health insurance premiums. As the cost of healthcare continues to increase nationwide, including premium rate hikes, workers say they are worried about how that will impact their cost of living.

“Corvallis has already become one of the most expensive places to live in the state, and many of our members are already struggling to make ends meet,” says Newton. “We’re being asked to take wage increases that do not keep pace with inflation, and to also accept a higher burden of healthcare costs, and that’s not any way to honor our service to our community.”

The state mediator has scheduled one more mediation session on October 8th. If no agreement is reached, City of Corvallis workers will head to the picket lines on Wednesday, October 14th.