Portland city workers take leave to mourn Black people killed by cops

PORTLAND — Nearly 300 Portland employees have taken bereavement leave since Mayor Ted Wheeler encouraged city workers take paid time off to grieve the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black people killed by law enforcement or in racist acts.

Natasha Eberth, a Bureau of Human Resources spokesperson, told The Oregonian/OregonLive Thursday that it’s unclear if the 295 employees who’ve requested 40 hours of paid leave since Wheeler’s June 8 email did so because of the mayor’s message. She said the city doesn’t track why staff request bereavement leave.

In the email to all city employees, Wheeler announced the city was temporarily expanding its rules on funeral and bereavement leave and that he’d ordered managers and supervisors to approve requests without questioning any employees who request leave.

“We acknowledge that Black employees are experiencing a collective grief and trauma coming from a culmination of oppression that is over 400 years old,” Wheeler said in the email. “We hear and understand that many of our employees, especially our (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) employees, are deeply impacted by these recent events and are hurting.”

The city employs more than 7,600 people and about 2,000 are people of color, according to city data as of Thursday. Of the city workforce, 73.5% are white; 7.1% Latinx; 7% Asian; 6.8% Black; 1.1% Native American and 0.5% Pacific Islander. Another 3.9% identify as multi-racial and 0.1% of employees have declined to tell the city their ethnicity.