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Unions are making themselves heard in Portland right now.

Whether it’s a grocery store boycott, a potential university workers’ strike, or an under-the-wire contract negotiation victory for medical workers, everywhere you look this late summer and early autumn, a union is making waves. Dubbed StrikeWatch2k19 (by… me), this confluence of local union actions can make it difficult to keep track of who’s doing what, and where.

To that end, here’s an update on where things stand with unions at three major Portland employers: Fred Meyer, Portland State University (PSU), and Kaiser.

Fred Meyer

United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 555—a union that represents 20,000 local grocery store workers—called for a customer boycott of all Fred Meyer stores last Sunday.

The call to boycott came after 15 months of contract negotiations, during which Fred Meyer management largely failed to budge on workers’ requests for higher wages, and a fix to the grocery giant’s demonstrated gender wage gap.

UFCW is also negotiating contracts for workers at QFC, Safeway, and Albertsons—but according to union organizers, Fred Meyer management has been the most unwelcoming of workers’ demands.

UFCW workers voted to authorize a strike in August, and soon after, Fred Meyer began posting signs in its stores seeking “replacement workers” in the event of a strike. Fred Meyer offered $15 an hour for the gig, more than sometime longtime store employees earn.

The union chose to call for a Fred Meyer customer boycott in lieu of a strike—at least, for the time being. The next round of contract negotiations began Thursday and will wrap up on Friday. Depending on how those negotiations go, UFCW could escalate their tactics as soon as this Saturday.

PSU

As PSU students began moving into their dorm rooms on Thursday, university workers picketed outside a recently renovated university building.

The workers are part of SEIU Local 503, which represents the clerical and office staff, IT workers, childcare specialists, kitchen workers, custodians, and other non-faculty, non-admin workers at all seven Oregon public universities. Video from Margo Craig, news editor at the Pacific Sentinel:

The union is considering striking after failing to come to an agreement with university administration over wages. From the Mercury’s previous reporting:

The union is asking for two cost-of-living wage increases in the next two years (a 3.75 percent increase in 2019, and a 3.5 percent increase in 2020), as well as for new built-in raise opportunities for longtime employees. Management has countered with an overall 2.5 percent cost-of-living wage increase over the next two years, and no new raise opportunities for longtime employees beyond what is already guaranteed in current employee contracts.

Another bargaining session is scheduled for this weekend. If the two parties fail to reach an agreement, SEIU plans to officially go on strike this Monday, September 30—the same day classes start at PSU.

Kaiser

Unlike their counterparts at Fred Meyer and PSU, local Kaiser workers got some good news about their contracts this week.

About 80,000 Kaiser workers from across the country, including 8,000 workers in Oregon and Southwest Washington, had been preparing for a possible strike after five months of futile contract negotiations. Workers, represented locally by SEIU Local 49, were asking for higher wages, a ban on subcontracting, and protection of employee retirement benefits. They won those things—or at least, won a tentative agreement promising them—after a bargaining session wrapped up on Wednesday.

“This is great news for workers,” wrote Rae Dunnaville, a spokesperson for SEIU, in an email to the Mercury. “The tentative agreement is very strong."