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.
📣Take Action Today
Tell OHSU: Pay Your Fair Share
OHSU profits off of your taxpayer dollars. The innovative cures that OHSU provides to Oregonians are a result of the groundbreaking discoveries coming from biomedical research. The 235 Postdoc researchers are among working scientists behind those discoveries who have brought in $600 million dollars in federal funding to OHSU. As the Postdocs bargain their first contract aiming at addressing the well-documented global crisis in the recruitment and retention of postdoc researchers and immigration support for the foreign workers who make up 52% of their members. OHSU has only responded with ZERO COST proposals and with the message “OHSU is not willing to pay for postdocs” and “Research and Innovation is an OHSU mission, but OHSU does not intend to support all their missions equally.”
🖤Black History Month
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists: Black History Month Events
Ongoing throughout February both on Zoom and in person in Portland The Oregon Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) cordially invites you to join us for a month-long recognition of Black excellence in conjunction with the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association, Portland Rising, Oregon AFSCME, and AFRAM/SEIU Local 503. The primary focus is health care.
TODAY: February 22, 2024 at 6:30pm: Labor History Workshop (In Person at Oregon AFL-CIO)
February 29, 2024 at 7:00pm: Movie Night (In Person at SEIU Local 503)
🗺️Strike Map
There is still time to get out to the Oregon Nurses Association strike in Springfield, walk the line, and stand in solidarity with nurses in their fight for a fair contract.
The Strike Map below has all the information you need to get there, please share it with your friends and family and encourage them to join the line as well!
If your union is planning to strike, please send a message to communications@oraflcio.org to help us spread the word and mobilize support for your strike.
Must Read
February 19, 2024 | Northwest Labor Press
From Oregon AFL-CIO President Graham Trainor: “On January 27, over 100 trade unionists gathered for the first-ever Oregon Strike School, a day-long training focused on building stronger and more effective contract campaigns and powerful strike threats throughout Oregon labor. With attendees from over 30 different unions from across Oregon’s economy, it was clear that our movement isn’t satisfied with the history-making action of 2023. In fact, based on the energy and the focus at Strike School, and what we continue to see in the first few months of 2024, last year’s labor action was just the beginning.”
Oregon Labor
February 20, 2024 | The Oregonian
“AFSCME’s Child Care Providers Together union represents certified and registered child care providers, public affairs manager David Kreisman said. After the union bargained for the retirement benefit, all of the state’s registered and certified providers were invited to create an OregonSaves Roth IRA and become eligible for the benefit, he said.”
February 20, 2024 | OHSU
“The program is the result of a unique partnership between AFSCME Local 328, OHSU, United We Heal and Unite Oregon. United We Heal, Oregon AFSCME’s health care training and development organization, received the Future Ready Oregon grant.”
February 21, 2024 | Yahoo! Finance
““[W]e were pleased to find not only that they understood and liked the grocery business, but also recognized the importance of quality employees to their ongoing success,” Clay said. “C&S has the opportunity to bring a long term strategy to a grocery industry focused on the short-term demands of shareholders and private equity investors.”
February 19, 2024 | Northwest Labor Press
“Yep, we somehow aren’t already unionized.” That cheeky quip comes from newsroom workers at the Portland Mercury, the (Seattle) Stranger, and other Index Media publications who announced on Feb. 12 that they want to unionize. Some readers may be surprised that workers at the “alternative” publications weren’t already in a union, considering the progressively pro-labor stance of their reporting, said Portland Mercury reporter Taylor Griggs.”
February 19, 2024 | Northwest Labor Press
“The union that represents more than 1,500 Portland Community College (PCC) faculty and academic professionals reached tentative agreement on a new union contract Jan. 29, the Monday after a rally where members hinted they were ready to strike. If ratified as expected, the four-year agreement would provide a 14% cost of living raise over the next two years for all members of the Portland Community College Faculty Federation and Academic Professionals (PCCFFAP), also known as American Federation of Teachers Local 2277.”
February 19, 2024 | OPB
“In 2020, a Ford dealership located in a suburb of Portland settled with the U.S. Department of Labor for nearly $28,000 over reported violations of federal child labor law. Federal investigators had learned that six workers, ages 16 and 17, were performing prohibited tasks as lot attendants at Landmark Ford in Tigard, including operating trash compactors. One teen was injured when he was thrown backwards into a tailgate while riding in the bed of a pickup truck.”
February 16, 2024 | OPB
“The Salem Keizer Education Association Thursday night declared an impasse in contract negotiations with Oregon’s second-largest school district. While the teachers union and Salem-Keizer Public Schools have made progress on several issues, SKEA leaders said workload and class-size caps remain sticking points.”
Organizing
Off-Broadway's Backstage Workers Are Unionizing; Atlantic Theater Company Workers Vote to Join IATSE
February 20, 2024 | Playbill
“Backstage workers at Off-Broadway's Atlantic Theater Company have voted to unionize and join IATSE, a historic move that could have far-reaching implications for the Off-Broadway industry. Delayed results of the vote come days after a similar outcome at Off-Broadway's Titaníque, made official just last week.”
February 16, 2024 | Vice
“Amazon argued in a court filing on Thursday that the National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional as part of an ongoing case against the company for retaliation against unionized workers. It is the third company to do so in recent months, joining Trader Joe’s and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The NLRB is investigating numerous unfair labor practice charges against Amazon for its anti-union activity at JFK8, the famed Staten Island warehouse that became the first in the U.S. to unionize in 2022.”
Politics
February 16, 2024 | The Nation
“This moment has been decades in the making,” declared Michigan AFL-CIO President Ron Bieber. “By standing up and taking their power back, at the ballot box and in the workplace, workers have made it clear Michigan is and always will be the beating heart of the modern American labor movement.”
February 16, 2024 | People’s World
“The AFL-CIO will play a big role in the fight, as it did, one speaker said, when it led the successful assault on GOP President George W. Bush’s 2005 plan to privatize Social Security, thus turning over its billions of dollars in annual revenue—taken from workers’ payroll taxes—to wolves of Wall Street.”
February 16, 2024 | The Guardian
“As housing has become a top issue in strikes and protests in recent months, US unions are pushing for change and backing innovative solutions for the housing affordability crisis. With US house prices and rents rising in recent years, and high interest rates and inflation taking their toll, housing affordability has become a major issue at the bargaining table for US labor unions. Many workers are facing 60-, 90-, even 120-minute commutes to work because they cannot afford to live near their jobs.”
Strikes & Collective Bargaining
February 19, 2024 | Labor Notes
“The Post-Gazette is the largest newspaper serving that metropolitan area and the surrounding Pennsylvania counties. Journalists have tried a litany of tactics to sway the Block family, which owns the Post-Gazette as a holding of Block Communications, Inc.”
Faith & Labor
February 20, 2024 | Phoenix New Times
“Public pressure is mounting on the city of Phoenix to address complaints against the company it uses to manage concessions at Sky Harbor International Airport as workers raise concerns about racial inequities in pay, discriminatory discipline and unsanitary conditions. Religious leaders sent a letter to Phoenix City Council on Thursday asking for officials to investigate allegations of racial disparities by airport contractor SSP America.”
Tax Fairness
February 15, 2024 | Oregon Center for Public Policy
“By the end of this decade, local governments in Oregon could have about $140 million less per year to pay for libraries, fire departments, and other local services if a proposal to freeze property taxes for homeowners who are seniors becomes law.”