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.
⚕️PROVIDENCE STRIKE STARTS TODAY
As of 6:00am this morning, nearly 5,000 Providence workers including nurses, physicians, physician associates, certified nurse midwives, nurse practitioners, clinical staff, and other healthcare professionals have started the largest healthcare strike in Oregon history.
It’s time to come together and stand in solidarity with striking Providence workers and continue to put pressure on management until they come to the table to bargain the fair contract the workers deserve.
Here’s how you can take action right now:
Join a Picket Line
Picket lines will be running from 7:00am through 5:00pm daily until a fair contract is reached in Providence locations in Hood River, Medford, Milwaukie, Newberg, Portland, Seaside and Oregon City.
Please visit the Oregon AFL-CIO Strike Map for specific location information and please be sure to sign up for your picket line shift by clicking here.
Donate to the Strike Fund
The duration of this historic strike is indefinite, meaning Providence workers will continue to strike until they win a fair contract. Donating to the strike fund enables workers to focus on bargaining and picketing efforts. Click here to donate today.
Sign & Share the Petition
If you’re unable to walk a picket line or make a donation today, public support can help leverage the bosses at Providence to return to the bargaining table with a sensible offer.
Please click here to sign the petition and once you’re done, please share it on your social media pages.
📖 MUST READ
January 8, 2025 | AFL-CIO
The AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) announced today that they are reuniting to launch a new, long-term effort to make it easier for workers to win a voice on our jobs with their unions. Two million SEIU service and care workers will join the nearly 13 million-member AFL-CIO, and together, these powerful organizations will push back on union-busting and win for working-class families.
January 8, 2025 | The New York Times
Two prominent labor groups are joining forces in an attempt to expand union membership and protect members’ interests as they face the likelihood of a less union-friendly federal government under Donald J. Trump. The Service Employees International Union, which represents nearly two million workers in industries like home health care and janitorial services, said on Wednesday that it would become part of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., an umbrella group of more than 50 unions that represent more than 12.5 million workers.
January 10, 2025 | The New Republic
…the Service Employees International Union, reversing a bad decision 20 years ago to disaffiliate with the AFL-CIO, is rejoining the labor federation. Even Andy Stern, who as SEIU president took the union out of the AFL-CIO and sought (in the end, unsuccessfully) to build a rival federation called Change to Win with the Teamsters and five smaller unions, said Wednesday that this is “an appropriate time to unite SEIU’s strength with other unions.”
January 9, 2025 | Common Dreams
The 2-million-member-strong Service Employees International Union announced Wednesday that it is joining the AFL-CIO, bolstering the ranks of the largest labor federation in the United States as unions prepare to fight the incoming Trump administration. "CEOs and billionaires want nothing more than to see workers divided, but we're standing here today with greater solidarity than ever to reach the 60 million Americans who say they'd join a union tomorrow if the laws allowed and to unrig our labor laws to guarantee every worker in America the basic right to organize on the job," AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler said in a statement.
📺 MUST WATCH
January 8, 2025 | MSNBC
The nation's largest labor federation, the AFL-CIO, has announced that they are joining forces with the Service Employees International Union, the SEIU, and its two million service workers, in a joint effort to strengthen their push for workers’ rights. Joining The ReidOut with Joy Reid for an exclusive interview are Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, and April Verrett, president of the SEIU.
🏥 HISTORIC PROVIDENCE STRIKE
January 9, 2025 | OPB
Close to 5,000 Providence nurses and about 150 doctors, midwives and advanced practice providers went on strike indefinitely starting Friday morning. The strike includes nurses at all eight of Providence’s hospitals in Oregon. With the strike looming, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek urged Providence to reconsider its decision to withdraw from all bargaining with its nurses last week.
January 10, 2025 | Oregon Capital Chronicle
It is set to be the largest strike by health workers in the state’s history — and the first involving a union representing doctors. The strike includes union members at all eight of Providence’s hospitals, from the four in the Portland area to hospitals in the Columbia Gorge, southern Oregon and the coast.
January 10, 2025 | The Oregonian
The largest health care strike in Oregon history began early Friday at Providence across the state, as roughly 5,000 frontline health professionals walked off the job. The strike — which includes mostly nurses and 150 doctors and advanced practitioners in addition to thousands of nurses — spans Providence’s eight hospitals in the state.
🏔️ OREGON LABOR
January 8, 2025 | Street Roots
In December, Oregon saw a continued slump in movement around the winter holidays, with eight fewer election wins, the same number of campaigns, and five fewer labor actions than in November. Compared to December 2023, Oregon also saw a lag in the year-to-year monthly forecast, with an overall decline in labor movement by nearly 64%.
