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.
RALLY TODAY!
Celebration of Strike Completion: Rally with Providence Nurses
June 21, 2024 at 4PM | Oregon Battleship Memorial at Portland’s Waterfront Park
Over 3,000 Oregon Nurses Association members at Providence ended their strike last night - the largest nurses’ strike in Oregon history. The fight for a fair contract and safe staffing is not over, it’s up to all of Oregon Labor to continue to stand in solidarity with Providence nurses until they are victorious. Join the Oregon Nurses Association at a rally to celebrate the completion of their strike. The weather is expected to be hot, so please dress accordingly, wear your sunscreen and stay hydrated!
Upcoming Events
Labor Education Resource Center Summer School
We are excited to be back together for this year’s Summer School, sponsored by the AFL-CIO and the Labor Education and Research Center, hosted on the University of Oregon campus in Eugene on July 19-21, 2024. Whether you are a new member or experienced leader, Summer School has something for you. Join us for a weekend of education, discussion and socializing with 100+ other union members from across the state. To register and learn more go to: https://lerc.uoregon.edu/ss24/.
Providence Nurses Strike
June 21, 2024 | OPB
“More than 3,000 nurses at six Providence hospitals across Oregon announced Thursday that they’ll continue picketing this week, despite reaching the end of a planned, three-day strike. In their strike notice, the Oregon Nurses Association warned that if Providence locked out or delayed the reinstatement of nurses, picketing would continue.”
June 20, 2024 | Rogue Valley Times
“The union representing nurses on strike at Providence Medford Medical Center and at five other Providence hospitals in Oregon plans to file an unfair labor practice complaint against the health system for not allowing the bulk of nurses to return to work on Friday.”
June 19, 2024 | AP
“More than 3,000 nurses at six Oregon hospitals spent a second day on the picket lines Wednesday carrying signs that say, “Patients over profits” and “We’re out to ensure it’s safe in there,” as they continued to demand fair wages and better staffing levels.”
June 18, 2024 | KGW
“Nurses have said their main sticking points are wages, health care benefits and staffing levels. Several of them have also accused Providence of attempting to subvert Oregon's recently enacted minimum staffing level law for hospital nurses.”
Pacific Northwest Labor
June 20, 2024 | KCBY
“Angered over Oregon State University’s decision to lay off seven Department of Veterinary Medicine employees, picketers gathered on campus Thursday. They say the workers will be replaced by student workers at a lower wage and without benefits. SEIU 503, the local workers union, says the layoffs show a lack of respect for the workforce.“
June 20, 2024 | Northwest Labor Press
“Bakers Local 114 and Franz Bakery are pretty far apart in bargaining over a new contract covering about 150 production workers at the company’s Portland bakery. Their current five-year contract expired June 8. Local 114 is proposing raises totaling 29% for a new three-year contract, and Franz is proposing 12.9%. Workers are looking to make up lost ground from several years of high inflation.”
June 20, 2024 | Northwest Labor Press
“A historic Oregon law that’s supposed to prevent nurses from taking on heavy workloads is proving to be a letdown for hospital staff. Gov. Tina Kotek signed House Bill 2697 last year, making Oregon the first state to cap nurse-to-patient ratios in state statute. Considered a compromise between labor unions and hospitals on a thorny issue, the law was intended to protect nurses and other hospital staffers from caring for too many patients at once, which lowers the quality of care and burns out staff. The new protections for nurses went into effect on June 1 and cover operating rooms, emergency rooms and other settings. The law also takes into account the “acuity,” or level of need, of patients who are under the care of nurses.”
June 20, 2024 | The Stand
“IBEW 46 Limited Energy electricians voted to accept a tentative agreement with NECA on Wednesday. The contract offer was approved by 85% of voting members and includes $12.50 in raises and a memorandum of understanding to continue discussing PTO, a core demand of the workers. “It has been a long journey,” said Business Representative Megan Kirby in a statement posted to Twitter/X. “I cannot express how proud I am of this unit with their commitment and solidarity.“
June 17, 2024 | OPB
“Oregon is one of the most trade-dependent states in the country, according to Teresa Carr with the Port of Portland’s trade and economic development division, particularly for the state’s farmers and ranchers who use containers to get their products to other states and countries.”
June 13, 2024 | Portland Mercury
“The roughly 1,300 Portland-area janitors unionized with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 49 work at some of Portland’s most prominent businesses, including Nike, Adidas, and Intel. They also clean at Oregon Health Science University and at landmark buildings in downtown Portland, as well as the Lloyd District.”
June 12, 2024 | The News Tribune
“A union representing MultiCare workers announced an informational picket Wednesday (June 12) in Tacoma amid contract talks launched earlier this year. The picket was scheduled from 4-6 p.m. outside MultiCare Tacoma General Hospital, 315 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. The action, organized by UFCW 3000 members, comes amid bargaining talks involving more than 2,000 MultiCare employees across nine bargaining units. The talks started in February.”
