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 Legislative Conference & Lobby Day
February 25, 2025 in Salem
RSVP Required: Please email communications@oraflcio.org to request the registration link
Join union members from across Oregon to meet with legislators, advocate for working people, and make our voices heard in Salem. This event is free of charge and is only open to union members, union leaders, and staff of unions.
✊🏿Black History Month Events
Thank you to the Oregon Coalition of Black Trade Unionists for organizing an incredible series of events for Black History Month!
“The Revolution Continues:” The Need for a Revolution
February 20, 2025 from 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Oregon Labor Center, 3645 SE 32nd Ave, Portland, OR 97223
Join us for a special Black History Month panel, The Need for a Revolution, followed by a Q&A session.
📣 TAKE ACTION
On Jan. 27, President Trump fired National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) member Gwynne Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve on the board. This move is illegal and will have immediate consequences for working people. Click to call your Senator and Representatives in Congress today to demand Wilcox be reinstated.
The AFL-CIO is collecting stories from workers and working families who are affected by the Trump administration’s new policies.
Striking workers and their families should not be pushed into poverty for exercising their legally protected right to strike. This policy helps level the playing field, helps put money back into the local economy during a labor dispute, and helps ensure negotiations happen sooner rather than later.Take action today and send a letter to Oregon lawmakers asking for them to support SB 916 / HB 3434 and by doing so, protect working people who are using their legal right to strike.
🛠️ RESOURCES
The Oregon AFL-CIO’s compendium of resources to address federal threats against workers from immigration to LGBTQIA+ rights.
📖 MUST READ
February 19, 2025 | The Northwest Labor Press
In 2025, the Oregon legislature has a timely opportunity to modestly help level this imbalanced playing field by passing SB 916 — ending the current exclusion of unemployment insurance benefits for working Oregonians when they are on strike.
February 17, 2025 | OPB
As nurses at eight Providence hospitals in Oregon enter their sixth week on strike, Portland elected officials are getting involved. On Monday, nearly all Portland City Councilors signed on to a letter urging Providence to return to the bargaining table with the Oregon Nurses Association to resolve the strike. The letter, signed by 11 councilors, encourages management to meet the union’s requests to increase wages and improve workplace safety.
🏔️ OREGON LABOR
February 18, 2025 | KOIN
An Oregon labor union has unveiled a damning report it hopes will urge lawmakers to back workplace safety measures. The Oregon chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees released its “Unsafe On the Job” report on Monday. It reveals the results of a survey more than 500 workers answered last fall.
February 19, 2025 | KEZI
The University of Oregon faculty’s labor union has declared an impasse on salary talks after more than a year of negotiations with the college’s administration, according to United Academics of the University of Oregon officials.
February 19, 2025 | The Oregonian
A federal jury has awarded a Madras man $190,000 for emotional distress and $17,000 for lost wages after finding that Oregon-based Cal Farms violated his rights by hiring temporary foreign workers over him, a qualified U.S. citizen, for seasonal field work.
February 20, 2025 | Reuters
Several labor groups sued the Trump administration for allegedly firing tens of thousands of probationary employees illegally, as part of its drive to overhaul the federal government.
🏛️POLITICS
February 19, 2025 | Oregon Capital Chronicle
One-term Oregon congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer walked back her support for pro-union legislation as she tried to convince Republican senators to back her as the nation’s next labor secretary.
February 19, 2025 | OPB
Oregon caregivers charged with protecting some of the state’s most vulnerable residents want the governor to fire the head of the state’s Department of Human Services. Hundreds of members represented by two of the state’s largest unions, SEIU and AFSCME, have said they no longer have confidence in Fariborz Pakseresht.
February 17, 2025 | Oregon Capital Chronicle
Oregon union leaders and workers said the state needs to put more safeguards in place to protect employees from harm when they work in dangerous jobs in corrections, behavioral health and others. They are backing several bills they say would help.
February 17, 2025 | Statesman Journal
Several hundred people gathered at the Oregon State Capitol State Park on Monday afternoon as part of the second protest in a series of nationwide demonstrations against the Trump administration.
February 18, 2025 | The New York Times
DOGE list vastly overstated the actual value of that contract. A closer scrutiny of a federal database shows that a recent version of the contract was for $8 million, not $8 billion. A larger total savings number published on the site, $55 billion, lacked specific documentation.
⚠️FEDERAL ATTACKS
February 19, 2025 | AP
President Donald Trump’s administration has said no one at the Federal Aviation Administration with a “critical safety” position has been fired as it cuts the federal workforce, but some FAA jobs that were eliminated had direct roles in supporting safety inspectors and airport operations, according to their union and former employees.
