The Oregon Labor Dispatch: May 1, 2025
- Oregon AFL-CIO
- May 5
- 7 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.
⚒️ BUILDING TRADES RECOVERY NIGHT
Building Trades Unions Recovery Night
May 6
This is a FREE event and open to ALL Building Trades Union members, family, Union leadership, contractors, and industry allies. This inaugural event is intended to help break the stigma around mental health and substance abuse in our industry, and make sure that OUR members know what resources are available to them. There will be a formal program with a couple of celebrity speakers and speaker panels composed of our members and Union leaders. We will be providing dinner for guests, so please register here to ensure that we have adequate seating and food for everyone.
🗓️ 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.
Oregon Labor Candidate School
May 22
Join us on May 22nd at the Salem, Oregon, AFSCME Office for our Spring Solidarity Social. Exhibits from the AFSCME Labor History Museum will be on display, and special guest speakers will be announced as we get closer. Tickets are $20 to help offset the cost of food and beverages.
📣 TAKE ACTION
Tell Your Representative to Vote Yes on SB 916
Senate Bill 916 is a landmark piece of legislation designed to extend unemployment benefits to striking workers. The bill passed the Oregon Senate on March 20, but we have work to do to ensure it reaches Governor Kotek’s desk to be signed into law.
As AFSCME members and members of the broader Portland community, we have deep concerns with the City’s recent announcement that the contract for Multnomah Safe Rest Village (MSRV) will be transferred from Sunstone Way, a union employer, to Urban Alchemy, a non-union employer with concerning practices as an employer and service provider.
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!
Donate now to the AFGE Federal Employee Defense Fund Help fund the fight against the attacks on America’s civil servants!
🛠️ RESOURCES
Innovation Law Lab has created a new comprehensive Know Your Rights, Responses, and Recourses guide for community members to better understand their rights and develop plans on how to respond if those rights are violated. You can now find this resource within our federal threats resources toolkit.
📖 MUST READ
April 17, 2025 | NW Labor Press
Oregon AFL-CIO President Graham Trainor writes in his monthly column for the Northwest Labor Press about the current attacks on worker safety, including cuts to health and safety agencies and rising child labor violations.
This 2025 edition of “Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect” marks the 34th year the AFL-CIO has produced the only comprehensive report on the state of safety and health protections for America’s workers.
April 29, 2025 | AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler provided the labor movement’s view on the first 100 days of the Trump administration today at The 100 Days Conference.
🏔️ OREGON LABOR
April 29, 2025 | OPB
The University of Oregon’s student workers union went on strike Monday, while seeking a better offer on a new contract.
🏛️POLITICS
April 23, 2025 | People’s World
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond opened the session by stressing the importance of putting “a human face” to job cuts with these public discussions. “It’s workers who wake this country up every morning and tuck this country to sleep at night. And we run programs and services with dedication and pride,” Redmond said.
April 23, 2025 | The New York Times
As Mr. Musk moves to spend less time in Washington, it is unclear whether his audacious plan to overhaul the federal bureaucracy will have lasting power. The endeavor has already left an immense imprint on the government, and Mr. Musk has told associates that he believes he has put in place the structure to make DOGE a success. But he has still not come close to cutting the $1 trillion he vowed to find in waste, fraud and abuse.
April 23, 2025 | KKTV
On Wednesday, dozens of protesters gathered outside the U.S. Representative Jeff Hurd’s office in Pueblo urging him to vote no on any bill which would decrease Medicaid services. Now Hurd is responding to these demonstrators saying he wants to protect Medicaid benefits for those who need it most. Members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) say Hurd has not responded to any of their requests to meet with them and talk about Congress’ proposed Medicaid cuts.
⚠️FEDERAL ATTACKS
April 28, 2025 | Ms. Magazine
In Trump’s first 100 days in office, he has achieved over one-quarter of Project 2025 policy recommendations eroding reproductive health and rights and is working on another 17 percent of these objectives. In the area of LGBTQIA rights, Trump has achieved over half of the Project 2025 policy objectives and is actively working to achieve another 20 percent.
April 25, 2025 | Reuters
President Donald Trump has made it more difficult for federal employees to keep their jobs after an initial trial period, his latest effort to reshape the U.S. government workforce and rein in dissent from his agenda. Trump in an executive order on Thursday said that government workers will get to keep their jobs after the probationary period, which is typically a year or two depending on the job, only if the agencies they work for review their performance and approve it.
April 26, 2025 | NPR
"We really feel the brunt of the public that we serve and the chaos and confusion surrounding Social Security and its impact on them," said LaPointe, who's president of a local chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents 25,000 field office workers.
April 25, 2025 | NPR
Solid benefits have long been seen as a perk of federal jobs, a tradeoff for lower pay. As a result, many federal employees carry their families on their health insurance plans. But now, the administration's "break first, ask questions later" approach to remaking the federal bureaucracy has brought a level of chaos to the government that workers like Waterfield have never seen anywhere, even in the private sector.
April 26, 2025 | CNN
Nearly 100 days. Wide-ranging and chaotic firings across at least 30 agencies. At least 121,000 federal workers have been fired or laid off in the three months since President Donald Trump’s second term began, according to a CNN analysis of official statements, internal memos from government officials and news reports.
🚨ATTACKS ON IMMIGRANTS
April 29, 2025 | The New York Times
President Trump, whose administration has insisted it could not bring Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador to the United States, said he does have the ability to help return the wrongly deported Maryland man, but is not willing to do so because he believes he is a gang member.
🫱🏼🫲🏽 THE LABOR MOVEMENT
April 24, 2025 | Labor Tribune
With federal workers across the country under attack, the AFL-CIO has organized a new legal defense network to help those workers who have been targeted. The free program is called Rise Up: Federal Workers Legal Defense Network. Tens of thousands of hardworking people who run the programs and services that working families rely on have been mistreated or abruptly fired by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency.
April 24, 2025 | Common Dreams
As labor unions and rights advocacy groups announced a mass mobilization planned for May 1, or May Day, one leader said the protests aim to "send a loud and clear message" to U.S. President Donald Trump, his adviser Elon Musk, "and the rest of the billionaire oligarchs trying to destroy our democracy."
📣 STRIKES & COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
April 30, 2025 | NBC 4 Los Angeles
Striking Los Angeles County workers are planning to gather outside their places of work for the final day of a 48-hour strike over contract negotiations. More than 55,000 members of Service Employees International Union Local 721, including public works employees, public and mental health professionals, social workers and parks and recreation personnel, went on strike Monday night.
📊 THE ECONOMY
April 30, 2025 | CNBC
The U.S. economy contracted in the first three months of 2025 on an import surge at the start of President Donald Trump’s second term in office as he wages a potentially costly trade war. Gross domestic product, a sum of all the goods and services produced from January through March, fell at a 0.3% annualized pace, according to a Commerce Department report Wednesday adjusted for seasonal factors and inflation. This was the first quarter of negative growth since Q1 of 2022.
👥 ORGANIZING
April 29, 2025 | Labor Notes
Thousands of VRS interpreters at ZP and Sorenson are organizing with the Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU) under its ASL Interpreters Union.
🖼️ GRAPHICS TO SHARE
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