The Oregon Labor Dispatch is a weekly email and blog series designed to keep Oregon’s workers informed of the latest news about unions, worker power, and much more. Each week, we bring you a curated selection of news stories, graphics, and information about upcoming events and actions. When Oregon’s Labor Movement is connected, updated and informed we are able to be stronger advocates for all working Oregonians.
If you have a news story, event or action you’d like to see featured in the Oregon Labor Dispatch please email us at communications@oraflcio.org.
Upcoming Actions & Events
TOMORROW: Workers Memorial Day
Friday April 26, 2024 at 9:30AM | Portland Fire and Rescue Station 21 in Portland
Friday April 26, 2024 at 12:00PM | Fallen Worker Memorial in Salem
The Oregon AFL-CIO will honor the 56 workers from across the state who lost their lives while doing their jobs in 2023 with ceremonies in Portland and Salem. For more information and to RSVP click here.
ONA Informational Pickets at Providence Hospitals in Medford and Oregon City
Wednesday May 1 at 4:00-5:00PM | Providence Willamette Falls Community Center in Oregon City
Wednesday May 1 at 5:00-6:00PM | community space outside Clackamas County Circuit Court Building in Oregon City
Wednesday May 1 at 4:00-7:00PM | Providence Medford in Medford.
Nurses at Providence, the Northwest's largest health system, are preparing for more informational picketing to demonstrate their unity in the fight for fair contracts. For months, ONA-represented nurses have been at the bargaining table demanding safe staffing, affordable healthcare and market-competitive wages. For more information about Oregon City go here. For more information about Medford go here.
May Day Rally
Wednesday May 1, 2024 at 12:00PM | Oregon State Capitol, 900 Court St NE in Salem
Nobody is illegal on stolen land! This is the mission for PCUN’s 2024 May Day Rally. Our demands are for the International Workers Bill of Rights! Register here.
Take Action Today
Send a letter to get Addus corporate management to bargain in good faith and get Serenity Hospice Workers the contract they deserve.
Labor 2024 Events
Find more Labor 2024 events and volunteer opportunities on our solidarity calendar.
Canvass for Lisa Fragala for HD 8 and Dan Rayfield for Attorney General
Sunday April 28, 2024 at 10:00AM | Meet at Oregon AFSCME Council 75 in Eugene
Join Oregon Labor at a canvass for Lisa Fragala for State Representative in HD 8 and Dan Rayfield for Attorney General. Coffee, lunch and training provided.
Phonebank for Farrah Chaichi for HD 35 and Dan Rayfield for Attorney General
Monday April 29, 2024 at 5:30 to 7:30 | Zoom
Join Oregon Labor at a canvass for Farrah Chaichi for State Representative in HD 35 and Dan Rayfield for Attorney General. Coffee, lunch and training provided.
Phonebank for Phil Chang for Deschutes County Commissioner and Anthony Broadman State Senator
Wednesday May 1, 2024 at 5:30 to 7:30 | Zoom
Join Oregon Labor at a canvass for Phil Chang for Deschutes County Commissioner and Anthony Broadman State Senator. Coffee, lunch and training provided.
Canvass for Willy Chotzen for HD 46 and Dan Rayfield for Attorney General
Saturday May 4, 2024 at 10:00AM to 1:00PM | Meet at the Oregon Labor Center in Portland
Sunday May 5, 2024 at 10:00AM to 1:00PM | Meet at the Oregon Labor Center in Portland
Join Oregon Labor at a canvass for Willy Chotzen for State Representative in HD 46 and Dan Rayfield for Attorney General. Coffee, lunch and training provided.
Canvass for Farrah Chaichi for HD 35 and Dan Rayfield for Attorney General
Saturday May 4, 2024 at 10:00AM to 1:00PM | Meet at the Oregon Labor Center in Portland
Join Oregon Labor at a canvass for Farrah Chaichi for State Representative in HD 35 and Dan Rayfield for Attorney General. Coffee, lunch and training provided.
Must Read
April 23, 2024 | AFL-CIO Report
"But our job safety agencies have been flat-funded for years, not even keeping up with inflation. Meanwhile, these agencies’ responsibilities have grown with increasing employment and emerging hazards. There needs to be a renewed focus and commitment to these agencies from both lawmakers and the public."
April 16, 2024 | Northwest Labor Press
"Workers Memorial Day falls on a Sunday this year. The unions of the Oregon AFL-CIO, along with faith leaders and elected officials, will hold ceremonies on Friday, April 26 — in Portland and in Salem — to mourn the fallen workers from 2023 while we wholeheartedly recommit ourselves to making sure that every worker returns home after their shift safely."
