A coalition of local advocates and the development adviser for the massive Broadway Corridor redevelopment have reached an impasse on negotiations for a community benefits agreement, and the coalition has asked Mayor Ted Wheeler to step in.

Negotiations have stretched on for months with development adviser Continuum Partners of Denver. Several disagreements remain, including whether construction workers on the project should have health care benefits.

“We want to be able to define what a responsible contractor is,” said Vivian Satterfield, spokeswoman for the Healthy Communities Coalition, a group that has been designated to represent local interests for labor and social justice. “Part of that is offering health care, and Continuum disagrees.”

Wheeler took part in negotiations early on. Now he’s being asked to return to the table as the massive redevelopment project hangs in the balance.

“Ultimately, I believe the responsibility is in the mayor’s office for this,” Satterfield said. “We are signaling that we may be at an impasse in this process. We want City Council to take notice and hear us that we will not participate in this process unless it is racially just.”

The impasse was by the Northwest Labor Press. Prosper Portland has been working to facilitate the negotiations between the Healthy Communities Coalition and Continuum Partners.

The coalition’s membership is comprised of multiple community advocacy organizations and labor groups, including the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters, IBEW Local 48, Operating Engineers Local 701 and SEIU locals 49 and 503.

In addition to the community benefits agreement, which would set targets for minority participation, wage standards and benefits, Prosper Portland and Continuum Partners are also negotiating a disposition and development agreement and a master plan for the 32-acre property.

“We’re committed to getting it all done, and for us that means what does a win look like for each of the parties and how can we negotiate an agreement that works,” said Prosper Portland Executive Director Kimberly Branam.

Wheeler has not indicated whether he would intervene in the negotiations, although those involved said they believe Wheeler will come to the table. Asked directly whether Wheeler would re-engage in the process, spokesman Tim Becker issued a statement saying that Wheeler “is committed to the Broadway Corridor Project, and is working to find ways to see it through to completion.”

Wheeler has weighed in on large development projects before, including Zidell Yards. The South Waterfront mixed-use plan fell apart in 2018 after the city and the Zidell family could not agree on how much each side would pay for public infrastructure.

The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed the Broadway Corridor negotiations. On March 3, shortly before public shutdowns began, the two parties held a marathon negotiation at Prosper Portland’s office in Old Town Chinatown.

“We literally had breakfast, lunch and dinner there,” Satterfield said. “We were able to reach tentative agreement on so many provisions on the (CBA) term sheet.”

The pandemic “really shifted a lot of things at every level,” Satterfield said. “As a result of that … we all extended each other a lot of understanding and little bit of empathy.”

For the Healthy Communities Coalition, the CBA is an opportunity to help right past wrongs. In past large-scale redevelopments, Prosper Portland (under its former moniker of Portland Development Commission) displaced historical neighborhoods of color.

“This project has to be racially just because of the history of this site,” Satterfield said.

Old Town Chinatown has historically had significant Chinese-American, Japanese-American and Black populations.

In negotiating the CBA, the coalition is looking toward precedents set by other large redevelopments that had CBAs, including the Oakland, California, Army Base redevelopment and the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The coalition and Prosper Portland are working with a number of consultants, including Cecliia Estolano of California-based Estolano Advisors.

“CBAs are a thing,” Satterfield said. “There are some sideboards to what defines what a CBA is and what it’s not.”

Satterfield acknowledged the coalition has a “contentious relationship” with Continuum. The development adviser was selected in April 2018, in large part due to its commitment to inclusion.

Satterfield participated on the community committee that led to Continuum’s selection. “I specifically remember (Continuum CEO) Mark Falcone saying, “We are comfortable executing a community benefits agreement, of course,’” Satterfield said. “We were confident we had a partner who was there.”

Continuum has balked at some provisions demanded by the coalition, including health care coverage for construction workers. In a written statement, Falcone stated that the developer has “struck an appropriate balance.”

“Our unwavering commitment to have all construction jobs on the project pay at prevailing wage and the additional agreements we have reached with the (Service Employees International Union) for wages on janitorial and security are a substantial shift in the private development market for Portland,” Falcone stated.

Continuum is receiving a monthly retainer from Prosper Portland as the negotiations drag on.  “They continue to be active in all of the negotiations,” Branam said.

