Hi Feds & Friends!   PDX Federal Unionists Network (FUN) will be holding a RALLY on Thursday April 24 at 4:30pm at the 911 Federal Building in NE PDX  and demanding our elected officials step up to SAVE the VA! SAVE the SSA! & SAVE the EPA! We're asking them to push back and stop cutting civil servants that keep our services and government running!   We are hoping you will come join us to raise our voices together to say Save Our Services! Members of Congress are home on recess, lets make sure they know what we need from them while they are in Portland!   We will be located at the 911 Federal Building at: 911 NE 11th Ave This is ONE BLOCK from the NE 7th Ave MAX stop.   More info about the rally and to RSVP please go here: https://actionnetwork.org/events/save-our-services-no-mass-firings-no-budget-cuts?source=direct_link&   And please share as far and wide as you can!! We're in this together and need to continue to put pressure on   those in power.  Let them know we aren't going to go quietly as they dismantle our democracy.  I have included a flier here as well to share with others that may be interested.   Please spread the word and post on social media!   We want to hear from you! If you or anyone you know would like to speak at this rally (especially if you are a federal employee), please let us know!   Thanks, Nina w/FUN PDX   A couple more events planned for the upcoming weeks! 05/01  join us in partnering with Indivisible Portland at Pioneer Courthouse Square on May Day! 4:30-6pm May Day Strong 2025   05/03  join us at the Labor Press Troublemakers School! FUN will be participating in a panel discussion about the threats to the federal workforce! This event costs $10 but if you are interested in attending for free please reach out! https://labornotes.org/portland2025   05/07  join us for our next Solidarity Social Hour! Come meet Portland Feds and be in community as we navigate the new landscape of federal service We'll be at the same place: Pine Street Market, 4:30-7pm, swing by for part of the evening or stay for the whole time! This is a casual event to meet, chat and be in community. 126 SW 2nd Ave - 2 blocks from the 1st & Oak MAX stop!   Hope to see you soon! Don't forget to share with friends, family, coworkers - all are welcome.

We are rallying in Portland, OR.  May 1. 4:30 - 6pm. Pioneer Courthouse Square.     Please Join Us! It's May Day . We invite you to speak, to share your members unique perspective in this fight, as we come together to stop the billionaire takeover and rampant corruption of the Trump administration.    We are w orking people rising up. We are laborers, parents, immigrants, educators, students, seniors, professionals, friends, and neighbors demanding stronger, safer, and more dignified communities. We are demanding a country that puts our families over their fortunes—public schools over private profits, healthcare over hedge funds, housing over homelessness.   Our Portland Rally is organized by two area Indivisible groups - Indivisible Cedar Mill has been working  since 2017, actively resisting the MAGA agenda , and East Portland Indivisible - an upstart, scrappy new group born out of Portland's new city structure, working to build thriving community on the eastside.    May Day 2025 is happening In over 100 cities, we honor the legacy of the workers who organized, who fought, for the eight-hour day, safe conditions, living wages, a say in their workplace —and we carry their struggle into today’s fight for a country that serves the many, not the few. This is not just about commemorating the past. We are building the future.We are under attack from billionaires who have bought off our politicians and rigged the system to crush working-class families. They’re defunding our schools, privatizing public services, attacking unions, and targeting immigrant families with fear and violence. This is a war on working people—and we will not stand down. These profiteers are trying to create a race to the bottom—on wages, on benefits, on dignity itself. They want to erase labor rights, break our unions, and silence immigrant voices. That’s why May Day is not just a rally—it’s a strategy. We are organizing for a world where every family has housing, healthcare, fair wages, union protection, and safety—regardless of race, zip code, or immigration status.We are using non-violent action to fight for our country —one where working families lead, immigrants are protected, and no one is left behind. This is not charity. This is not a request. This is a demand—and we’re ready to fight for it.  Hope to have you there with us, STOP THE BILLIONAIRE TAKEOVER. WE ARE THE MANY. THEY ARE THE FEW. THIS IS MAY DAY.   We are part of a nationwide network of groups fully committed through non-violent action to defending our rights, our freedoms, our democracy!  indivisible.org   Please contact us for questions, more info, and I hope to join us!     In Solidarity,   Marcia Schneider East Portland Indivisible email  districtoneneighbors@gmail.com Cell / Text   ‪(503) 575-7127

