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.
Strikes
Portland Area Fred Meyer Workers are on Strike!
Wednesday, August 28 - Tuesday, September 3 | All Portland Area Locations
It’s time to show your support for union workers at all Portland-area Fred Meyer stores. UFCW Local 555 has called a weeklong Unfair Labor Practice strike. We urge you to head to your local Fred Meyer and hold the line until management does the right thing. Pickets will be held at all Portland locations during the stores’ operating hours.
Labor Day Events
On Monday, September 2, Oregon’s unions will gather to celebrate the achievements of working people and the strength we have when we stand together. The Oregon Labor Movement will host Labor Day picnics in Canby, Springfield, and Bend. Here are the locations and times for each event, we hope to see you there!
PORTLAND AREA
Northwest Oregon Labor Council
Clackamas County Fairgrounds
694 NE 4th Ave in Canby
11:00am - 4:00pm
LANE COUNTY
Lane County
Central Labor Chapter
Splash Pad Picnic Shelter
6100 Thurston Road in Springfield
12:00pm - 3:30pm
CENTRAL OREGON
Central Oregon Labor Chapter
Alpenglow Park
61049 SE 15th St in Bend
12:00 - 3:00pm
Labor 2024 Events
Find more Labor 2024 events and volunteer opportunities on our solidarity calendar.
Labor 2024 General Election Kickoff Canvasses
Saturday September 7, 2024 at 10:00AM | Meet at the UA Local 290 Plumbers & Steamfitters Training Center in Redmond
Join Oregon Labor at a canvass for State Representative Emerson Levy and Anthony Broadman. Emerson Levy has been a champion for working families and we’re excited to help City Councilor Anthony Broadman get to the State Senate where he’ll continue to be a pro-worker voice for Central Oregon. Coffee, lunch and training provided.
Saturday September 14, 2024 at 10:00AM | Meet at the Oregon Labor Center in Portland
Join Oregon Labor at a canvass for State Representative Hoa Nguyen and Dan Rayfield. Nguyen is a union member and educator who is running for reelection in Southeast Portland and Dan Rayfield has been a labor champion in the State House now running for Attorney General. Coffee, lunch and training provided.
Must Read
August 28, 2024 | HuffPost
“Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO labor federation, argued in a speech in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday that union influence would be pivotal in the race for the White House. The federation, which includes 60 unions, says that 22% of voters in Pennsylvania are either union members or retirees who’d been in unions. “We can run up the margins where it counts, we have built an organizing machine that can mobilize on a dime, and we have built a singular trust and connection with workers, families and neighbors,” Shuler said. “There is no question that the road to the White House runs through America’s union halls.”
August 78, 2024 | C-SPAN
“AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler urged union members to vote and get others to the polls for the Harris-Walz ticket because the unions and workers' right are on the line in the 2024 elections. Ms. Shuler stressed the importance of the labor movement and the role of unions in communities across America during a speech at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, DC.”
Pacific Northwest Labor
August 28, 2024 | KATU
“At 6 a.m. Wednesday, thousands of Fred Meyer employees walked off the job and began to strike. They claim the stores are breaching labor relations laws amid contract negotiations. "The most important thing to our members is that the community respect our lines. Don't shop Fred Meyer. You can just shop somewhere else -- Safeway, Albertsons are fantastic union alternatives," said spokesman Miles Eshaia. "Everyone who stocks, everyone who works at the cash register, if they work in the grocery department, if they work in the meat department, they aren't going to be in those stores, they're going to be out on the lines." Leaders of UFCW Local 555 say its members voted overwhelmingly to walk off the job.“
August 27, 2024 | Northwest Labor Press
“Staff at the Portland homeless service nonprofit Do Good Multnomah are campaigning to join Oregon AFSCME. About 75% of Do Good Multnomah’s 270 workers have signed union authorization cards, said union supporter Davis Nafshun, a case manager at a shelter in Portland’s Old Town. On Aug. 7, workers asked the nonprofit’s managers to voluntarily recognize their union. “We’re confident that we can win if it comes to an election,” Nafshun said.“
August 27, 2024 | Northwest Labor Press
“It’s a public building the entire region can be proud of, and especially the thousands of local union members who constructed it. On Aug. 14, the newly remodeled main terminal of the Portland International Airport (PDX) opened to the public, with a design so audacious that airline passengers are pulling out their smart phones to take pictures of the airport itself.“
August 27, 2024 | Northwest Labor Press
“Union leaders and workers rights attorneys know all too well what an ongoing scandal BOLI’s budget has been. The agency has about half the staff it had 40 years ago, during which time Oregon’s population has nearly doubled, and Oregon’s Democratic-led legislature has passed some of the best state labor laws in the nation.“
August 26, 2024 | Hotel Dive
“Union workers in Seattle, Hawaii and California have voted to approve strikes, according to social media posts by local chapters of hospitality union Unite Here. Thousands of workers nationwide have now authorized strikes as workers seek wages that better keep up with the rising cost of living and a restoration of pre-pandemic staffing practices. Though momentum for nationwide hotel strikes continues to build, no union has officially called for a strike yet — despite the fact that contracts have already expired for thousands of workers.”
