Posts tagged Oregon
Op-ed: You can’t legislate member loyalty
July 23, 2026 // Oregon State House Bill 3789, which last year made it illegal to “impersonate” a union, created new restrictions and legal risks to communicating with union-represented workers. The Freedom Foundation maintains that the law was designed to suppress effective outreach and has challenged it on constitutional grounds.
Now eligible for a union, legislative staffers are organizing across California
July 9, 2026 // The organizing campaign is still in its early stages: District staffers in the Bay Area are having one-on-one conversations with their colleagues in Southern California district offices; Capitol-based staffers are discussing priorities for the would-be union, and organizers are weighing options about which union they might eventually join.
Labor unions pull support of Portland City Councilor Mitch Green over construction project tensions
July 9, 2026 // "With the Bull Run filtration plant in particular, which kind of started this tension, I raised the alarm that the water bonds we were going to have to issue for that plant are going to set ratepayers on a path that are going to see their water bill double," Green told KGW. The cost of building the filtration plant in east Multnomah County has skyrocketed from $500 million in estimates circa 2017 to $2.56 billion as of earlier this year. Right now, the way the city expects to pay for it is by increasing residential water rates between 8% and 10% each year for five years.
Op-ed: 8 years after Janus, unions are still trying to keep workers in the dark
July 6, 2026 // The National Education Association’s headquarters dues revenue fell from $370 million in fiscal 2017 to an inflation-adjusted $310 million five years later — a decline in real terms of about 16 percent. Nationally, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show public-sector union density slid from 33.9 percent in 2018 to 32.2 percent in 2024, before edging back up to 32.9 percent last year. States that gave workers more direct control over their own dues saw the effect even more clearly. After Florida ended government payroll deduction of union dues in 2023, the Florida Education Association lost more than 20,000 members in a single school year. When workers must actively choose to pay, rather than having dues quietly deducted by default, a meaningful share of them chooses not to.
Seventeen States & Localities ‘Are Increasing Their Minimum Wage In July’
July 6, 2026 // On July 1st, the Minimum Wage rose in the States of Alaska, Oregon and in our Nation’s Capital, Washington, D.C. - lifting wages for more than 361,000 Workers and collectively raising their earnings by more than $221 million. In addition to these two States and Washington, D.C. - 14 Cities and Counties also increased their Minimum Wage this Summer, including Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
A New York Bill Protects Unions, Not Workers
June 15, 2026 // Assembly Bill A10835A makes it illegal to “falsely impersonate” a union representative. It gives Attorney General Letitia James power to investigate, fine and subpoena any organization in any state for communications she believes to be “impersonation” of a union. The fine is $1,000 per incident. The Freedom Foundation communicates with tens of thousands of workers. Do the math. The bill’s real purpose isn’t stopping impersonation. It’s stopping workers from hearing what unions won’t tell them: that the Supreme Court decided eight years ago this month in Janus v. Afscme that no public employee can be forced to fund a union. Since then, we’ve helped more than 278,000 workers nationwide opt out—nearly 7,500 in New York, including some 1,400 this year. Each opt-out means lost dues revenue, so rather than make a better case for membership, unions asked Albany to make it illegal.
More than 100 Oklahoma lawmakers oppose SQ 832
June 1, 2026 // Under SQ 832, after the minimum wage is more than doubled, the mandate would continue to grow at a rapid annual pace based on increases in the cost of living in the nation’s largest urban centers, as measured by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. That would effectively tie Oklahoma’s wage mandate to the cost of living in places like New York City or San Francisco. As a result, while SQ 832 would initially mandate that entry-level jobs pay $15 an hour in 2029, an analysis by The State Chamber of Oklahoma and Oklahoma Farm Bureau found SQ 832 would put Oklahoma’s minimum wage on a fast track to $35.61 per hour and continue rising thereafter.
Seattle Hospitalists Vote to Unionize
May 28, 2026 // A group of about 115 hospitalists at five Swedish Medical Group locations across the Seattle area voted to unionize as a wave of physician organizing continues nationwide. The hospitalists voted to join Northwest Medicine United (NWMU), AFT Local 6552, which represents hundreds of physicians and advanced practice providers throughout the Northwest, the union announced. They represent the first group of doctors in the Providence health system to organize in the state of Washington.
Murmurs: PCC Spent $260,000 on Unemployment Benefits During Strike
May 26, 2026 // Senate Bill 916, which allows striking workers to access unemployment insurance during their time on the picket line, made Oregon the first state in the nation to require public employers to pay such benefits. Now we know how much that cost PCC. James Hill, a spokesman for the college, says it estimates it will incur about $260,000 in unemployment claims associated with the strike. (The average striking worker may claim unemployment starting in the third week of a strike, the same week the faculty union’s strike was resolved at PCC.) That number is significantly lower than the $1.45 million the college estimated it might have to pay each week, if all striking workers had filed claims. Public employers, often known as “reimbursing” employers, don’t opt to pay unemployment contributions to the state on a regular basis. Instead, such employers often reimburse the state dollar for dollar, which drove many public agencies to warn that the legislation would financially drain them. And while the state can relieve public employers of costs if they negotiate back pay agreements, PCC opted not to. The strikes at PCC were the first at a community college in Oregon’s history, and may have had broader implications for the institution. PCC president Adrien Bennings voluntarily separated from the college on May 14. The college’s board of trustees voted 6–1 to approve a $261,000 severance package—$1,000 more than it spent on striking workers—among other perks.
Workers at Planned Parenthood’s largest affiliate are unionizing, citing Trump cuts
May 13, 2026 // Sotoa said union representation would secure workers' voices in decisions over staffing and resources under threat by the cuts. Planned Parenthood workers at affiliates in Oregon, Maine, Minnesota, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and other parts of California, have already formed unions in response to the Trump administration and the changes they have prompted in their clinics' staffing, pay and workplace conditions.