Meanwhile, all sides acknowledge the economic downturn spurred by COVID-19 has changed the development calculus. Still, the opportunity to redevelop a large swath of close-in Portland is seen as an enticing job for any developer.

“The opportunity to build an entire new neighborhood on prime real estate in downtown Portland is still going to be attractive to the development industry,” Satterfield said. “It would be a shame if they walked away. But regardless of who the developer is, this is the way that massive development happens in the future. There will be a community benefits agreement. There will be community outreach. We’re not going back to where we were. “

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While construction activities have not stopped in Oregon as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship training programs have.

Union and nonunion training centers alike have shuttered their operations in the past two weeks to avoid unnecessary face-to-face interactions. One is Oregon Tradeswomen Inc., which last month celebrated the opening of its new 8,000-square-foot shop and headquarters in Southeast Portland. Now its office is closed through March 31.

“I can tell you that all staff are currently working remotely,” OTI communications director Mary Ann Naylor said. “We were able to complete training in the new space, but we did cancel the graduation ceremony on March 12.”

OTI canceled an environmental worker training and delayed the start of its spring pre-apprenticeship training until April 14. In addition, the group’s popular annual career fair, normally held in May, has been rescheduled this year for Sept. 25 and 26.

“We’re in process of sorting out the details, and making backup plans,” Naylor said. “We are also looking at ways to up our technology game to provide components of our training and education in a virtual manner, including information sessions about our class, career education, and portions of our curriculum that currently happen in the classroom.”

Virtually all union-affiliated training centers in the Portland-metro area shut down in-person operations before Friday, said Robert Camarillo, executive secretary of the Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council. One of the only exceptions is Operating Engineers Local 701, which is continuing to offer limited training due to the nature of the trade, which places operators outside the normal risks inherent on a crowded jobsite.

“We had a conference call, and just about every one of (the training centers) have closed down the apprenticeships for the next several months at least,” Camarillo said. “Some are utilizing long-distance learning to continue to offer instruction as much as possible. Everybody is getting a little creative.”

Local 701 managed to wrap up a training round recently, said Jim Anderson, the union’s business manager. Recruitment and interviews of new apprentices will continue, he added, but full-scale training is on hold.

“We got the round of apprentices through last week,” he said. “There were 12 apprentices, and we had them set up two per instructor and we rotated them through. But for now we’re going to hold off on training classes until we get the OK from the governor.”

At the Northwest College of Construction in Northeast Portland, all apprenticeship classes are suspended until at least April 5 while administrators try to devise ways in which to offer instruction safely.

Instructional efforts at NWCOC are changing to remote and online forms for the time being, said Laurie Emery, the college’s interim executive director. Also, administrative staffers are being asked to work from home.

“We’ve never experienced anything like this before,” she said. “My team and I are developing an online training system that will go into effect April 6, but we’re still working out all of the kinks. As far as we’re concerned we will continue with classes, just with no hands-on instruction.”

The timeline is uncertain at present, but when circumstances allow, students will be able to receive required in-person instruction and take exams.

“It’s not a perfect system, but it keeps students in classes,” Emery said. “Our concern is not having students get too far behind, as well as those apprentices also who are ready to graduate. We want to help them meet that goal and as soon as possible.”

None of this will happen on regular schedule, Emery said, but it will allow the college to meet the hourly training requirements for the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. The pandemic also is hastening plans by the college to move more instruction online, she added.

“We’ve been talking about online training for some time, but it’s never really fit into our model,” she said, mainly because National Center for Construction Education and Research accreditation requires in-person testing with a proctor.

“That makes it difficult to go to a fully online program,” she said. “But in a way it makes me glad that we have this option available to us now. Maybe it’s a future option for us; I don’t know. It will be based on what BOLI allows, but at least we have a framework.”

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With the COVID-19 pandemic spreading rapidly across the United States, states are restricting public movement and shutting down swaths of the business sector.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Monday ordered citizens to essentially stay in their homes and leave only for work, supplies or medical necessity. However, a number of industries – including construction – were declared essential and allowed to stay open, subject to stringent social distancing and safety practices recommended by Oregon OSHA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the Portland-metro area, builders are proceeding. But they’re taking measures to try and prevent the spread of the virus.

The big question is: Are such actions enough?

