Meet Our Coalition Partner: Bus Project

The Bus Project does volunteer-driven democracy for our generation (young people). We are workin’ hard to build a great future and to empower great leaders—who will make it even greater.

We are thousands of Oregonians, young and young-on-the-inside, doing democracy in a hands-on way. We put feet on the streets, butts in the seats and votes in the election…eets. We work to make politics more accessible, more equitable and more innovative. We know our generation can save the world and we need your help. (Listen, we know “saving the world” sounds kinda hokey to some of you, but somebody seriously needs to do it and that somebody should be you and everyone you know. Seriously.)

We got started in 2001 by a bunch of young leaders in a bar. They didn’t like the way politics was going and they decided to turn things around. So they bought a Bus & started getting volunteers on it, to make real political change and empower a whole new generation in democracy. They took the Bus around the state, helped some great people win elections, got thousands of regular people involved and just kept going. (Yes-- it's true we have a Bus!)

And now, here we are. Welcome to the Bus. 

We are proud partners of the Fair Shot For All Coalition. We're new members this year, but we have done an amazing job this past year to help Raise the Wage campaign. We collected 1410 pledge cards for the campaign and coalition and went to the Raise the Wage lobby day in January.

We are thrilled to bring a youth agenda and lens to this important and vital coalition. Oregon is better when all hardworking Oregonians have a fair shot at their future. 

Oregonians rally to raise the wage in front of The Bus!

Meet Our Coalition Partner: PFLAG Portland Black Chapter

PFLAG Portland Black Chapter (PBC) promotes the health and well-being of Black gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) persons, their families and friends through support, education, organizing and advocacy. 

PFLAG Portland Black Chapter was founded in 2009 as the first African American chapter of PFLAG in the nation.  There is a long history of anti-LGBTQ organizing in Oregon, with state and local ballot measure fights being the most visible form of that. What is not highlighted in that history is the long history of organizing in the Black community here in support of LGBTQ equality. In the 1990s, there was a very repressive Oregon state ballot measure, Measure 9, that would have placed being LGBTQ in the same category with pedophilia and bestiality. An organization called African Americans Against Measure 9 formed to hold discussions within the Black community, in our churches, in our community centers, in our homes. Antoinette Edwards was one of the founders of African Americans Against Measure 9, and also became one of the founders of PFLAG PBC, along with Kerry Johnson. These two folks embody what is so powerful and unique about the work of PFLAG PBC. 

PFLAG Portland Black Chapter was formed to address the need to have culturally specific work in the Black community around LGBTQ equality. We address the multiple layers of discrimination that LGBTQ Black people and their families and loved ones face, and offer opportunities to transform our community. 

We are able to carry out our mission by strategically prioritizing our work through five program areas: Youth Outreach, Faith Outreach, Member Support, Portland Black Pride, and our Policy and Advocacy Program.

PFLAG Portland Black Chapter is a proud member of the Fair Shot Coalition working to bring economic justice and fairness to all Oregonians.  We know that Black LGBTQ Oregonians too often face startling disparities as was lifted up in our 2012 Lift Every Voice Report that brought visibility to the experiences of Black LGBTQ Oregonians. 

Working with the Fair Shot Coalition we have seen much success improving the lives of thousands across the state through the passage of important legislation that increases employment opportunities, provides workers with paid sick leave, ands bans profiling by law enforcement to name a few.  

We have had success in advancing social, racial, and LGBTQ justice in our state, but we know have much more to do.  We look forward to our partnership with the Fair Shot Coalition working to bring equity to Oregon.

Fair Shot For All Coalition members presenting at a PFLAG PBC Know Your Rights Training

Meet Our Coalition Partner: SEIU Local 49

SEIU Local 49 represents more than 10,000 workers in Oregon & SW Washington. We stand together for fair pay, affordable healthcare, dignity and a voice on the job. Our mission as SEIU Local 49 is to improve the quality of life for our members, their families, and dependents by achieving a higher standard of living, by elevating their social conditions and by striving to create a more just society. Fair Shot For All shares our values and together we remain focused on building an economy that gives every Oregonian an opportunity to get ahead. 