August 26, 2024 | AP News
“The commission also alleges that workers’ wages and benefits would decline if Kroger and Albertsons no longer compete with each other. Before the hearing, several members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International union gathered outside the federal courthouse in downtown Portland to speak out against the proposed deal. “Enough is enough,” said Carol McMillian, a bakery manager at a Kroger-owned grocery store in Colorado. “We can no longer stand by and allow corporate greed that puts profit before people. Our workers, our communities and our customers deserve better.” The labor union also expressed concern that potential store closures could create so-called food and pharmacy “deserts” for consumers. For people in many communities across the U.S., when a grocery store shutters, “their only source of food actually is walking to the nearest gas station,” said Kim Cordova, the president of UFCW Local 7, which represents over 23,000 members in Colorado and Wyoming.”
August 22, 2024 | Labor Notes
“Mondays and Wednesdays are loud at the vast Boeing factory in Everett, Washington. As the Machinists’ contract campaign heats up, the workforce has been serenading management at lunch with air horns, train horns, and vuvuzelas—plus chants of “Out the Door in ’24.” Forty miles south, in Renton, where workers construct the moneymaking 737, second shift workers have used their meal breaks to blast Bluetooth speakers at top volume with ’90s rap, death metal, ’80s pop, and opera—all simultaneously, said Jon Voss, a 13-year mechanic in the wings building. The resulting racket “really drove management and HR nuts.” The Boeing contract expires September 12 for 31,000 members of Machinists (IAM) District Lodge 751 in Washington and 1,300 District W24 members in Gresham, Oregon. The last time a full contract was negotiated was 2008, with a 58-day strike.”
Politics
August 26, 2024 | CBS News
“There are 2.7 million union members in the battleground states," wrote Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the Harris-Walz campaign manager, in an Aug. 8 memo shared with CBS News. "That means something when roughly 45,000 votes in key states decided the election four years ago." Last week, Democratic Party convention planners overlooked no detail in wooing labor. A record number — 20% — of Democratic delegates were union members; all delegation members from the 50 states and territories stayed in union hotels; almost all of the physical work at the convention drew from union labor, from building the sets to the electrical work, as well as the makeup for speakers and performers. And raucous callouts to unions were strategically placed in many of the celebratory roll call votes. The Harris campaign sees its tight collaboration with labor as a force multiplier. "We are in a fragmented media environment and it's very hard to reach undecided voters," one campaign official said. "Unions are the ultimate validator: they can break through the noise and misinformation and lay out the facts on our record vs. Trump.”
August 24, 2024 | AP
“Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO and a delegate at the Democratic convention, said Harris has been successful at outlining the stakes for voters in November while also maintaining that sense of hope and optimism. “This isn’t some esoteric democracy kind of thing,” Shuler said. “It’s bringing it down to the ground, showing people how it relates to them and them seeing themselves in it.”
August 22, 2024 | New York Amsterdam News
“The Democratic National Convention’s (DNC) nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris for president and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as the next vice president commenced with a wave of endorsements from the nation’s largest labor unions. On the very first night of the convention, an impressive gathering of union presidents took the stage. AFSCME’s Lee Saunders, SEIU (Service Employees International Union) President April Verrett, LIUNA (Laborer’s International Union of North America) President Brent Booker, Ken Cooper of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Claude Cummings Jr. of the Communication Workers of America (CWA), and Liz Shuler of the AFL-CIO stood on stage together, they displayed the power of unions.”
