The Oregon Labor Dispatch: April 17, 2025
- Oregon AFL-CIO
- Apr 23
- 6 min read
Updated: May 20
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 EVENTS
AG Rayfield - Safeguarding Oregon: Federal Oversight Forums
May 3
Oregon’s attorney general, Dan Rayfield, has announced that he is launching a series of town halls to connect with Oregonians and communities across the state. The "Safeguarding Oregon: Federal Oversight Forums" coincides with the 100-day milestone of his administration on April 10th.
Ways and Means Committee Roadshows
April 25
Oregon is in a fight to prevent federal cuts to social services. The legislative members of the state’s main budget committee will travel the state to hear from Oregonians on budget priorities. Show up to your Joint Committee on Ways and Means Roadshow and tell legislators not to preemptively cut funding.
Pacific Northwest Labor History Association Labor History Conference
April 25 & 26
“Labor in a Hostile Political Environment: What Can Labor History Teach Us?”
NECA/IBEW Electrical Training Center, 16021 NE Airport Way, Portland
Workers Memorial Day 2025: Honoring 45 Lives Lost in 2024
April 28
Workers Memorial Day is observed annually on April 28, commemorating the enactment of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), which affirms every worker's fundamental right to a safe workplace.
📣 TAKE ACTION
Please take a few minutes to send a pre-written letter to your representative and senator: Tell them to demand SMART apprentice Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia's return to the United States so he can receive due process!
Call your congressperson and tell them to stop Trump’s federal worker union busting.
Elon Musk and his unaccountable DOGE are threatening vital programs across the government, politicizing the federal workforce that keeps our country running, and violating Americans’ rights by seizing our private data.
Donate now to the AFGE Federal Employee Defense Fund Help fund the fight against the attacks on America’s civil servants!
Join the labor movement in signing this petition demanding an end to the Trump administration’s assaults on immigrant workers, freedom of speech, the right to organize and bargain, and federal government workers, their unions, and the services they provide.
The AFL-CIO is collecting stories from workers and working families who are affected by the Trump administration’s new policies.
🛠️ RESOURCES
The Oregon AFL-CIO’s compendium of resources to address federal threats against workers from immigration to LGBTQIA+ rights.
📖 MUST READ
April 14, 2025 | OPB
The United States’ entry into World War II presented a challenge to American farmers. On the one hand, demand for agricultural products skyrocketed. On the other hand, a dire labor shortage emerged, as tens of thousands of American farm workers joined the military and others headed from rural areas to bigger cities in search of wartime industry jobs.
🏔️ OREGON LABOR
April 14, 2025 | Jefferson Public Radio
Gov. Tina Kotek and Bureau of Labor and Industries Commissioner Christina Stephenson have announced a joint effort to protect students from bullying, discrimination and harassment based on race, national origin and immigration status in Oregon schools.
April 11, 2025 | Oregon Capital Chronicle
Rayfield hosted at Portland State University on Thursday night. About 200 people attended the event to share concerns over federal threats to Social Security, Medicaid, rural health clinics, unions and food banks.
🏛️POLITICS
April 9, 2025 | Spectrum News
“Passing this legislation has never been more urgent — especially now, as federal workers face unprecedented attacks on their collective bargaining rights,” said AFSCME President Lee Saunders. “We believe, as most Americans do, that every worker deserves a union — no matter who they work for. This bill is about something fundamental: respect. Respect for the public service workers who’ve devoted their careers to serving their communities. And respect means the freedom to negotiate.”
April 16, 2025 | Reuters
A coalition of labor unions and left-leaning groups on Wednesday announced an initiative aimed at providing free legal advice to federal employees who lose their jobs or believe their legal rights were violated amid the Trump administration's purge of the government workforce.
⚠️FEDERAL ATTACKS
April 15, 2025 | Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump directed his health department on Tuesday to work with Congress on revamping a law that allows Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, seeking to introduce a change the pharmaceutical industry has lobbied for.
April 15, 2025 | The New York Times
Across the more than 400 federal agencies that regulate almost every aspect of American life, from flying in airplanes to processing poultry, Mr. Trump’s appointees are working with the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting initiative headed by Elon Musk and also called DOGE, to launch a sweeping new phase in their quest to dismantle much of the federal government: deregulation on a mass scale.
April 15, 2025 | The Washington Post
The Trump administration will seek to cut funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which contributes money to NPR and PBS, according to White House officials.
April 15, 2025 | Politico
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that EPA, the Interior and Energy Departments and other agencies unlawfully froze funds under Democrats’ climate and infrastructure spending laws, ordering the agencies to immediately resume disbursing the money.
April 15, 2025 | Reuters
A whistleblower complaint says that Elon Musk's team of technologists may have been responsible for a "significant cybersecurity breach," likely of sensitive case files, at America's federal labor watchdog.
April 9, 2025 | PYOK
The largest flight attendant union in the United States, which represents crew members at several major carriers, including United Airlines, whose chief executive is a supporter of President Trump, has claimed that a “billionaire-led assault on federal workers” with the blessing of the White House is putting airline passengers in “great danger.”
🚨ATTACKS ON IMMIGRANTS
April 16, 2025 | The Washington Post
El Salvador’s government rebuffed a request Wednesday from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) to free Kilmar Abrego García, whose case has become a flash point in the battle over President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign since the administration mistakenly deported him last month.
April 16, 2025 | The Washington Post
Trump immigration officials and the U.S. DOGE Service are seeking to use a sensitive Medicare database as part of their crackdown on undocumented immigrants, according to a person familiar with the matter and records obtained by The Washington Post.
🫱🏼🫲🏽 THE LABOR MOVEMENT
April 15, 2025 | Ms. Magazine
A vital Department of Labor initiative—and the Women’s Bureau office that supports it—helped us build stable, high-paying careers in the trades. Gutting them now would threaten women’s economic futures nationwide.
April 14, 2025 | In These Times
President Donald Trump unveiled a new barrage of executive orders last week aimed at revitalizing the nation’s “beautiful clean coal” industry. But in reality, it’s already clear that his empty words will do no such thing.
📣 STRIKES & COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
April 16, 2025 | Patch
Nearly 40,000 University of California service and patient care workers, along with an additional 20,000 UC professional and research workers, announced a statewide one-day strike for May 1 across the entire university’s school system in response to what the unions are calling an "illegal hiring freeze," according to two UC unions.
📊 THE ECONOMY
April 16, 2025 | CNN
President Donald Trump’s significant policy changes, including on tariffs, are unlike anything seen in modern history, putting the Federal Reserve in uncharted waters, Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday.
👥 ORGANIZING
April 10, 2025 | Wired
The video game industry’s first direct-join union has grown to roughly 445 members since its launch, amidst industry-wide job losses and an escalating federal crackdown on workers’ rights.
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