On Labor Day, union members across the country celebrated the struggles and successes of our steady march towards a more fair and just economy for all. In November, Oregon workers have an opportunity to elect more working-class people to continue to fight for people over profits.
I recognize that we are living through dark, difficult times right now. We have seen greedy CEOs and billionaires before, but we have not seen those same CEOs and billionaires in near-full control of our federal government, our democracy, our livelihoods.
But these struggles — the precarity people are living with when it comes to our rent, our health care, our fears about A.I. and the future, and the fact that everything is too expensive — didn’t start with a single administration or president.
Our rigged economic system has left people behind for a long time now, and it’s one that values CEOs over construction workers, and billionaires over baristas. It’s a system that has gutted labor rights over the past 40 years, resulting in the highest income inequality we’ve seen in generations.
As a labor movement, fighting back is in our blood. though. Throughout history, our movement has had the vision to imagine a life for working people that didn’t exist yet and the will to make it happen. When we fought for an eight-hour workday, people in power called it unrealistic. When we said we deserve health and safety measures because our jobs shouldn’t kill us, they said the bosses would never give in. But our collective power made it happen. Nothing was ever given to the working class out of the kindness of a CEO’s heart; workers fought for it every single time. The November midterm election is the next fight we must win.
Supporting champions for workers at the ballot box is an act of radical hope. We bet our solidarity and our collective power that working people can live a better life. And time and time again our bets have paid off. From raising the minimum wage and securing significant prevailing wage protections to winning access to unemployment benefits for striking workers and passing even stronger anti-discrimination laws, the votes we cast during election season pay out in the halls of power when the labor champions we elect vote for our collective interests over corporate CEOs and billionaires.
For five years running, more than 70% of Americans support unions, the highest level of support in generations, with nearly 9 in 10 young people supporting our movement. This tells us that Americans trust fellow workers and their unions, and they trust when unions endorse leaders who will fight for us all.
Recent polling also shows us that the only group that workers trust more than unions is their own neighbors. For Oregon to remain the Union Strong state we are proud to be, the next few months are critical, and unions and our members are some of the most trusted messengers in this state. Continuing to resist the attacks on our democracy and our union way of life requires us to win elections for working class candidates from the top of our ballots, all the way down to local offices.
Check out oregonlabor.org/vote to learn more about the labor movement’s endorsements and use your trustworthiness with your neighbors to help elect your fellow working people by volunteering for canvasses and phone banks throughout this pivotal election season. Because when workers win, Oregon wins.
Graham Trainor is president of the Oregon Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, the statewide federation of labor unions, representing over 300,000 working Oregonians.
