News

AFSCME Local 2064 Urges County to Address Unfair Wage Practices and Safety Concerns 

Corvallis, OR - In light of Benton County’s refusal to come to the bargaining table with reasonable wage proposals, county workers represented by Oregon AFSC

Workers Memorial Day is this Sunday, April 28, when we honor workers killed or injured on the job. On this day in 1971, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was formed.

For almost half a century, OSHA has been charged with helping to ensure safe and healthy working conditions for men and women across this country. But under the Trump administration, OSHA is failing us. As we observe Workers Memorial Day, it’s clear that we can do more – much more – for worker safety.

All-knowing sources of information. Tour guides to the highways and byways of history. The friendly voice of a morning story time. If that’s all you think of when you think of your library staff, you’d do well to meet some of AFSCME’s library workers, whose reach goes far beyond their libraries’ walls.

Today is National Library Workers Day, when we honor those professionals who keep our libraries running: librarians, technicians and other staff, including custodians, security and maintenance workers.

Fifty-one years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Memphis to help rally the community around 1,300 AFSCME sanitation workers who had gone on strike.

In the 1980s, I was living and going to school in Minnesota when women who worked for state government won a big victory. They got the state to increase the pay of women in “female dominated jobs” by passing a pay equity bill. In other words, they put a dent in the gender pay gap. As a student, I researched and wrote about the process of crafting, passing and implementing that legislation. And I learned something that I have never forgotten: the union made it happen. And not just any union. Our union: AFSCME. 

Our union gained more than 9,000 dues-paying members and nearly 19,000 dues-paying retirees in the last year, suggesting that billionaires and corporations are failing in their effort to “defund and defang” public service unions.

The 80th legislative session kicks off today and provides us both opportunities and challenges.  We have the chance to pass significant legislation to improve our working conditions.  However, we also have to be vigilant and fight proposed changes to Oregon law that may hurt us or make our jobs more challenging.

LAS VEGAS — More than 160 AFSCME members gathered in Las Vegas last week to lift up the voice of public service workers and move our union forward.  

At the AFSCME Volunteer Member Organizer Rise Up conference, VMOs from around the country attended skill-building training sessions and visited Nevada state employees to share the vision of improving the quality of public services and the lives of those who provide those services. 

LOS ANGELES — As fires burned in Northern and Southern California and the death toll continued to rise; as smoke engulfed nearby cities, prompting health warnings to stay indoors; and as survivors relocated to makeshift camps and hoped for the best, the best often