At nonprofit Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare, two more units of mental health and addiction treatment workers have voted to unionize with Oregon AFSCME:
- In a vote-by-mail election among 183 workers who staff Portland-area residential treatment facilities the tally was 56 to 10 in favor of unionizing when ballots were counted Jan. 27.
- And in a separate group of 20 workers at Rockwood Respite, a residential treatment facility in Gresham, the Jan. 16 vote was 8 to 1 in favor of unionizing.
The two elections add 200 workers into bargaining that has already been under way for 270 Cascadia workers who staff five outpatient clinics and a mobile mental health crisis response team. They voted to join AFSCME in late 2018.
AFSCME’s campaign at Cascadia is part of United We Heal,  a larger effort to improve conditions industry-wide in the sector known as behavioral health, which includes treatment for mental health and substance abuse disorders.
