Overtime pay and the 40-hour work week was a heated topic at the Portland City Council meeting Wednesday.
A city council vote on a proposed contract with Portland city recreation workers turned into a heated fight about overtime pay yesterday.
The three-year agreement with Laborers’ Local 483 was the first of seven city contracts to expire on Wednesday, but was pushed back to a final vote in two weeks.
Overall, city employees probably won’t get cost-of-living increases. But unlike many in the private sector, they can expect to retain generous health care benefits, and they face no furlough days. And unless Commissioner Dan Saltzman gets his way, union employees will continue to get overtime pay even without working a 40-hour week.
Saltzman said in an interview before the council meeting that it makes no sense “to perpetuate a myth about overtime that’s totally inconsistent with logic.” He opposes the current system, in which a worker who, say, calls in sick one day but works extra hours later in the week can still claim overtime for those hours.
Read more at OregonLive.com.
{biztweet}Local 483{/biztweet}