Politics
June 18, 2024 | NBC News
President Joe Biden’s Cabinet is fanning out nationwide this week to promote ways the administration has worked to reduce costs, a coordinated effort targeting a top issue for voters. As part of the tour, 18 Cabinet members and senior White House officials will hold more than two dozen events in 15 states in the days leading up to the first presidential debate between Biden and former President Donald Trump. The stops include presidential battleground states such as Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada and Pennsylvania, and will feature local officials in tough districts.”
June 17, 2024 | Wilson County News
Although Donald Trump has been eager to garner support from American labor unions for his re-election campaign, there are lots of reasons he’s not going to get it. Chief among them is his record in sabotaging the nation’s labor movement. During his decades as a wealthy businessman, Trump clashed with unions repeatedly. And, upon becoming President, he appointed people much like himself―from corporate backgrounds and hostile toward workers―to head key government agencies and departments. Naturally, an avalanche of anti-union policies followed.”
Union Leadership
June 20, 2024 | Business Wire
“On behalf of the 12.5 million union members in the AFL-CIO, I am thrilled to celebrate the election of Gwen Mills to her first full term as President of UNITE HERE. President Mills is a visionary leader who has helped guide UNITE HERE through some of the hospitality industry’s most challenging and transformational moments. When the pandemic devastated the hospitality industry and nearly all UNITE HERE workers lost their jobs, President Mills put members to work and created one of the country’s most powerful and effective get-out-the-vote operations, unleashing victories up and down the ballot in the 2020 and 2022 elections,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler.”
Organizing
June 20, 2024 | Center for American Progress
“As autoworkers, baristas, package carriers, Hollywood writers and actors, and thousands of other workers fight for and win new unions and new union contracts, Biden administration appointees to the nation’s front-line labor law enforcement agency—the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)—are helping prevent anti-union employers from undermining worker organizing. Workers in the United States face an uphill battle in their fight to unionize and bargain, as broken federal labor laws and rampant lawbreaking undermine their efforts, but workers today are organizing and winning union elections at a growing rate. New analysis from the Center for American Progress shows that the NLRB is helping ensure that workers can exercise their legal right to come together in unions, with more workers winning their elections and more workers getting help to get back on the job when fired illegally for protected organizing activity. However, these gains are under threat from The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025—a playbook with strategies for eroding checks and balances across the government that offers instructions for gutting the NLRB’s enforcement capacity. This would threaten workers’ ability to come together in unions to bargain for better wages and working conditions."
June 20, 2024 | Axios
“Why it matters: It's a reflection of increased grassroots momentum behind organizing — helped along by a strongly pro-worker National Labor Relations Board, under Biden appointee Jennifer Abruzzo. Zoom in: Workers voted in favor of a union 74% of the time this year (through April) — a jump from 2019 when it was 69%. In 2023, there were 1,777 union elections — the highest number since 2010, when there were 1,942."
June 18, 2024 | American Prospect
“A great deal of attention has been paid to the labor movement’s recent breakthrough organizing victories in the historically anti-union South, and rightly so. The triumphs of the United Auto Workers in Tennessee and the United Steelworkers in Georgia showed that the combination of workers’ growing understanding of their own power, and unions’ investment in long-term organizing can overcome the entrenched opposition of the local and regional power structures. That said, the largest successful organizing campaign in a once-Confederate state has largely gone underreported. Last week, the school employees in Fairfax, Virginia’s largest county, voted by decisive margins to join the Fairfax Education Unions, which is a district-wide alliance of the nation’s two teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA). The new local will represent 27,000 district employees—both teachers and support workers such as school bus drivers."
June 13, 2024 | Los Angeles Times
“AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler denounced the decision and said the court had “sided with corporate power over Starbucks baristas today in a direct attack on the fundamental freedom to organize a union on the job. This decision sets a higher threshold for courts to reinstate workers who have been unfairly fired. In a system that is already stacked against workers, this will make it even harder for them to get back their jobs."
Workplace Safety
June 21, 2024 | New York Times
“The Occupational Safety and Health Act has a “general duty clause” requiring employers to provide safe workplaces, but it lacks specificity on what to do in extreme heat. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration may issue a proposed rule on workplace heat relatively soon that would be likely to require, among other things, rest breaks, drinking water and cooling measures, as well as medical treatment and emergency response procedures. But once issued, there will be a comment and review period, followed by inevitable challenges from business groups arguing that the rule is too burdensome.”
June 17, 2024 | The Hill
“The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), one of the petition’s signatories, pointed to the need for more labor protections for those called in to assist with these weather events. “Too many workers are exposed to extreme heat and wildfire smoke on the job without adequate safety measures in place. Not only do we need to develop strong worker protection standards to meet the demand of the changing environment and intensifying climate disasters, we need the federal government to take action now to release resources,” Liz Shuler, president of AFL-CIO, said in a statement."
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