Oregon and Washington Labor
April 22, 2024 | KREM2
“On Monday afternoon, around 500 healthcare workers are expected to go on strike for over a week. The strike involves hundreds of technicians at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center who work side by side with surgeons and provide imaging, respiratory and psychiatric care. The strike means that they will not be treating patients through the end of the month. The technicians are represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) 3000 union representing the technicians. They say this strike is based on unfair labor practice what they are calling unlawful labor practices during negotiations.”
April 19, 2024 | Northwest Labor Press
“Bargaining with a newly unionized unit of about 250 postdoctoral researchers, Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) has been stuck on a remarkable wage offer: a three-year contract with raises of 0% each year. No, that’s not a typo.”
April 19, 2024 | Spectrum News 1
“President Joe Biden rallied union members at the IBEW Construction and Maintenance conference in Washington on Friday in his latest bid to put his self-declared pro-union bona fides front-and-center ahead of the 2024 election. “It’s good to be home,” Biden declared as walked to the podium in front of cheering members of the labor union, adding his grandfather would be “proud as hell I’m listed as the most pro-union president in history.” “Brothers and sisters, please join me in welcoming the biggest supporter of the IBEW, the most union-friendly, pro-labor president in the history of this great nation, our current and next president of the united states, Joe Biden,” IBEW International President Kenneth Cooper said to introduce the president on Friday.”
Chattanooga Volkswagen Workers UAW Vote
April 19, 2024 | The Washington Post
“Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tenn., passed a historic vote to join the United Auto Workers, the union said Friday, becoming the first Southern auto factory to approve a union with an election since the 1940s. The union’s unofficial vote count, which still must be confirmed by federal labor officials conducting the ballot, showed 73 percent of workers had voted yes by 10 p.m. E.T. on Friday night. It will take a simple majority for the vote to pass. The vote marks a victory for the UAW and for organized labor, which has faced years of difficulty organizing factories in Southern states. The UAW has twice previously failed to unionize the VW plant, in 2014 and 2019. The plant will join a handful of other unionized auto factories in the South, where local laws and customs have made it hard for unions to make inroads. Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest federation of labor unions, called the victory “a historic milestone for workers across the state and the broader South.”
April 22, 2024 | The Guardian
“After celebrating his union’s historic victory at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee, Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers, told the Guardian that he was confident of more unionization wins at auto plants across the US, saying: “The workers at VW are the first domino to fall. “They have shown it is possible,” Fain added in an interview on Sunday evening. “I expect more of the same to come. Workers are fed up.” The three-day unionization vote at Volkswagen ended last Friday, with the union winning overwhelmingly, 2,628 to 985 – the first time workers at a foreign-owned auto plant in the south have unionized. It was the world’s only non-union VW plant. The vote in Chattanooga was the first union vote in the UAW’s ambitious $40m campaign targeting 13 automakers, including VW, Mercedes, Tesla, BMW, Toyota, Nissan and Hyundai, with a total of 35 non-union plants across the US."
April 22, 2024 | Alter Net
“On Friday, Volkswagen employees in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted overwhelmingly to join the United Auto Workers union. This is a truly big deal. The mainstream media — most of whom no longer have labor reporters — have barely mentioned it, but I believe it marks a major turning point for organized labor.”
April 20, 2024 | New York Times
“By voting to join the United Automobile Workers, Volkswagen workers in Tennessee have given the union something it has never had: a factory-wide foothold at a major foreign automaker in the South. The result, in an election that ended on Friday, will enable the union to bargain for better wages and benefits. Now the question is what difference it will make beyond the Volkswagen plant. Labor experts said success at VW might position the union to replicate its showing at other auto manufacturers throughout the South, the least unionized region of the country. Some argued that the win could help set off a rise in union membership at other companies that exceeds the uptick of the past few years, when unions won elections at Starbucks and Amazon locations.”
Labor Law and Policy
April 23, 2024 | The Washington Post
“White House officials will meet on Tuesday with leaders from five major pension funds who have committed more than $1 trillion in capital requiring robust labor standards in private-equity investments, in an effort to push more funds to follow suit. The Biden administration is touting these commitments as public pension funds amass growing holdings in private equity firms, which have been blamed for driving down wages, fighting unionization, and cutting jobs. Administration officials, including National Economic Adviser Lael Brainard and acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, have been in talks to encourage pension fund managers to adopt higher labor standards in their private equity investments.”
