The Oregon Labor Dispatch: April 10, 2025
UPCOMING EVENTS
AG Rayfield - Safeguarding Oregon: Federal Oversight Forums
April 10 & May 3
Oregon’s attorney general, Dan Rayfield, has announced that he is launching a series of town halls to connect with Oregonians and communities across the state. The "Safeguarding Oregon: Federal Oversight Forums" coincides with the 100-day milestone of his administration on April 10th.
Click here for more information
Ways and Means Committee Roadshows
April 11-25
Oregon is in a fight to prevent federal cuts to social services. The legislative members of the state’s main budget committee will travel the state to hear from Oregonians on budget priorities. Show up to your Joint Committee on Ways and Means Roadshow and tell legislators not to preemptively cut funding.
Click here for locations and times
Hands Off Medicaid Rallies
April 12 & April 16
Congress is proposing drastic cuts to Medicaid – thus far more than $880 billion – to pay for trillions in tax cuts for the very rich. Rallies are being held statewide through April – register today for a rally near you.
Click here for more information
Higher Education National Day of Action
April 17
Today, public education at all levels is under attack. Politicians and right-wing organizations are pushing educational gag orders that prohibit the teaching of subjects, concepts and books in both higher education and K-12 schools. On April 17, 2025, we will fight back.
Click here for more information
Pacific Northwest Labor History Association Labor History Conference
April 25 & 26
“Labor in a Hostile Political Environment: What Can Labor History Teach Us?”
NECA/IBEW Electrical Training Center, 16021 NE Airport Way, Portland
Workers Memorial Day 2025: Honoring 45 Lives Lost in 2024
April 28
Workers Memorial Day is observed annually on April 28, commemorating the enactment of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), which affirms every worker's fundamental right to a safe workplace.
TAKE ACTION
Tell Congress: Hands Off Worker Rights
Call your congressperson and tell them to stop Trump’s federal worker union busting.
Tell Congress: Do Your Job and Stand Up for Workers!
Elon Musk and his unaccountable DOGE are threatening vital programs across the government, politicizing the federal workforce that keeps our country running, and violating Americans’ rights by seizing our private data.
The AFL-CIO is collecting stories from workers and working families who are affected by the Trump administration’s new policies.
Donate now to the AFGE Federal Employee Defense Fund Help fund the fight against the attacks on America’s civil servants!
Labor Demands an End to the Assault on the Right to Organize and Protest
Join the labor movement in signing this petition demanding an end to the Trump administration’s assaults on immigrant workers, freedom of speech, the right to organize and bargain, and federal government workers, their unions, and the services they provide.
RESOURCES
The Oregon AFL-CIO’s compendium of resources to address federal threats against workers from immigration to LGBTQIA+ rights.
MUST READ
Oregon bill would create farmworker labor standards board
April 8, 2025 | OPB
Lawmakers are considering a bill that would give agricultural workers a seat at the table. House Bill 2548 would establish a board made up of voices representing farmworkers, farmers, government agencies and labor law to help establish working standards and conditions.
OREGON LABOR
Oregon Congresswoman Janelle Bynum hosts labor roundtable
March 22, 2025 | KATU
Congresswoman Janelle Bynum (OR-05) convened a roundtable discussion with local labor leaders at the SEIU Local 503 Portland Office.
Oregon’s new Democratic Party chair brings union background
April 3, 2025 | NW Labor Press
Nathan Soltz was elected chair by the DPO’s State Central Committee on March 16, becoming the youngest chair in the group’s history at 27 years old. Soltz was one of the initial leaders of an effort to unionize among Oregon legislative staffers, who voted to join IBEW Local 89 in 2021. As a high school student in 2014, he joined his teachers out on the picket line during the 16-day Medford teachers strike.
After 16 months of talks, AFSCME reaches deal for first union contract at New Avenues for Youth
April 3, 2025 | NW Labor Press
Oregon AFSCME reached tentative agreement on a first contract covering about 110 workers at homeless youth nonprofit New Avenues for Youth, the union announced March 27.
POLITICS
Trump seeks court approval for most aggressive union-busting attempt ever
April 4, 2025 | The Washington Post
In another move among many to vastly expand the power of the presidency, Trump issued an executive order last week that is the most aggressive attack on collective bargaining the nation has ever seen. If the action withstands judicial challenges, it will cancel legally binding union contracts covering a large swath of federal employees in many agencies that would no longer recognize union representation.
