"HOLLA...For Labor!!!", Labor Radio In Salem & Portland, And The Oregon Chapter Of The Coalition For Black Trade Unionists

 

Over the past 10 years, the Oregon Chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) has been working in collaboration with a labor continuum here in Oregon in the audio production of Labor Radio segments on KBOO Radio 90.7 FM. The continuum consists of seven contributors: Oregon CBTU, Jamie Partridge, Lane Poncy, Stephen Siegel, Tim EAnneMcD and Michael Cathcart. Our declarative statement of “highlighting the works of the working class, by the working class, for the working class” is broadcasted weekly at 6:00 pm on Monday night. Each week our storylines are labor intensive pieces relevant to organized labor and the impact on everyday workers. Our broadcasts reflect on the lives of actual workers involved in daily struggles and successes of lasting one day longer, contract negotiations, relevant legislative actions, union activism, and varied opinions on local, national, and sometimes international issues that buttress against ordinary workers as they go about making ends meet.

Recently within the past 2 years Oregon CBTU has expanded to include a rebroadcast of our
labor radio contributions on Willamette Wake Up, a weekday local public affairs program, on KMUZ Community Radio (88.5 & at 100.7 FM), fashionably coined as, “HOLLA FOR LABOR”. This new affiliation enables us to design labor radio segments more inclusive of the Mid-Willamette Valley workers.

The Oregon CBTU Labor Radio and HOLLA FOR LABOR segments consist of monthly ½ hour
segments featuring 3 on air contributors, Tina Turner-Morfitt, Dr. Audrey Terrell, and Deborah Hall. We are the 3 principal officers of Oregon CBTU. Each month our interviews feature guest which include a varied mix of activist from Oregon, the Pacific Northwest and national guest covering various topics. Our overall goal with each segment is “to make labor something you can feel again.”

Our most recent segment featured Dan Torres, the Executive Director of the Oregon Labor Candidate School. Brother Torres can be described as a political operative/organizer/strategist from Portland Oregon. He works in Labor, Democratic, and Progressive advocacy. He has 8 cycles of electoral experience ranging from State Rep races up to the United States Senate. He has worked 6 long sessions in various roles from legislative staff to advocacy and engagement, to lobbying. He has extensive experience in organizing, communications, electoral politics, field, data, training, leadership development, coalition building, collaboration, and political navigation and strives to maintains the program’s apolitical status in preparing future candidate seeking out leadership roles. The mission, vision and values of the Oregon Labor Candidate School are listed accordingly:

MISSION

The mission of the Oregon Labor Candidate School is to train leaders to be successful candidates for elected office. OLCS alumni will champion policies which positively impact all Oregonians, including, living wages, a superb education system, access to quality and affordable healthcare, a secure retirement, and to defend and grow the labor movement in Oregon. Our curriculum includes an equity lens, providing candidates with the tools to make justice-oriented policy decisions.

VISION

The vision of the Oregon Labor Candidate School is to increase the representation of union members in elected office who will champion policies which reflect the values of the labor movement and benefit working people in Oregon.

VALUES

Collective Action * Economic Fairness * Empowerment * Equity * Solidarity * Respect * Democracy * Justice

The 2024 electoral contest is quickly gaining on us. Tune into this segment of ‘HOLLA FOR LABOR’ to examine the rigorous process candidates will face in their bid to draft a successful campaign.

Join us for full segments of labor radio each month:

 KBOO Labor Radio (97.4 FM) at 6 pm the first Monday, of each month. The podcast can be found on https://kboo.fm/media/117754-labor-radio

 KMUZ Community Radio on Willamette Wake Up, the fourth Thursday of each month at 8 am. The podcast can be found on kmuz.org.

How We Do And Don't Do Politics: Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates At The United Electrical Workers Convention

 
Note from Bob Rossi:

This post does not reflect the opinions of the Marion-Polk-Yamhill Central Labor Chapter (MPYCLC) or the Oregon AFL-CIO.

I think that Sister Davis Gates gave a strong and generally correct speech to the recent convention of the United Electrical Workers (UE). Given that union's history of engagement with progressive issues and its recent growth in numbers and influence, the UE members present were geared up for what the Chicago Teachers Union President had to say. It should matter to all of us that much of what she had to say is being proven true in practice. She isn't making anything up in her speech. And I think that if our labor movement wants to hold on to members and succeed in contract campaigns and politics we have to listen carefully to what is being said here and change course.

Here are some of my takeaways:

1. We let the political parties choose our candidates rather than asserting ourselves way too much of the time. Candidates show up, ask for endorsement, we usually go through a difficult endorsement process, and if we endorse them we spend some time trying to bring them up to speed on our issues while they're busy running for office. Full labor unity behind particular candidates is not always in place, and endorsements and unity do not always guarantee votes. We sometimes run in circles for money, endorsements and votes while trying to bring candidates closer to us, and we may not fully succeed in either attempt. When the not-fully-informed-and-committed candidate wins but doesn't follow through on our issues as we hoped they would we're disappointed or angry, but if you step back and look at how the process works over time you can see why this happens so often.  

2. The Oregon Labor Candidate School and the Labor Education and Research Center and whatever programs unions may have in place to encourage union members to run for public office are invaluable. No union member or union supporter should run for office without taking the trainings and classes offered. More than that, these training opportunities graft people in to networks and expose participants to big-picture politics and complex questions that potential candidates should be working with before they run.

That said, trainings are not substitutes for organizing, building movements, producing the people and energy that movements need, creating street heat and winning in negotiations, and defining victories. Sister Davis Gates is saying that movement building is the priority and that you won't understand and exercise power until you have built a militant labor movement that is not afraid of striking. That movement will create activists, organizers and leaders and our candidates and the energy needed to get them over the top should come from the movement and its alliances with community activists and organizers. The money and endorsements will probably come later and after institutions learn that you're serious and committed and capable. See this article and this article.

3. We're putting the cart before the horse by not being about movement building, thinking that we have to choose between candidates who do not come from our ranks, trying to bring candidates along who do not know us and our issues, thinking about winning elections as being about money (and not people power), thinking about people power as something to mobilize every two years or four years (instead of it being about constant organizing and militancy at the grassroots), and supporting candidates who have not been tested in workplace actions, strikes and contract negotiations.

4. Our labor political scorecards are valuable tools. They tell us how a politician has voted on labor issues. I think that the problem here is that as political polarization deepens it gets harder to define what "liberal," "centrist," "conservative" and "progressive" mean in real terms. What is a "labor issue" today and how do we define victories when we're up against the wall and too quick to compromise? The Republican party has moved so far to the far-right so quickly that a politician or program that used to be considered conservative now might look like liberal and a progressive politician or program gets defined as being anti-Republican and left at that. Like many other working-class people, I'm both repelled by the anti-worker and hard-hearted Republicans, who tell me that I don't deserve what I have earned and are taking aim at my rights, and by the weak liberals and progressives who excuse austerity and don't defend public services and many of the gains labor has made over the last ninety years. And we in labor are often playing a weak defense.