The union at the Portland Japanese Garden just doubled.
Located within Portland’s Washington Park, the beloved non-profit garden draws over 400,000 visitors a year paying $22.50 per ticket. Workers at the garden’s cafe and gift shop, struggling on wages of about $20 an hour, voted 13 to 1 to unionize with Laborers Local 483 on June 6, 2024. Bargaining their first union contract has been slow. Now a second group of employees has joined their unit: the 23 workers who take tickets, give tours, answer visitor questions, and drive shuttles. Their July 27 vote was 16-6 in favor of the union. Gardeners remain non-union for now.
Local 483 represents workers at Washington Park and at the nearby Oregon Zoo.
Local 483 representative Dashiell Harrison says turnover may have slowed contract negotiations: When talks began November 2024, no bargaining team members had been among the original organizers. And no member of today’s union bargaining team was there when bargaining began.
But Harrison said progress was also slowed Portland Japanese Garden management’s hostility to even modest union proposals. The two sides had weeks of back and forth about workers’ right to wear union buttons or to have union reps come into the workplace. And management stood firm against a union proposal that workers be given one meal of miso soup and rice per shift (The two sides later compromised — the garden agreed to stock a freezer out of which workers can purchase food items at cost.)
Now that more workers are in the unit, Harrison said he’s hopeful that agreement won’t be too far in the future. In March 2026, the garden hired former Oregon labor commissioner Brad Avakian to be its lead negotiator.