Mass Protests Across the Country Show Resistance to Trump
April 5, 2025 | The New York Times
Protestors came out in defense of national parks and small businesses, public education and health care for veterans, abortion rights and fair elections. They marched against tariffs and oligarchs, dark money and fascism, the deportation of legal immigrants and the Department of Government Efficiency.
FEDERAL ATTACKS
DOGE expected to take aim at DHS with staffing cuts, including at US Secret Service
April 5, 2025 | CNN
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is expected to take aim at the Department of Homeland Security in the coming days, seeking potentially major cuts to personnel across its agencies, including the US Secret Service, multiple sources tell CNN.
‘A huge impact on worker safety’: Protection for miners, firefighters in jeopardy after CDC cuts
April 6, 2025 | CNN
Anyone in the US who’s depended on a respirator to provide protection against dust, smoke, mold or airborne viruses has likely relied on a small but mighty agency within the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assure that they’re shielded from things that could damage their health.
Supreme Court halts judge’s order to reinstate federal probationary workers
April 8, 2025 | NBC News
The Trump administration argued Alsup did not have the authority to reinstate the workers and made the problem worse by micromanaging the process. Lawyers also argued that the various labor unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees, and other groups that sued, such as the Main Street Alliance and the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, did not have a direct stake in the firings.
Strike Risk Grows as Trump Cuts Labor Mediators From 143 to Four
April 8, 2025 | Bloomberg Law
The Trump administration has gutted a small federal agency of nearly all its labor mediators, endangering a key lever for resolving employer-union conflicts and avoiding strikes nationwide. Only four mediators are left at the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, down from 143, according to two people familiar with the situation.
Trump administration ends union dues collection for most feds without notice
April 9, 2025 | Government Executive
Matt Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, said that the news trickled out this week as employees began receiving their paychecks—and union locals stopped receiving payments.
MSHA pauses new silica rule, citing changes with federal agencies
April 9, 2025 | WVTF
The federal government is pushing back a deadline to implement a new silica rule in mines. According to the rule which went into effect last year, coal mines were supposed to be in compliance April 14, and that’s now scheduled to take effect in August. A week before this announcement, MSHA held trainings across the country to explain how the new silica rule would work, attended by coal operators and miner advocates.
ATTACKS ON IMMIGRANTS
Supreme Court Temporarily Blocks Order Requiring Return of Wrongly Deported Migrant
April 7, 2025 | The New York Times
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Monday temporarily blocked a trial judge’s order directing the United States to return a Salvadoran migrant it had inadvertently deported. The chief justice, acting on his own, issued an “administrative stay,” an interim measure meant to give the justices some breathing room while the full court considers the matter.
At Sea-Tac Airport, refugee workers fear the traveling world they connect
April 7, 2025 | The Seattle Times
Most of those workers are represented by unions, including local chapters of the Service Employees International Union, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and Unite Here. Those unions don’t keep detailed demographic data on members, but said the majority of workers they represent at Sea-Tac are immigrants or refugees.
THE LABOR MOVEMENT
Ten National Unions Call for Anti-Trump Resistance
April 8, 2025 | Labor Notes
Ten national unions and dozens of locals representing more than 3 million members have issued a joint statement demanding the release of immigrant workers recently snatched by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
STRIKES & COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
UPTE-CWA 9199 strike continues, AFSCME 3299 union joins in solidarity
April 7, 2025 | The University of California San Diego Guardian
On April 1, two unions representing University of California employees — University Professional and Technical Employees CWA Local 9119 and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 3299 — held a strike at UC San Diego Jacobs Medical Center from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. This strike, led by UPTE-CWA 9199, was part of an ongoing series of strikes prompted by allegations of bad-faith bargaining practices by the UC amid continuing contract negotiations.
THE ECONOMY
Fed's Powell says larger-than-expected tariffs likely to boost inflation, slow growth
April 4, 2025 | Reuters
President Donald Trump's new tariffs are "larger than expected," and the economic fallout including higher inflation and slower growth likely will be as well, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Friday, while cautioning it was still too soon to know what the right response from the central bank ought to be.
Stocks fall after day of wild swings as markets digest Trump's tariff reality
April 7, 2025 | NBC
Wall Street ended largely lower Monday after a wild trading day as President Donald Trump escalated his trade war with aggressive tariffs that have rocked the global economy, leaving investors — and everyone else — unsure about what’s to come.
ORGANIZING
Staffers at L.A.’s Natural History Museum and La Brea Tar Pits Form Union
April 9, 2025 | The Hollywood Reporter
A union representing around 300 workers — from performers to engineers to educators — has been voluntarily recognized by management of the institutions, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees announced on Wednesday.