Greetings, Union Siblings! Mark your calendars and save the date, because we at the NW Oregon Labor Council, AFL-CIO are happy to announce the 2025 Labor Appreciation Dinner , to be held on Saturday, May 17 , at the IBEW Hall, 15937 NE Airport Way in Portland. This special evening has been held for more than a quarter century to honor our fellow union leaders who have made outstanding contributions to our labor community.  The event is also a fundraiser for Labor’s Community Service Agency, which is, this year, celebrating its 50th anniversary providing aid to our labor community. As previous attendees will attest, much merriment is involved in our annual event, with our silent auction and raffle in addition to our awards program. As we did last year, we will be offering a small selection of premium items for the raffle section of our program for which a person may bid, in addition to the open raffle of smaller items, as in past years. We will have a reception with live music, followed by a Mexican food buffet that was very well-received last year due to high quality and options for those with dietary considerations. Net proceeds of this fun event benefit the LCSA’s labor assistance programs. We are selling individual tickets to the event for $55 as well as host table sponsorships for $500 (this is a discounted rate for a table of 10). You can purchase tickets online at https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/2025-labor-appreciation-dinner . We also gratefully accept donations for this worthy cause. We look forward to seeing you May 17 and sharing in a night of festivities and solidarity.

Workers are taking to the streets on April 5 to stand against federal attacks on working people, essential services, and basic rights!   A national day of action on Saturday, April 5  will bring thousands into the streets nationwide, including all over Oregon. Click here to find a rally near you!   https://www.mobilize.us/handsoff/?org_ids=41275&link_id=1&can_id=381f958cc3771cb0456db21e64bfaf8e&source=email-take-action-oregon-senate-to-vote-on-critical-labor-bill-tomorrow&email_referrer=email_2679948&email_subject=take-action-hands-off-national-day-of-action-against-federal-threats-to-workers&&   These rallies are organized by volunteers and community groups, with the national and Oregon AFL-CIO in support.   This day of action calls attention to the anti-worker actions of the current administration; gutting funding for essential services and research, cutting jobs, attacking the right to organize, rolling back protections for clean air and water, denying due process to immigrants, ramping up immigration raids, and threatening the civil rights of us all.   Whether in union or not yet organized, these attacks threaten the wellbeing of all working people. By coming together, communities across the U.S. are sending a clear message to anti-worker politicians and unelected billionaires: HANDS OFF.   If you can't be there on April 5, you can take action today to help defend federal workers under attack: Call your Congressperson now and tell them to stop Trump’s federal worker union-busting.   https://act.aflcio.org/call_campaigns/call-stop-trumps-federal-worker-union-busting/?link_id=2&can_id=381f958cc3771cb0456db21e64bfaf8e&source=email-take-action-oregon-senate-to-vote-on-critical-labor-bill-tomorrow&email_referrer=email_2679948&email_subject=take-action-hands-off-national-day-of-action-against-federal-threats-to-workers&&

Greetings, siblings!   Please help if you can -- workers at Vigor Marine need some solidarity.  See the attached information for details.   All the best,   Laurie Wimmer Executive Secretary-Treasurer, NW Oregon Labor Council Email: est@nwolc.org Cell Phone: 503-804-5362

