You don’t have to look very far to find an inspiring labor action, a group of workers finding their power, or another “non-traditional” sector of the economy seeing organizing momentum. Workers everywhere are fed up with a status quo that isn’t working for them. Coworkers are coming together across race, class, sector, gender. They are building power, and they are winning. In 2023, Oregon saw more NLRB union election filings per capita than any other state, only narrowly surpassed by Washington D.C. Organizing campaigns have taken root in Oregon in countless sectors — game workers, student workers, healthcare workers across a growing number of classifications, cannabis workers, and baristas to name a few — and they each provide lessons for our movement to learn and evolve. One of those lessons is that the labor movement must be doing everything in our power to invest in and prioritize organizing and growth, and that is precisely why we’re so excited to host our annual Oregon Labor Organizing Summit on May 30 at the LiUNA Local 737 union hall in Portland.
This event is open to union members, staff, and leaders who want to hone their skills and prepare to meet this moment of opportunity. We’re delighted to welcome Oregon’s own, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, to inspire our movement to go bigger and bolder and to truly meet the historic moment we are in. We’ll have incredible workshops to continue our leadership journey, or brush up on skills necessary to make our unions more powerful. We’ll have panels to hear directly from workers on the front lines of some of the most inspiring recent campaigns. And we’ll have presentations from nationally-recognized leaders and experts about tools to help Oregon labor win big on the shop floor.
I’ve been incredibly proud to see many Oregon unions lean in to innovative organizing campaigns, industry-wide strategies to build power, and inspirational contract campaigns that help spark new organizing. And the Oregon labor movement has been on the cutting edge nationally of countless economic, racial, and social justice campaigns over the last decade. Even still, growing our movement has perhaps never been more important. That’s why I’m encouraging members, leaders and staff of every union in Oregon to join us at the Organizing Summit.
With such a challenging and precarious economy that continues to squeeze the working class, and as working Oregonians are increasingly turning to our movement to find some stability in the midst of that precarity and chaos, this moment is ripe for transformational organizing and growth. But it’s not going to come easy. Wins for workers never do. And we’re going to need an army of dedicated union organizers with a singular focus of giving any worker who is dreaming of a better life the transformational opportunity to hold a union card.
So if you’re like me and you’re filled with a lot of hope and excitement about this moment — and are grounded in the reality of the hard work it will take to realize its potential — join us for an incredibly inspiring and energizing event on May 30 in Portland where organizing-focused unionists across sectors, geographies, and skill will come together to prepare, learn, and double down.
Go to https://bit.ly/2024OregonSummit to learn more and get yourself and your comrades registered. We’ll see you there, if not in the streets before! Solidarity forever.
