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As this morning's Portland City Council meeting was originally conceived, city commissioners were supposed to gloss over a labor agreement that will give at least 86 low-paid parks workers increased pay and benefits. The city had placed the agreement—forced when the city lost a years-long labor dispute back in May—on the consent agenda, meaning commissioners would approve it and other trifles in bulk, with zero discussion.

It would have been a shame—and not just because the new agreement with the union Laborers' Local 483 will represent the city's greatest stride to date toward paying all its employees at least $15 an hour. The discussion that wound up occurring quickly turned contentious, with a pugnacious City Commissioner Dan Saltzman accusing the union of "disrespect and unethical behavior" in stiffing the city out of $80,000.

We've written a lot about the dispute that occasioned this hearing, but real quick: Local 483 has argued for years that Portland Parks and Recreation assigns its low-paid "casual" employees work that should be done by better paid union members. The union finally won a binding opinion in May confirming as much, so now the city needs to rejigger its parks department.

The agreement on the table today was to fold 86 low-paid workers into the union contract for a cost of up to $2.3 million a year, with the possibility of hundreds more gaining union protections in months to come. That's a small dent in a bureau that employs the vast majority of the city's worst-paid workers, but it's a start.

Everything was going by the book—commissioners praising the collaboration between the union and the city, good feeling about city workers being better paid (with little acknowledgment that the city had been forced to provide that better pay)—when Saltzman brought up a separate dispute.

The crux: Under its various labor agreements, the city gets to charge unions when their members—city employees—spend long days and nights negotiating labor contracts rather than working their city jobs. But the city forgot to bill the unions in 2009, according to Human Resources Director Anna Kanwit, and didn't realize the mistake until years later, well after the window to send those bills had closed.

Even so, city officials billed the unions for hundreds of thousands of dollars. All of them paid up except Laborers Local 483, which disputed the $80,000 bill in question.

According to Kanwit, the union offered to partly settle the disagreement, but that never happened.

Saltzman is so mad about this. In the middle of today's hearing he launched into a speech about the underlying respect that's supposed to govern labor negotiations, and accused Local 483 of behaving dishonorably.

"I don’t think you have any intention of paying it," said Saltzman, who erroneously believed there'd been a formal judgment against Local 483 for the money. Then to union Business Manager Erica Askin's protestations he said: "Talk is cheap. When we lose, we pay. But you are thumbing your nose at it."

The unexpected kerfuffle drew Kanwit back to the testimony table to recount the history of the case and throw shade. "We certainly would have taken a lesser amount," she said. "That offer was never made."

And the exchange coaxed Rob Wheaton, an Oregon AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) representative who sometimes negotiates with the city alongside Local 483, out of the audience. Wheaton acknowledged AFSCME had paid $250,000 when the city discovered its billing error—and said he wishes it hadn't.

"We walked by a valid legal defense, and we did so in order to foster a more positive relationship with the city," said Wheaton, who was practically shaking with indignation at Saltzman's accusations. "At this point I think that was a mistake. I have yet to see the City of Portland walk by a specious legal defense, let alone a valid one."

"Frankly, I thought that issue was behind us," he closed. "I’m appalled to see it raised here today."

The upshot of all this? Saltzman didn't vote for the agreement, so it couldn't be "emergency" ordinance that took effect immediately. (That opposition is a bit ironic, by the way, since Saltzman's been at the fore of saying city employees should be paid $15.) It'll pass, though, when it comes up again for a second reading. The other three commissioners on hand all support it (Nick Fish was absent), and seemed a little chagrinned by Saltzman's beef.

"I'm sad that we have had this diversion," Fritz said. "This is a wonderful step for the city of Portland."

City Commissioner Steve Novick, when it was his turn to vote, hesitated about saying something potentially "impolitic," then hit the nail on the head: "Every once in a while it's nice to be forced to do the right thing."

One other interesting thing that was overshadowed by the bickering: Kanwit suggested to council that the labor agreement will end up hurting parks service in the long run, since the city can no longer prop up its parks bureau so thoroughly on the work of people who are paid so little they require food stamps.

"The city has continued to provide an excellent recreation program through years of budget cuts," she said. "We anticipate that, moving forward toward full compliance, we’ll have to make cuts to programs in order to continue it in an affordable way."

Askin, noting the $49 million surplus the city just enjoyed, and the expectation of fat years ahead, doubts it.

"I think there's money to fund it properly."