Is Portland About to Stop Fighting Workers Who Want to Unionize? Mayor Charlie Hales Says “Yes.”

City Hall’s not made much easy for city workers looking to unionize in recent years.

When Portland parks rangers wanted to organize in 2013, the city swore it wanted to help, before throwing up roadblocks that complicated the process.

And when the union Laborers’ Local 483 tried, several years back, to argue that Portland Parks and Recreation was assigning work to some of its many, many low-wage workers that rightly belonged to better paid union members, the city dug in its heels. Only after an arbitrator ruled in May that the city had wrongly been giving union work to its “casual” workers did officials relent.

But maybe all that’s about to change. Facing a crowd of labor supporters on Wednesday night, Mayor Charlie Hales made an interesting concession: Hales says he’s ready to voluntarily recognize those poorly paid parks workers—more than 3,000 of them, by Local 483’s count—as union employees if they signal that’s what they want. No fighting. No arbitrators.

“I will push the city to voluntarily recognize the recreational classification,” Hales said at a “working families town hall” hosted by state Sen. Diane Rosenbaum and Rep. Rob Nosse, and staged at the SE Portland headquarters of SEIU Local 49. “It’s the right thing to do, and I think council’s gonna support that.” Someone on the dais with Hales—either City Commissioner Steve Novick or Nosse—seemed to utter a hushed exclamation at this. It felt like a surprise, perhaps not least because Hales had specifically declined to voluntarily recognize parks rangers in 2013.

In fact it wasn’t much of a surprise to Laborers’ Local 483, which made sure its members and supporters were in the crowd, ready to press Hales on the voluntary recognition piece, and had called reporters to hint the mayor might support their push. The union’s been in private talks with the city for months over folding in new city employees. This is, after all, potentially as big for the union as it is low-paid workers. It’d swell Local 483’s ranks.

“It really is a sign that the employer is respecting the ability of employees to be a part of the union,” Local 483 Business Manager Erica Askin tells the Mercury. “This is the largest group of low-wage workers in the City of Portland.”

Still, the caveats came flying shortly after Hales made the initial vow of support. Following up a point by Novick about limited city finances, the mayor noted that “90 percent of the general fund goes to police, fire and parks. We need to cut from police or fire to add to parks.” While Hales is pledging to move on voluntary recognition, he didn’t offer a set date on when that might come. Local 483 is pushing for commitments in December, when it plans to wrap up negotiations around bringing some casual parks workers into its contract agreement with the city.

“In the next budget we’re going to do more,” Hales said after the meeting. “We’re going to keep negotiating with Local 483 on how fast we move.”

As we’ve reported, the parks bureau employs the vast, vast majority of the city’s poorly paid casual workers. Earlier this year, Portland City Council agreed to pay all of its full-time employees and contractors at least $15 an hour. That didn’t apply to the many temporary and seasonal workers who toil for for parks—some of them forced to supplement their incomes with public assistance.

Commissioner Amanda Fritz, who oversees the parks bureau, has said she worries she’s running the “Wal-Mart of city government.” She tells the Mercury she’s privately proposed recognizing casual employees. “Glad to know the mayor agrees,” she said Wednesday evening.

Voluntary recognition won’t come cheap. If workers opt to come under the union contract in large numbers, the city will be looking at millions in expenditures—many of them from benefits packages it hasn’t had to pay under the current system. Folding just 86 new employees into union protections is expected to cost up to $2.3 million a year. Hales said Wednesday night he hopes that the city’s booming economy can help pay for that, but there’s no telling where the city’s fortunes are heading.