The City’s Represented Workforce
Unions represent more than 80 percent of the City of Portland workforce. Please use the navigational menu to view more details for each union, including the latest contract.
| Union | Represented Workforce | Contract Status June 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 189 |
|
|
| City of Portland Professional Workers (CPPW) | 750 Employees | Contract Ratified |
| District Council of Trade Unions (DCTU) | 195 employees across five affiliate unions | Contract Ratified |
| Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 483 (LiUNA) |
| Status Quo |
| Portland Fire Fighters Association (PFFA) | 700 Employees | Status Quo |
| Portland Police Association (PPA) |
| BOEC Supervisors in Initial Bargaining |
| Portland Police Commanding Officers’ Association (PPCOA) | 27 Employees | Status Quo |
| Professional Technical Employees (PROTEC17) | 960 Employees | Successor Bargaining began in May |
Labor Relations Team
The Labor Relations Team for the City of Portland works to bargain labor agreements between the City and the various unions, respond to grievances (stated violations of a labor agreement), and answer represented labor-related questions for workgroups across the City. Reach out to the Labor Relations team at laborrelgendelivery@portlandoregon.gov.
How Bargaining Works
There are many different types of bargaining between the City and the labor unions:
When the City says that we are “in bargaining” with a union, we are typically talking about Initial and Successor bargaining. These types of bargaining allow for additions, subtractions, or changes to language across the entirety of the union’s Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
There are three main categories of bargaining subjects as defined by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA): Mandatory, Permissive, and Prohibited.
Mandatory subjects are ones where the parties have a statutory requirement to engage in bargaining and are, in brief, related to matters which directly impact wages, hours, or working conditions. A few examples include wages, overtime pay, holidays, sick days, promotions, discipline, and seniority.
Permissive subjects are ones where the parties may, upon mutual agreement, engage in bargaining but have no legal obligation to do so. They are not directly related to the work, and as such the list of potential permissive subjects can be infinitely long.
Prohibited subjects, as the name suggests, are those which the parties may not bargain or they would violate some law or statute. Specific examples include “Closed Shop” provisions where the employer would agree to exclusively hire union members, or mandating discriminatory hiring processes.
For the most part, Initial and Successor bargaining follows the same timeline across all the City’s labor unions:
Note that the first two steps, direct bargaining and mediation, are minimums. Neither party may advance the timeline to the next step until these calendar-day minimums are met.
In Direct Bargaining, the parties meet in regular sessions to offer proposals and counter-proposals and sign off on Tentative Agreements (TAs) when they have reached agreement on a particular issue. They are called Tentative Agreements because all articles of the CBA must be ratified by City Council before taking effect.
The parties move to Mediation when they have not reached a Tentative Agreement on all proposed articles after a minimum of 150 days. In Mediation, the Oregon State Employment Relations Board (ERB) assigns a mediator to help the parties explore creative settlement options for unresolved issues based on mutual interest. If after 15 days of mediation have passed without resolution either party may declare Impasse, after which both parties will present their final offers within seven days.
From here, the timeline diverges based on whether the unions are Strike Permitted or Strike Prohibited.
Strike Permitted Unions:
- AFSCME
- CPPW
- DCTU
- LiUNA
- PROTEC17
After the parties’ final offers are transmitted via the mediator they may by mutual agreement enter a state-led fact-finding process, or proceed directly into a 30-day “cooling off” period. At the end of the cooling off period, the City may implement its final offer to the union, and the union may strike after providing at least 10 days’ notice to the City.
Strike Prohibited Unions:
- PFFA
- PPA
- PPCOA
For strike prohibited unions, either party may choose to move to arbitration by filing a petition within seven days of declaring impasse and transmission of their final offers. After a 30-day cooling off period, an arbitration hearing is held, and a decision is made within 30 days of the hearing. Unlike a mediator, an arbitrator renders a legally-binding decision on both parties.