August 22, 2024 | People’s World
“Workers in their unions are the biggest exercise in democracy,” declared Julie Su, acting Secretary of Labor in the Biden administration, during the second Labor Council session at the DNC on Wednesday. The opposing ticket in the presidential race, Trump-Vance of the Republican Party, claimed that their platform represents the working families in the U.S., but the organized labor movement isn’t buying it. “You cannot be pro-Elon Musk and be pro-worker. You cannot be anti-immigrant and pro-worker. You cannot be against voting rights and pro-worker. You cannot be pro-sexual harassment and pro-worker,” Su continued. “You especially cannot be anti-union and pro-worker!””
Policy
August 23, 2024 | Minnesota Reformer
“The two-year-old Inflation Reduction Act is fulfilling its promise of accelerating the country’s transition to renewable energy while creating good-paying, union jobs along the way. The Climate Jobs National Research Center, a labor-led organization focused on clean energy jobs, tallied 6,285 utility-scale clean energy projects in development across the country that could be eligible for IRA tax credits tied to labor standards. That includes 105 clean energy projects in Minnesota — solar, wind, hydro and battery storage — that are estimated to create 10,382 jobs. “Solar is exploding,” said Jason George, business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 49, which represents workers across Minnesota and the Dakotas. “It’s really spurred development of much needed energy projects and infrastructure projects."
Strikes and Actions
August 28, 2024 | Click2Houston
“Hundreds of United Airlines flight attendants, represented by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA), announced the approval to authorize a nationwide strike ahead of Labor Day weekend. The vote, which saw over 90% participation, resulted 99.99% in favor of the strike authorization.ippon Steel."
Workplace Safety
August 27, 2024 | Boston Globe
“This week, 3,000 firefighters from across North America will come to Boston for the International Association of Fire Fighters’ 57th Convention, which has become a biennial tradition for our 106-year-old labor union. Boston is where I was born and raised. It’s where my love for firefighting began; for over 26 years, I’ve served in the same firehouse my father did, Ladder 17 in the South End. Boston is also where I started to understand the serious risk job-related cancer poses to firefighters. I’ve buried too many friends, lost too many brothers and sisters. Firefighters are exposed to all kinds of threats — from structure fires and contagious medical patients to hazardous material accidents and natural disaster rescues. But no threat is more deadly than the one we can’t see. Our bunker gear can kill us."
Contract Wins
August 26, 2024 | PopSugar
On Aug. 25, Liz Shuler, president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) congratulated the players from the Washington Spirit and KC Current (the first teams to play since the new CBA was announced) on such a historic accomplishment. "By ending the draft, they've won the right to shape their own futures—a victory for all workers," Shuler wrote on Twitter. "This is the power of unity! #wesaidnow."
August 22, 2024 | Time
“This is, in Joe Biden's words, a big effing deal,” AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler tells TIME between meetings at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. “Women, especially women in soccer, have been fighting for years to be recognized, paid and protected the way they deserve to be. And this contract recognizes that they have a voice and control in their workplace.” “We're seeing women rising up in every field, including to run for President of the United States,” says Shuler. “This is emblematic of what's happening all across the country, with women rising up and demanding more."
CEO/Worker Pay Gap
August 27, 2024 | Northwest Labor Press
“The average CEO made 268 times the pay of the average worker last year at America’s 500 largest publicly traded companies. That’s a highlight from the latest annual Executive Paywatch report from the national AFL-CIO. The labor federation has kept tabs on corporate CEO pay since 1997. It publishes the results at paywatch.org, where a sortable and searchable database lets you see what CEOs are paid at any publicly traded company in the United States. The site also shows the ratio of what companies pay their CEOs to what they pay their median worker.”
August 26, 2024 | Washington Post
“America’s largest flight attendants union, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA), said in a recent news release that many members working with Alaska Airlines have reported financial insecurity, including some that have “experienced homelessness, lived in their car, lived in a shelter, or endured some combination of these circumstances.” An employment verification letter from American Airlines showing a projected starting pay of $27,315 per year recently went viral, with some calling it a “poverty verification” letter that could be used to apply for government assistance programs like food stamps. American confirmed the letter reflects the current base rate for first-year flight attendants on reserve, without premiums or incentives.”
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