February 19, 2025 | MSNBC
President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order that seeks to bring independent federal agencies under his control as he continues to stretch the boundaries of executive power and test the legal limits of his office. The order would essentially put independent agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission under the watch of Office of Management and Budget Review Director Russell Vought, a key Project 2025 author.
February 19, 2025 | The New York Times
Civil rights organizations sued the Trump administration on Wednesday over a series of executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs and gender discrimination protections. They alleged that the orders were discriminatory and illegal, and imperiled funding for groups that provide critical services to historically underserved groups of Americans.
February 19, 2025 | The New York Times
The Internal Revenue Service will begin laying off roughly 6,000 employees on Thursday as part of the Trump administration’s push to downsize the federal work force, three people familiar with the agency’s plans said.
🚨ATTACKS ON IMMIGRANTS
February 19, 2025 | Reuters
A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday let stand an order blocking President Donald Trump from curtailing automatic birthright citizenship nationwide as part of the Republican's hardline crackdown on immigration and illegal border crossings.
February 20, 2025 | NPR
President Trump issued an order Thursday aimed at preventing taxpayer money from supporting immigrants without legal status. The order says it will end "all taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal aliens." It does not clarify exactly which benefits will be targeted, but directs agencies to identify federally funded programs that do so.
February 19, 2025 | CBS
The Trump administration has enacted a pause on all immigration applications filed by migrants from Latin America and Ukraine allowed into the U.S. under certain Biden-era programs, citing fraud and security concerns, according to two U.S. officials and an internal memo obtained by CBS News.
February 19, 2025 | NBC
The Trump administration has promised to prioritize the “worst first” when it comes to arrests and deportations, but the number of detainees in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody without a criminal conviction or pending criminal charges increased by more than 1,800 in the first two weeks of February, representing 41% of the 4,422 total new detainees in that period, according to new data obtained by NBC News.
February 17, 2025 | The Guardian
Donald Trump has ramped up anti-immigration fervor into his second presidency, promising mass deportations, pushing to increase arrests and bolstering public relations efforts to amplify arrests. The moves have sent a wave of terror through the undocumented worker community that underpins large parts of the US economy.
🫱🏼🫲🏽 THE LABOR MOVEMENT
February 18, 2025 | Fortune
An Alphabet Inc. vendor, Hitachi Ltd., illegally restricted a group of Google artificial intelligence contract staff from discussing their pay and fired one of them for starting conversations about wages, a union alleged in a federal complaint.
February 15, 2025 | More Perfect Union
John Deere has announced more than 1500 layoffs in the last year. Deere and Case New Holland used to employ generations of union workers across the midwest. Now they're slashing American jobs and moving to Mexico. We investigated what's behind it — and how to bring those jobs back.
📣 STRIKES & COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
February 19, 2025 | Pittsburgh Union Progress
The number of work stoppages nationwide declined last year from the previous year, but the number continued to exceed 2021 levels. The number of work stoppages decreased from 471 to 359 — that is, by 23.8% in 2024 compared to 2023 and the approximate number of workers also decreased by 45.5%, according to the report.
February 14, 2025 | Labor Notes
Federal unions have begun to respond by filing lawsuits and holding rallies. And workers are organizing themselves to share information and begin to fight back. A rank-and-file group called the Federal Unionists Network is planning a nationwide “Save Our Services” day of action on February 19, targeting the dealerships of Musk’s car company Tesla.
February 20, 2025 | In These Times
Colorado’s Direct Care Workforce Stabilization Board offers an experiment in worker power.
📊 THE ECONOMY
February 12, 2025 | MSNBC
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former U.S. Department of Labor chief economist, and Betsey Stevenson, University of Michigan professor of economics, join 'Squawk Box' to discuss the impact of the firing of tens of thousands of federal workers on the labor market and the economy.
👥 ORGANIZING
February 17, 2025 | The Nation
The result in the end was disappointing, but not surprising. By an overwhelming 2,447 to 829, Amazon workers at the massive RDU1 warehouse here rejected union representation in six days of balloting last week.
February 19, 2025 | KNPR
The class, “Building Worker Power! Corporate Research Class,” offers attendees a way to examine the structures of companies for effective labor organizing. Ric Urrutia, teacher of the class and co-host of We Rise Fighting! — a labor podcast, has spent 20 years instructing on the topic. Urrutia comes from a heavy background in union organizing as a researcher, organizer, representative and steward. He earned a master’s from the University of Massachusetts in labor studies where he utilized his knowledge to help unions.
February 18, 2025 | KNPR
A significant change to Colorado’s 82-year-old Labor Peace Act is now halfway to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk, as Senate Democrats approved it along party lines Tuesday after two days of debate on the subject.
🖼️ GRAPHICS TO SHARE
