Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (May 21, 2021)
PAGE 8 | May 21, 2021 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS UNION ORGANIZING CULTURE Union logos get a little love A new Twitter account dedicated to sharing union logos has quickly developed a fan base. Medical interpreters, now in Oregon AFSCME, celebrate their union win. Medical interpreters unite As part of AFSCME they’ll push for better pay and standards. The State of Oregon on April 23 recognized a union for as many as 500 medical inter- preters who translate for Medi- caid patients who don’t speak English. Because the interpreters are independent contractors, they wouldn’t normally have a legal process to unionize, except that Oregon AFSCME helped pass a bill in 2019, HB 2231, that made unionization possible. Under the law, interpreters who are hired through a registry maintained by the Oregon Health Authority can unionize. About 250 interpreters signed cards to join Oregon AFSCME, but the exact num- ber in the new bargaining unit isn’t known. Alma Raya, an or- ganizer with Oregon AF- SCME, said that’s because the list of roughly 800 names on the registry includes several hundred who are no longer working as interpreters. Raya estimates 300 to 500 people on the list are actively working. Efforts to contact interpreters on the list began in January 2020, but slowed because of the pandemic. Maria Fiallos, who works as a medical interpreter for Span- ish speakers, says she and other interpreters started talking about unionizing more than three years ago, before the law was passed. Medical inter- preters in Washington had won big improvements through a similar process. Today the Washington interpreters make $42 an hour for their work, while the Oregon interpreters make $18 to $25 an hour. And because they’re independent contractors, that’s it —no ben- efits of any kind. Fiallos figures they have nowhere to go but up. “The hardest part is yet to come,” Alma says—contract negotiations. —DM Want to run for office? Oregon Labor Candidate School is taking applications Would you or one of your union co-workers make a good elected representative? Oregon Labor Candidate School (OLCS) was founded to get union members elected to pub- lic office—in order to push for policies that benefit working people and reflect the values of the labor movement. Trainees spend one Saturday a month for six months learning the mechanics of political cam- paigns. Applications are currently open for upcoming sessions. The next one—aimed at candi- dates in rural Oregon—starts June 19. It’s exclusively for union members and staff in Central, Eastern, Southern, and Coastal Oregon. The dead- line to apply is June 1. After that, for union mem- bers in the Portland metro area and Willamette Valley who are interested in running for of- fice, the next training will start in October; the deadline to ap- ply is August 1. Questions? Contact Kevin at 971-241-6990 or kevin@ oregonlaborcandidateschool. APPLY ONLINE oregonlaborcandidateschool.org/ application By Don McIntosh Twitter can be a constant con- flict zone. But it can also be a place of whimsy, where people pursue their passions and spread joy. Created March 15, the Twit- ter account @UnionLogos tweets little doses of joy three or four times each weekday, each one a shout-out to the beauty and symbolism of a union logo. Tweets can feature union logos from anywhere in the world, any point in time, and even fic- tional unions. The account is the project of Sam Nelson, an officer in the Washington-Baltimore News- Guild (CWA) who works as an organizer for the national office of Jobs With Justice. A collector of union buttons and stickers, he created the account because he kept seeing great union logos. “These are beautiful things that workers are creating for their own unions,” Nelson told the Labor Press by phone. “In the past 10 years there’s been a revitalization of good graphic design.” IBEW locals seem to be espe- cially creative with their logos, like the electric pirate of Local 915 in Tampa, or the spark-spit- ting gator of Local 606 in Or- lando. [On Facebook there’s ac- tually a 5,200-member group, IBEW Sticker Swap, where members trade the stickers of their locals.] Members of Nelson’s own union, the NewsGuild, have also been having fun with logos. Amid a historic surge of news- room unionizing, new locals are being formed around the country, with logos like a crab with pin- cers shaped like pen tips for the Chesapeake NewsGuild, or a logo featuring flying bats for the Austin NewsGuild. Augmenting Nelson’s own collection, Twitter followers are sending him their unions’ logos. He schedules them to post, sometimes as part of “theme” days. For April Fools, the theme was fictional unions, like the In- ternational Brotherhood of Jazz Dancers, Pastry Chefs and Nu- clear Technicians, which made an appearance on a 1993 episode of The Simpsons. On April 20 (4/20) he’ll tweet logos of re- cently formed cannabis workers unions. It turns out the Twitterverse is teeming with labor nerds and collectors. Nelson’s @UnionLo- gos account immediately made a splash, and within two months had over 2,900 followers. Says Nelson: “I’ve been get- ting a lot of feedback from peo- ple saying, ‘I’ve wanted some- one to do this!'"