Trump Is Following the Project 2025 Playbook to Destroy Workers’ Rights The massive curbs on workers’ rights that have occurred during the first month of the Trump administration signal it’s likely that plenty more will follow during his tenure in office. Lawrence Wittner Feb 23, 2025 Common Dreams 14 Only a month into his second term as president, Donald Trump is well underway toward destroying crucial rights of American workers. Currently, the best known of these threatened rights is probably job security, for the sudden onset of Trump’s mass, indiscriminate firing of more than 200,000 federal government workers has sparked a furor. Employed by the Departments of Education and Veterans Affairs, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Forest Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other vital U.S. agencies, these workers appear to have been simply tossed out of their jobs without honoring the legal requirement of due process, including performance-based evaluations. Trump claimed that the mass firings were necessary to save money and make the government more efficient. But the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, Everett Kelley, retorted that the firings were really “about power,” with Trump “gutting the federal government, silencing workers, and forcing agencies into submission to a radical agenda that prioritizes cronyism over competence.” Thus, if Project 2025 does serve as a guide to Trump administration policies toward workers’ rights, we should expect Trump’s future implementation of Project 2025’s recommendations for remarkably severe federal government measures against workers and their unions. In addition, on January 31, Trump announced plans to nullify contracts recently negotiated and signed with the labor unions representing federal workers. Justifying this action, the president said that the contracts had been negotiated by former President Joe Biden “to harm my administration.” Trump selected an appropriate figure to undermine workers’ rights when he appointed Elon Musk as the head of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency . Musk, the world’s wealthiest man and Trump’s largest campaign contributor, was well known as rabidly anti-labor , and had repeatedly clashed with workers at the giant companies he owned, among them Tesla, SpaceX, and X (formerly Twitter). Indeed, by January 2025, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) had 24 open investigations into labor law violations by these three firms, including alleged surveillance of employees at Twitter and interference with union organizing at Tesla. In turn, a day after the NLRB accused Musk’s SpaceX company of retaliating against workers who had dared to criticize his employment practices, SpaceX filed a lawsuit to have the NLRB, established by Congress in 1935, declared unconstitutional and terminated. Not surprisingly, Trump moved quickly to paralyze the activities of the NLRB, a federal agency created to guarantee American workers’ right to union representation. By firing the acting NLRB chair , Gwynne Wilcox, long before her term of office ended in 2026, Trump not only acted illegally, but left the NLRB without the quorum necessary to operate, thus shutting it down. “We’re fighting that tooth and nail,” declared AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler . The firing of Wilcox “did exactly what Trump wanted to do, which was to stymie the one agency that workers rely on when they’re in an organizing drive and taking risks and getting fired. They no longer have the board they need to protect them.” As part of the same attack upon the NLRB, Trump fired Jennifer Abruzzo , the agency’s general counsel, and replaced her with a Republican loyalist. During her tenure, Abruzzo had issued a series of memos that prohibited common anti-labor practices by corporations. These memos banned abusive electronic monitoring and surveillance of workers on the job, captive audience meetings (in which workers were forced to listen to anti-union pep talks), and severance agreements with overly broad non-disparagement and confidentiality sections (which prevented former workers from discussing workplace issues). These pro-worker directives and more were quickly reversed by her Republican successor at the NLRB. The Trump administration also launched a devastating assault on another federal agency established to safeguard workers’ rights, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Established by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to bar workplace discrimination, the EEOC, too, lost the ability to continue operations when Trump quickly fired two of its commissioners. An administration official maintained that the two dismissed EEOC commissioners were “far-left appointees with radical records.” These challenges to the independence and functioning of both agencies are quite extraordinary . The presidential removal of an NLRB board member and of two EEOC commissioners is unprecedented, for none have ever been fired before in the long histories of both agencies. Moreover, by congressional statute, these are independent federal entities, ostensibly shielded from presidential interference. And now, thanks to this interference, they are unable to operate. As these and other curbs on workers’ rights have all occurred during the first month of the Trump administration, it’s likely that plenty more will follow during his tenure in office. And there are numerous indications that that they will. After all, the playbook for much of what the Trump administration has done so far―such as its mass firing of federal workers―is Project 2025 , the Heritage Foundation-developed blueprint for Trump’s second term, and one of its key architects is Russell Vought , appointed by Trump as the new White House budget director. As an Associated Press dispatch notes, this office is “one of the most influential positions in the federal government,” acting “as a nerve center for the White House, developing its budget, policy priorities, and agency rule-making.” Thus, if Project 2025 does serve as a guide to Trump administration policies toward workers’ rights, we should expect Trump’s future implementation of Project 2025’s recommendations for remarkably severe federal government measures against workers and their unions. These include banning public employee unions, as well as empowering the states to ban private sector unions and ignore federal minimum wage, overtime pay, and child labor laws. All told, these developments are forcing American workers to address the old union question: “Which Side Are You On?” .

Today, the AFL-CIO has launched the   Department of People Who Work for a Living (DPWL) , a new campaign to hold Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, accountable and make sure the federal government is responsive to working people and not just to the whims of an unelected CEO like Musk.   In today’s New York Times , reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan note that  “The AFL-CIO campaign is one of the first organized efforts by unions to focus on the people affected by the work force cuts that the Trump administration is proposing. The labor group aims to highlight what Mr. Musk’s department is doing, arguing that its actions — which are opaque and accountable only to Mr. Trump — are potentially dangerous to the public depending on the jobs in question. The group is also seeking to highlight the chasm between Mr. Musk’s wealth and that of the people he has urged to move on from federal jobs.”   “The government can work for billionaires or it can work for working people—but not both,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “Elon is just getting started. And he has already tried to force workers doing essential services—including at the FAA and air traffic controllers even after the tragedy at Washington National Airport—to retire, gained access to the Treasury Department’s payment system with everyone’s private data, and is declaring entire government agencies like USAID shut down and blocking workers from accessing the building and their email. We will hold DOGE and Elon Musk accountable because we are certain that the people who keep our food and medicine safe know more about how to make government efficient than an outsider whose companies benefit from the very agencies he is infiltrating.”   Read the full statement from the AFL-CIO here .     Join the Campaign! Follow DPWL