On Tuesday, Hoffman Construction Vice President Dan Drinkward confirmed that a subcontractor’s employee working on a project at Intel’s Ronler Acres campus in Hillsboro tested positive for COVID-19.

“The worker had limited contact with other employees,” Drinkward stated in the email. “He was working on the exterior of the building. The individuals he had contact with have been notified and are self-quarantining. All workers on site were notified yesterday.”

A change in routine has since taken place at the site, said Willy Myers, executive secretary and treasurer for the Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council, an organization that represents trade unions in and around the Portland-metro area.

“We’ve taken some pretty extreme actions out at Intel for social distancing measures that have been recommended by CDC and OSHA,” he said. “We’re taking those actions and encouraging the general contractors to also take those actions. We want our members to be safe and not be exposed. But we’re not going to overreact either.”

New protocols call for sanitized buses to transport workers to the site, and common areas used by workers on the site to be sanitized at least three times a day. Even the lunch tents, which normally have space for some 2,500 workers, now have spots marked with tape six feet apart for people to sit and eat.

Workers’ shifts have been staggered to prevent too many people from clustering together, while jobsite meeting sizes have been limited and the number of people allowed in man lifts and elevators has been cut.

Hoffman Construction has been implementing an increasing array of safety measures on jobsites over the past several weeks, Drinkward said.

“It’s an extremely dynamic situation,” he said. “We’ve been increasing our social distancing measures over the last 10 days and we’re constantly evaluating what we’re doing. In addition to following CDC and OSHA guidelines, we’re constantly talking about this as a company and getting feedback from people and trying to improve.”

The situation is anything but normal, Drinkward said.

“We’re taking pretty extraordinary measures, and where we’re not going to operate safely, we’re not going to do it,” he said.

Intel has done a “phenomenal job” of taking care of workers, said Jim Anderson, business manager for Operating Engineers Local 701. Its members are running several large tower cranes on the jobsite.

“They’re such a good player,” he said. “And a lot of the contractors are as well. They changed to the staggered lunches and a lot of other measures. And we said, ‘You guys do what you gotta do so we can keep people employed and have a safe jobsite.’ These are special circumstances and special times, and everybody’s coming together. The thing about it is we have to keep building. If it’s safe, we have to keep building,”

Intel’s Ronler Acres is a large jobsite, Myers added, but there’s no reason these protocols can’t be adopted on smaller sites.

“We’re getting the word out,” he said.

Many contractors are taking initiative, such as creating task forces to address the crisis and implementing their own policies. General contractor/construction manager JE Dunn Construction, for instance, has taken multiple coronavirus-related precautions at its jobsites, including adding more handwashing and sanitizing stations, and implementing social distancing for morning stretch-and-flex routines. These were already in place before Brown issued her order, according to Amy Winterowd, a JE Dunn Construction vice president for client solutions.

“Indeed, it’s true that most everything that is already in place remains in place,” she stated in an email. “Things are fluid and we are all responding as rapidly as possible.”

Nevertheless, some workers are questioning why jobsites remain open. One who provided comments on condition of anonymity said that keeping crowded jobsites safe from spread of infection isn’t feasible.

“We have many older workers, and construction is impossible for social distancing,” one electrician wrote the 91��Ƶ via email. “How is this a good idea during Covid? As long as they’re open, I’ll come get a paycheck, but it seems reckless from the perspective of greater good.”

Robert Camarillo, executive secretary of the Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council, said jobsite culture traditionally has been for workers to ignore illness and injury and just keep working. Plus, sick days often are limited. As a result, tradespeople are more hesitant than most to blow the whistle on uncomfortable or even dangerous conditions.

“That’s the type of workforce we develop,” he said. “It’s similar to our first responders; we just power through these things. But what we’re doing is making sure our folks know they don’t have to go to work if they feel sick or don’t want to stay home. That’s why we fought so hard to makes sure unemployment benefits were expanded. With that in place it does give the workers some security to stay at home if they’re impacted by COVID-19.”

In Portland, however, there are few signs of work slowing. The largest sites in the city, including Block 216, various jobs at Portland International Airport and others are running largely as normal.

“It’s so fluid it’s changing daily,” Camarillo said. “Just when you think you have some facts, they change. Obviously these are unprecedented times for us as well, just like everyone else, and we’re doing everything we possibly can to ensure our members are not put in vulnerable places or high-risk places without safety precautions.”

