Political Conference

There are three ways we build power in Unions. We build power through union density; the more workers in an industry that are organized the higher the standards can be raised. We build power in the workplace and at the bargaining table. We talk about this a lot; enforcing our contracts and being united during bargaining to get a fair agreement. The last way we build power is Politics. The political landscape has a huge impact on the climate and the circumstances in which we bargain. This is especially true in the public sector where the legislature literally decides how much money is allocated for the wage and benefit reserve fund. That is the primary source for our raises and the increased costs of health care (the other one I can think of being the agency budgets). It is crucial we have legislators that understand the concerns of ODOT employees and make your issues a priority. In SEIU, we have a CAPE Board made up of members (3 ODOT members) who interview, and evaluate prior performance of law-makers in four categories: Health Care, Public Service, Workers Rights, and Consumer Protection. Based on these criteria endorsements have been made recently, and many of our endorsed candidates are in tough primary battles for the May 20th election (find full endorsement list to the left). We are having our political conference April 5th in Clackamas to get to know our endorsed candidates better and talk about our plan for achieving electoral success in the primary and the general election. Please contact me (barnardt@opeuseiu.org) if you can make the conference. I will post the conference sign up form soon. The address is 12566 SE 93rd Ave, Clackamas. Space is limited so fill out the form soon and return it to the Portland office fax (503-408-4099).