April 23, 2024 | Reuters
“The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday unveiled a rule extending mandatory overtime pay to an estimated 4 million salaried workers, going even further than an Obama-era rule that was struck down in court. The U.S. Department of Labor rule will require employers to pay overtime premiums to workers who earn a salary of less than $1,128 per week, or about $58,600 per year, when they work more than 40 hours in a week.”
April 23, 2024 | HuffPost
“The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday voted 3-2 in favor of adopting a historic and far-reaching ban on noncompete agreements, potentially giving more leverage in the job market to millions of U.S. workers. The agency has said that the agreements, in which workers are forbidden from seeking a job with a competing business for a certain period of time, lead to an “unfair method of competition” and violate federal law. The vote by the agency’s five commissioners this week means the ban will move forward.”
Politics
April 23, 2024 | CNN
“Joe Biden will land a major union endorsement Wednesday from North America’s Building Trades Unions, whose leaders say the president has his infrastructure bill largely to thank for it. In making one of their earliest ever presidential endorsements, NABTU leaders are kickstarting an eight-figure organizing program to try to deliver their 250,000 members in the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin for Biden.”
April 22, 2024 | The Seattle Times
“The federal government is for the first time requiring nursing homes to have minimum staffing levels after the COVID-19 pandemic exposed grim realities in poorly staffed facilities for older and disabled Americans. Vice President Kamala Harris announced the final rules on Monday before a trip to La Crosse, Wisconsin, where she will talk to nursing home care employees about their work. In the battleground state, Harris also will hold a campaign event focused on abortion rights.”
April 19, 2024 | ABC News
“First lady Jill Biden, in Minnesota on Friday, will launch Educators for Biden-Harris -- a national organizing program intended to engage and mobilize teachers, school staff and parents to vote for President Joe Biden, the Biden-Harris campaign shared exclusively with ABC News. Kicking off the coalition in an evening speech to educators at the Education Minnesota Convention in Bloomington, the first lady, a classroom teacher for over 30 years, will brand her husband as "the education president.”
NLRB
April 23, 2024 | Salt Wire
“The Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday it is investigating a union's claims that Boeing retaliated against two employees who in 2022 insisted the planemaker re-evaluate prior engineering work on 777 and 787 jets. The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) said the two unidentified engineers were representatives of the FAA, which delegates some of its oversight authority and certification process to Boeing workers.”
April 23, 2024 | Reuters
“U.S. Supreme Court justices on Tuesday signaled support for Starbucks (SBUX.O), opens new tab in the coffee chain's challenge to a judicial order requiring it to rehire seven employees at a Memphis cafe who were fired as they pursued unionization. The justices heard arguments in the Seattle-based company's appeal of a lower court's approval of an injunction sought by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordering reinstatement of the workers. The case could make it harder to quickly halt labor practices challenged as unfair under federal law while the NLRB resolves complaints.”
April 19, 2024 | HuffPost
“Labor officials have received a green light to pursue an injunction in federal court against the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper for allegedly violating its employees’ rights. A spokesperson for the National Labor Relations Board confirmed to HuffPost that the agency approved a request by a regional director in Pennsylvania to seek the temporary injunction. The petition is likely to be filed in federal court in the coming days.”
Commentary
April 23, 2024 | People’s World
“The ongoing story of global warming is littered with ravaged livelihoods, devastated towns, and lost lives. It chronicles a tragic plight for everyone in its path, and it’s a narrative that fossil fuel interests would prefer to sweep under the rug. Many look to Earth Day as a clarion call to take action in the wake of this crisis, and the AFL-CIO held an event on April 22 to do just that. It was the first national convening of a united coalition of labor, racial justice, and environmental justice organizations to hold a discussion on how climate change is impacting workers and their communities.”
April 18, 2024 | The Atlantic
“Last year was widely hailed as a breakthrough for the American worker. Amid a historically hot labor market, the United Auto Workers and Hollywood writers’ and actors’ guilds launched high-profile strikes that made front-page news and resulted in significant victories. Strikes, organizing efforts, and public support for unions reached heights not seen since the 1960s. Two in three Americans support unions, and 59 percent say they would be in favor of unionizing their own workplace. And Joe Biden supports organized labor more vocally than any other president in recent memory. You could look at all this and say that the U.S. labor movement is stronger than it has been in decades.”