Michelle Brunetto is the safety director for general contractor Bremik Construction, as well as chairwoman of the safety and health council for Associated General Contractors‘ Oregon-Columbia chapter. She told the 91��Ƶ that Bremik and other contractors are enacting many safety measures. They include increasing handwashing stations, minimizing use of enclosed job trailers, sanitizing radios and tools and other objects and hard surfaces multiple times per day, maintaining minimum physical distances between workers on site, and ordering those who feel even slightly sick to stay home.

“We’ve come up with a list of best practices,” Brunetto said. “But this is such a moving target; how do we do this? There’s not a rulebook on this. We haven’t been faced with this before by any stretch of the imagination. So being aware of those types of concerns and trying to head those off as best as possible with continued communication is important.”

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It might be a good idea to get some practice before operating a tower crane … even via a video game.

Equipment operators go through years of apprenticeship and training before becoming full-fledged journeymen. For those getting started, Operating Engineers Local 701 has a new tool: a video simulator that realistically portrays jobsite activities including tower crane and bulldozer operations. The nearly 3,800-member union invested $293,000 in the simulator.

The group plans to train apprentices on the simulator, and take it on the road to high schools throughout Oregon and Southwest Washington for recruitment purposes.

For the Operating Engineers, investing in the pricey tool made sense given that it can be used for both training and recruitment.

“It’s an exciting time,” said James “Jimbo” Anderson, Local 701’s business manager and financial secretary. “Everybody’s talking about an aging workforce, right? We have to invest in our apprentices.”

The simulator was manufactured by CM Labs of Montreal, Quebec, and delivered last month to Local 701’s training center on rural land near Canby. The tool is transported inside a trailer that can be pulled by a pick-up truck, and then must be assembled each time. Assembly takes time; five 55-inch monitors must be unboxed and tightly fit together.

The result is a simulator that operators praise for its realism. In a demonstration of the tower crane program, operators moved equipment, dealing with simulated wind, rain and snow. Another person can appear on a video screen to give hand signals that are piped into the simulation. The unit offers audio feedback, and the chair shakes if the crane operator hits a building.

The simulator offers the opportunity to put apprentices through a low-stakes training, where errors don’t cost money or lives.

“When you can put someone in a no-pressure situation, it’s amazing,” said Terry Casey, a former crane operator who works as Eastern Oregon business agent for Local 701.

For contractors, the simulator offers a chance to hire better prepared operators.

“That’s been a long time coming, and we really look forward to our apprentices training on that,” said Jonelle Anderson, director of marketing for NessCampbell Crane + Rigging.

A portion of wages paid to operators goes toward training, so NessCampbell helped pay for the simulator.

“It can provide them with a variety of different equipment without having to purchase that training equipment for their training facility,” Jonelle Anderson said.

The Operating Engineers are working to recruit a diverse and capable workforce during a time of widespread labor shortages in the construction industry. The number of apprentices the union can bring on is tied to the number of journeymen it has in the field. So the more workers it has, the more apprentices it can hire.

Local 701’s Anderson said he got more than 200 apprenticeship applications last year and hired about 40.

“We need smart, tough people to do this work, so we’re looking for that smart, tough kid,” he said.

In addition to high schools, union representatives have visited middle schools to start the recruitment process early. And it’s not just kids – some apprentices start in their 40s. Local 701 gets recent high school graduates, single moms and even parents signing up after hearing about apprenticeships through their children at school, James Anderson said.

“We sit and listen, we talk to them, we feel out what their skills are,” he said.

To recruit women, James Anderson often brings along Amanda Stevenson, a Local 701 dispatcher who formerly operated tower cranes and drilling rigs.

Wages are set at 80 percent of the journeyman rate, which ranges in 2020 from $36.55 to $56.22 an hour depending on role.

The Operating Engineers union is trying to stay ahead of the curve of construction industry practices. The union is offering training to certify drone pilots in the expectation drones will play a greater role in future construction projects.

James Anderson said the simulator, which is wrapped in photos of construction sites including Broadway Tower as well as an American flag motif, will be a common sight in the region.

“We’re trying to hit every high school there is in Oregon and Southwest Washington,” he said.

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