The Oregon Labor Dispatch: May 8, 2025
- aurora9458
- 2 days ago
- 8 min read
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
Oregon Labor Candidate School: Solidarity Social
May 22 in Salem
Join us on May 22nd at the Salem 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.
Summer Institute for Union Women
June 22-26
SIUW is a comprehensive leadership institute with skills-building workshops, cultural activities and education sessions designed to expand our understanding of solidarity and rebuild connections across our region. This event is for all cis and trans women, non-binary, queer, questioning, and those who are comfortable in a space that centers our experiences. The fee is $940.
📣 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.
Tell Congress No Cuts to Medicaid
Right now, Congress is considering a reckless budget package that would make the 2017 tax giveaway to billionaires and giant corporations permanent, and expand the tax cuts for the rich by cutting $1.5 trillion from essential programs like Medicaid.
Tell Congress to Fund the Arts
Congress needs to hear from you as it makes decisions about next year’s funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Contact your Representative today to ask that they join the bipartisan group of House members supporting increased funding for the NEA and NEH in FY26.
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 guide within our federal threats resources toolkit.
📖 MUST READ
May 7, 2025 | Safety + Health Magazine
A coalition of 28 labor unions is calling on congressional lawmakers to “fulfill the promise of a safe job” by helping in the effort to reverse staffing cuts at NIOSH. In an open letter to the lawmakers, the unions, including the AFL-CIO, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, United Mineworkers of America and United Steelworkers, write: “Fifty years ago, our elected leaders made that promise to every working family in America by establishing NIOSH, OSHA, and the Mine Safety and Health Administration, which were all entrusted by Congress to have distinct and imperative responsibilities that have allowed us to make critical progress over time.
May 1, 2025 | OCPP
In celebration of May Day, International Workers Day, the Oregon Center for Public Policy released a special episode of Policy for the People examining the state of the labor movement. Our guest is Don McIntosh, editor of the Northwest Labor Press, who has been reporting about the labor movement for over two decades.
🏔️ OREGON LABOR
May 8, 2025 | The Daily Emerald
Following a nine-day strike, the University of Oregon Student Workers union has reached a tentative agreement with UO administration. UOSW members will now move to a ratification vote.
May 7, 2025 | Willamette Week
The Oregon Nurses Association is the biggest winner at Legacy. Its ranks have grown from 400 to 3,300 since OHSU announced the Legacy deal. The change was less pronounced at OHSU. The nurses’ union added 635 new members, bringing the total to 4,900. Almost 80% of OHSU’s workforce is unionized.
🏛️POLITICS
May 1, 2025 | The Washington Post
Elon Musk arrived at the White House prepared to take a chainsaw to the federal government, promising to slash $2 trillion in spending. A little more than 100 days later, the world’s richest man is retreating from Washington far short of that goal after an often painful education in the mechanics of the U.S. government.
May 1, 2025 | Bloomberg
Elon Musk has his sights set on the Federal Reserve, suggesting that his government-efficiency team should examine the nation’s central bank. Musk, speaking to reporters April 30, pointed to the Fed’s renovation of its headquarters in Washington as a potential point of inquiry for the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
May 1, 2025 | Axios
Sanders will join a coalition of labor unions, immigrant groups and workers' rights organizations during the event. The AFL-CIO Philly chapter is organizing the demonstration. What they're saying: "This rally is not necessarily exclusively against Trump, it's against all the bad bosses, billionaires, and oligarchs who are attacking the working class to further line their own pockets," Philly chapter AFL-CrIO spokesperson Maggie Mullooly tells Axios.
⚠️FEDERAL ATTACKS
May 2, 2025 | Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Friday proposed a $163 billion cut to federal spending next year, which would eliminate more than a fifth of the non-military spending excluding mandatory benefit programs.
May 6, 2025 | The New York Times
Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins pushed back on reports that his department would slash over 80,000 jobs, arguing that figures cited in internal department memos were merely goals and accusing Democrats of fear-mongering by saying the cuts would harm veterans’ care.
May 6, 2025 | The New York Times
The White House effort to cut funding for NPR and PBS is beginning to take effect. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which backs NPR and PBS, said in a statement on Tuesday that the Department of Education had terminated a federal grant program that funded shows for children. The abrupt cancellation of the grant program, called Ready To Learn, resulted in a loss of $23 million that would have gone to children’s educational shows and games.
May 7, 2025 | Mother Jones
On Tuesday, the Department of Labor (DOL) terminated more than two dozen grants to increase women’s representation in trades like construction, manufacturing, and information technology, and to fund programs to prevent and respond to gender-based violence and workplace harassment.
🚨ATTACKS ON IMMIGRANTS
May 7, 2025 | The Hill
The Trump administration invoked the state secrets privilege Wednesday to avoid handing over documents in the legal battle over Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man mistakenly deported to El Salvador, court records show. Justice Department officials had long previewed they would do so, but a new order issued by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis indicates the government formally invoked the privilege in a sealed filing earlier Wednesday.
May 7, 2025 | The Guardian
A federal appeals court on Wednesday granted a judge’s order to bring a Turkish Tufts University student from a Louisiana immigration detention center back to New England for hearings to determine whether her rights were violated.
🫱🏼🫲🏽 THE LABOR MOVEMENT
May 7, 2025 | West Virginia Watch
As the federal government moves forward with a “reorganization” that has left the Coal Workers Health Surveillance Program largely unstaffed, attorneys for West Virginia coal miners are asking a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction to keep the program running and grant miners a protection against developing dangerous black lung disease.
May 7, 2025 | KGNU
Every second Saturday in May for over 30 years now, letter carriers in more than 10,000 cities across America participate in the National Association of Letter Carriers – or NALC – Stamp Out Hunger National Food Drive. It’s the largest one-day food drive in the nation. This Saturday, May 10, will be the NALC’s 33rd Drive.
📣 STRIKES & COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
May 5, 2025 | ABC News By The Associated Press
About 3,000 labor union members went on strike early Monday at jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney in Connecticut, as negotiations over wages, retirement benefits and job security broke down.
📊 THE ECONOMY
May 7, 2025 | Reuters
The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday but said the risks of higher inflation and unemployment had risen, further clouding the U.S. economic outlook as its policymakers grapple with the impact of President Donald Trump's tariffs. At this point, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said, it isn't clear if the economy will continue its steady pace of growth, or wilt under mounting uncertainty and a possible coming spike in inflation.
May 7, 2025 | The New York Times
The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday for a third meeting in a row, as officials pointed to heightened uncertainty about how significantly President Trump’s tariffs will raise inflation and slow growth. The unanimous decision to stand pat will keep interest rates at 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent, where they have been since December after a series of cuts in the second half of 2024.
👥 ORGANIZING
May 1, 2025 | Bloomberg
Whole Foods Market’s effort to overturn a unionization vote at a Philadelphia store was rejected by a US labor board official, a step towards requiring Amazon.com Inc.’s grocery chain to collectively bargain with US employees for the first time.
🖼️ GRAPHICS TO SHARE
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