Oregon Union Membership Growth Third Highest in Nation in 2024 January 29, 2025 | Oregon AFL-CIO “Oregon unions continue to grow despite opposition from employers and their hired union busters along with broken labor laws that don’t reflect the needs of a modern workforce,” said Graham Trainor, Oregon AFL-CIO President. “At the heart of any increase in membership are workers and the absolute courage and tenacity it takes to stand together and call for change on the job.  For some, it’s the need for safer working conditions.  For others, it’s about being compensated fairly.  And for all, it’s about ensuring the dignity and respect at work that we all deserve regardless of who we are or where we work. From healthcare to behavioral health to retail to manufacturing, the Oregon Labor Movement is growing and each new member adds a new voice and new strength to our efforts to build a truly fair and just economy for all.”    Trump's Firing of Labor Officials Shows He 'Could Not Care Less About Rights of Workers' January 29, 2025 | Common Dreams AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler warned in a statement Tuesday that Trump's firing of Wilcox—who, under federal law, cannot be fired on political grounds—"is illegal and will have immediate consequences for working people." "By leaving only two board members in their posts, the president has effectively shut down the National Labor Relations Board's operations, leaving the workers it defends on their own in the face of union-busting and retaliation," said Shuler. "Alongside the firing of NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, these moves will make it easier for bosses to violate the law and trample on workers' legal rights on the job and fundamental freedom to organize."   Lawmakers Will Consider Unemployment Benefits for Striking Workers January 26, 2025 | Willamette Week  Graham Trainor, the Oregon AFL-CIO President says the bill would make labor negotiations more balanced. “Striking workers and their families should not be pushed into poverty for exercising their legally protected right to strike,” Trainor said. “This policy would help level the playing field for workers, put money back into the local economy by giving workers the ability to continue to feed their families during a strike, and will expedite negotiations with employers. When you ask workers why they go out on strike, they will tell you their hands are forced: workers strike because they have to—for economic, safety and community reasons—not because they want to.”   16 million workers were unionized in 2024 January 28, 2025 | Economic Policy Institute Interest in union organizing is surging in the United States. Since 2021, petitions for union elections at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have more than doubled. And public support for unions is near 60-year highs—at 70%. This growing momentum around union organizing—aided by the Biden administration’s support for worker organizing and appointment of strong worker advocates in critical agencies like NLRB—signals a powerful push by workers to improve wages, working conditions, and workplace rights. But despite this groundswell of support, new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reveal a puzzling trend: Unionization rates continue to decline.

Portland ushered in a new era in city governance on Dec. 19 as a dozen new leaders were sworn in as City Councilors, ending a 110-year commission-style government that voters junked in a 2022 charter-change referral to the ballot. Along with the 12 city councilors, a new mayor, Keith Wilson, and returning city auditor, Simone Rede, also took their oaths of office. There to witness this pivotal moment were key labor leaders, as well as non-profit heads, business representatives, friends, family, media, and others for this invitation-only event. The Long Road to Victory This historic event came after more than 19 months of planning and campaigning, not only by candidates, but also by the House of Labor. In May 2023, NW Oregon Labor Council (NOLC) began outreach to key labor organizations and allies to assemble a new coalition focused on electing a pro-labor council. Its initial meeting to launch this coalition, called Working for a Better Portland, began that July. Working for a Better Portland advocated for the election of candidates based on the number of individual affiliate endorsements candidates received. Altogether, the coalition’s website promoted 22 candidates in two tiers of recommendation, then marketed the site and its slate to tens of thousands of Portland voters. In the end, 11 out of 12 new councilors chosen by Portlanders were coalition-supported candidates. The twelfth candidate entered the race at the last minute so he did not receive significant labor support but identifies as a labor ally nonetheless, bringing the labor-friendly council to a full 100 percent. Our success led to local and national press coverage. People’s World said this “unprecedented victory…stands as one of the most significant triumphs for organized labor in recent Portland history”. They also wrote, “The Portland victory offers a model for labor political action in other cities, particularly at this crucial moment when Donald Trump’s return to the presidency threatens worker rights and protections nationwide. Portland’s unions have demonstrated that the labor movement can win significant political power even in challenging times by building broad coalitions, focusing on concrete policy demands, and investing in grassroots organizing. This victory reassures us that even in difficult times, the labor movement can make a difference and bring hope for the future.” New city councilors are Jamie Dunphy, Candace Avalos, and Loretta Smith in District 1; Elana Pirtle-Guiney, Dan Ryan, and Sameer Kanal in District 2; Steve Novick, Tiffany Koyama Lane, and Angelita Morillo in District 3; and Mitch Green, Olivia Clark, and Eric Zimmerman in District 4. Returning for a second term as City Auditor is Simone Rede. New Mayor Keith Wilson has also pledged to work closely with labor leaders in his role overseeing the administration of city bureaus and the city manager. Beginning the Dialogue Working for a Better Portland, led by NOLC, held a Labor Boot Camp for city leaders on Dec. 15, featuring 20 labor representatives who touched on topics such as budgeting from a labor lens, public safety, the future of the arts, public education, and building trades issues. Most councilors-elect attended this training and pledged to work closely with labor going forward. We asked that the city council include a Labor Committee and also a Labor Caucus to ensure that working family issues are spotlighted in their legislative deliberations.