The storefront of Doe Donuts, a vegan donut shop in Northeast Portland, in October 2023. But New Seasons staff didn’t feel that an existing union would best represent them. The United Food and Commercial Workers union represents Fred Meyer and Safeway. In the grocery sector, unlike restaurants, many workers are already unionized. Did we join an existing union? Did we want to go independent?” he said. “It did not take much to move the needle on getting our coworkers ready to unionize,” said Tyler Fellini, one of the workers at the initial organizing meetings in a coworker’s backyard. When workers at New Seasons Seven Corners started talking about unionization in 2022, inspired by an Amazon warehouse union vote, they weighed their options. ‘A union that represented us and was made by us’ So it was really exciting, but I think we were all kind of in shock,” Gray said. “We weren’t expecting them to voluntarily recognize. Gray was prepared by other experienced local union organizers to expect a long and drawn-out fight with management. That surprised Reagan Gray, a front counter worker at Doe Donuts who was involved in the organizing. Two days later, the owners voluntarily recognized the union, rather than fighting it. They submitted a petition to the NLRB for a union to represent 11 workers on Aug. When a coworker was let go after an illness, a group of employees started talking about unionizing and gathering the pledge cards required by the NLRB. The union activity hasn’t slowed this year, with 81 elections filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) as of Thursday.ĭoughnut Workers United recently grew to include its second workplace: Doe Donuts, a small all-vegan donut outlet in the Hollywood District of Northeast Portland. Last year, the record was broken again with 126 petitions for new unions. In 2021, that number started climbing and hit a new record of 64. On average, Oregon has seen 43 petitions for new unions each year since 2004. Gordon Lafer, professor and co-director of the University of Oregon’s Labor Education & Research Center, said that labor organizing is growing everywhere in the county, but in Oregon, we’re seeing more “young people in their teens and twenties organizing their own independent unions.” Lafer said that independent unions are spreading at small workplaces as “people taking inspiration from others’ examples.” Voodoo’s union lost its first federally-recognized union election in 2021 after it resulted in a tie but found success the following year when employees won federal recognition of their independent union, Doughnut Workers United. So we decided to take that power into our own hands and do it ourselves,” she said. “We didn’t have hope or faith that a larger union was going to step in and organize us. “We work in a high turnover industry that, unfortunately, a lot of larger unions aren’t that interested in taking on,” Medina said. The dancers have been on strike since April and picketed the club in June demanding safe working conditions.Ĭourtesy of Steve Gibbons/Actor's Equity Association ![]() Medina said an independent union was a necessity in a sector largely seen as “un-organizable” by the big unions.Ī group of 16 strippers who danced at Northwest Portland’s Magic Tavern voted unanimously to unionize under the Actor’s Equity Association in Sept. Samantha Medina was one of the original union organizers at the donut shop in Portland’s Old Town in 2020. Seeing Burgerville’s success in organizing without the resources of a bigger union inspired workers at Voodoo Doughnut. Local chain Burgerville’s independent union, Burgerville Workers Union, won federal recognition in 2018 and signed its first contract in 2021. Rather than join AFL-CIO, SEIU or other big unions, some Oregon workers are taking a “grow your own” approach to unionizing. In a year of notable national union activity - from the WGA and SAF-AFTRA strikes shutting down Hollywood to the president joining the UAW picket line in Detroit - what’s happening here in Oregon is a little different: it’s driven by independent unions. ![]() In just the past month, strippers, vegan donut makers and thrift shop workers have all won union elections in Oregon.
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