January 9, 2025 | People’s World
On the dreary solstice afternoon of Dec. 21, 2024, Sizzle Pie Workers United (@sizzlepieworkersunited) and many community supporters gathered in solidarity and warmth in front of the 624 East Burnside location to celebrate their win at the National Labor Relations Board, to rally for their upcoming union election, and to demand that multiple unjustly fired workers be reinstated.
January 7, 2025 | OPB
A union representing legislative aides -- the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 89 -- has yet to hammer out a new contract after the previous agreement lapsed on Dec. 31. Without that agreement, roughly 150 aides who provide crucial services that make the Legislature run will not get a cost-of-living pay increase other legislative employees received Jan. 1.
January 6, 2025 | The Oregonian
More than 2,200 nurses at Legacy Good Samaritan, Legacy Emanuel and Randall Children’s hospitals could soon vote on a plan to unionize under the Oregon Nurses Association. The union’s announcement Monday comes as Oregon braces for the largest health care strike in recent state history by Providence workers. And it comes as state regulators are evaluating a proposed merger between Legacy and Oregon Health & Science University.
January 2, 2025 | Northwest Labor Press
In an executive order signed Dec. 18, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek is directing all state agencies — when they award any construction contract or commit funds to a construction project — to require contractors and subcontractors to sign project labor agreements (PLAs) with building trades unions, committing to use union labor.
📣 STRIKES & COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
January 9, 2025 | ABC News
Two hundred Utah ski patrollers returned to work Thursday after voting to accept a new labor contract and end a nearly two-week strike that closed many trails and caused long lift lines at the ones that remained open during a busy time of year at the country's biggest ski resort. The Park City Ski Professional Ski Patrol Association claimed victory, saying in a statement that Colorado-based Vail Resorts, which owns Park City Mountain Resort, acceded to its key demands including a $2-an-hour base-pay increase and raises for senior ski patrollers.
January 9, 2025 | Pittsburgh Union Progress
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette workers in four unions have been on strike now for 27 months; the fate of workers in three of those unions was the focus of Wednesday’s hearing at the Joseph F. Weis Jr. U.S. Courthouse. Bissoon is tasked with deciding whether to grant an injunction that would get those employees back to work under a contract that expired in 2017 and force the company to bargain a new agreement in good faith. Testimony from two attorneys filled the day. First up was Joe Pass, who represents union mailers, advertising workers and pressmen. Anne Tewksbury, attorney for the National Labor Relations Board, methodically walked Pass through a series of documents that showed the vast gulf between the unions’ expired contracts and those put forth by the PG.
🏛️POLITICS
January 8, 2025 | The New York Times
The number of Americans enrolled in the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplaces has roughly doubled since President Biden took office, but White House officials warned Wednesday that the surge in Americans taking advantage of increased government health care subsidies could face risks as President-elect Donald J. Trump returns to office.
🗺️ IMMIGRATION
January 9, 2025 | Roll Call
“Mass deportations or targeting immigrants would have devastating impacts on the care economy, in addition to the trauma and separation of families,” said Arnulfo De La Cruz, president of SEIU 2015 in California, the largest union representing long-term care workers, half of whom are immigrants. “I think the ultimate cost and impact would be to American citizens who already struggle to find a caregiver.”
January 8, 2025 | BNN Bloomberg
The largest US union federation has been working to equip its affiliates around the country to help defend immigrant workers against potential workplace raids and mass deportation efforts once Donald Trump becomes president this month. “Immigrant rights are worker rights, and this is a top priority for the labor movement,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in an interview.
⚖️ NLRB
January 9, 2025 | Bloomberg
Starbucks Corp.’s union filed 34 US labor board complaints against the company this week, signaling rising tension between the coffee chain and the labor group that had agreed last winter to try to end their hostilities. The complaints were filed with the National Labor Relations Board by Starbucks Workers United, which has organized around 500 of the company’s roughly 10,000 corporate-run US cafes over the past three years. The filings accuse Starbucks of violating federal labor law at stores in 16 states, including by singling out and firing employees over the last several months because of their union activism.
🫱🏼🫲🏽ORGANIZING
January 8, 2025 | The New York Times
The United Automobile Workers union is seeking approval from federal labor regulators for a union election among workers at a Ford Motor battery plant in Kentucky, providing an important test of organized labor’s strength after the election of Donald J. Trump.
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