Committee votes to send ordinance reinstating city fair-wage policy to full council

The Labor and Workforce Development Committee voted April 24 to send an ordinance to the full City Council that would reinstate the city’s fair wage policy for certain service contracts in Portland City Code Chapter 5.7.

Councilor Dunphy told the committee the policy had been removed last year as part of a code-cleanup package and, after conversations with labor partners and bureaus, committee staff concluded the policy should remain on the books. "This is a policy that has been on the books for many years," Dunphy said, and reinstating it would ensure contractors have clear guarantees about pay and protections as the city enters the new fiscal year.

The ordinance language updates an outdated dollar threshold and includes a mechanism requiring the mayor’s office to return to council to request any exemption, a change Madeline West, joint chief of staff to Councilor Dunphy, described as strengthening the policy. "If there did need to be an exception or an exemption, the mayor's office would come back to council to request that exemption," West said.

Yasmin Ybarra, political director with SEIU Local 49, told the committee the union discovered the policy’s removal in February while checking the city website. "We reached out to [the] council clerk to get more information, and that's when we found out that it had been removed during the update in November of last year," Ybarra said.

Committee members raised questions about the rationale given in a procurement memo that described the code change as a repetitive clean-up tied to state standards and simultaneously warned of potential increased labor costs. Councilor Kunal, who moved the referral to full council, said that tension was a reason to reinstate the city-level statement of values to provide predictability to both finance staff and employees.

After discussion the committee took a vote. The motion to refer the ordinance "Add fair wage policy code for certain city services, service contracts (Code Chapter 5.7)" to the full council with a recommendation to adopt passed; the committee recorded affirmative votes from Councilor Kunal (mover), Councilor Novick (second), Councilor Dunphy, Councilor Smith and Councilor Green.

The committee also opened a general public hearing on labor issues; no members of the public signed up to testify.

The ordinance as passed out of committee would be before the full City Council for a final decision. Committee members said they expect the council to consider the measure before July 1 so contract standards are clear at the start of the fiscal year.