Racial Equity Report Release

In 2015 Fair Shot For All helped to push the Oregon legislature to pass huge bills advancing racial equity. Facing Race: Oregon addresses racial equity related to civil rights, criminal justice, economic justice, education, health, and immigrant and refugee issues. Read more at www.facingraceoregon.org! 

Meet Our Coalition Partner: SEIU Local 503

We are an organization of more than 55,000 women and men who, by joining together, are fighting to create a just and vibrant society where everyone is treated with dignity and respect. We believe that everyone who works should be able to provide for themselves and their families. 

That’s why we are proud leaders in the Fair Shot For All coalition. 

In the 2015 legislative session, we worked with the coalition to fight for changes that will give every Oregonian the opportunity to succeed. SEIU Local 503 members were proud to lead the way on retirement security. Nearly half of all Oregonians have no employer-sponsored retirement plan. As a result, many are at risk of living in poverty when they retire.  

We fought to address this problem by helping pass HB 2960, which created a state-managed retirement plan for people who don’t have one at work. This new opportunity to save for the future will put thousands of Oregonians back in charge of their financial future. 

In the next legislative session, we will work to raise Oregon’s minimum wage. The current minimum wage is not enough to live on. An Oregonian working full time for $9.25 an hour earns just $19,240 a year. No matter where you live, that’s not nearly enough to afford the basics like housing, food, and childcare. Underpaid Oregonians and their families need a raise—and they need it now.

SEIU Local 503 members prepare for a lobby day in Salem, Oregon.

Meet Our Coalition Partner: Rural Organizing Project

The Rural Organizing Project (ROP) is a statewide network of locally-based groups in rural and small-town Oregon that work to promote human dignity: the belief in the equal worth of all people, the need for equal access to justice and the right to self-determination. 

ROP’s most important work is to build the power of each human dignity group to organize for change in their communities. We connect leaders and groups through collective action to promote inclusive democracy, organize for racial and economic justice, and stand together for LGBTQ rights and immigrant fairness. 

We believe in 3 guiding principles:

1. Every human being matters.
2. Every issue is interconnected.
3. It’s all about transformational organizing.

Our small staff is backed by hundreds of volunteer leaders and thousands of supporters spanning the 10th largest state in the nation. As Left Turn magazine reported of our model, this structure enables and requires ROP to focus on organizing and grassroots leadership development to maintain the depth and breadth of movement building work.

ROP works with allies to bring rural voices to progressive issues and bring rural issues to progressive organizing. Our members are active in gathering signatures for the 15Now campaign to raise the minimum wage, we rallied to promote access to drivers’ cards for immigrants, we have promoted ban the box legislation through social media, and member groups across Oregon have organized Black Lives Matter vigils and demonstrations to call for an end to racial profiling and to hold local police accountable.

We are excited to be a member of the Fair Shot for All Coalition and bring rural voices to the fight for economic and social justice. 

Meet Our Coalition Partner: Partnership for Safety and Justice

Partnership of Safety and Justice (PSJ) is a statewide nonprofit organization working to reform public safety and criminal justice policy in Oregon on behalf of all people affected by crime and incarceration. We believe that public safety policy should include an appropriate level of accountability for those who commit crimes, resources to ensure that crime survivors get the services they need, and a commitment to proven strategies that prevent crime and provide opportunities for victims and people who commit crimes to rebuild their lives. PSJ is happy to be a part of the Fair Shot Coalition because we know that public safety depends on individuals being able to support themselves and their families and to make meaningful contributions to their communities.
 
Earlier this year, PSJ joined with the Fair Shot Coalition in successfully urging state lawmakers to “Ban the Box” on employment applications, which gives Oregonians with criminal records a better chance of finding work and getting back on their feet. Eliminating unnecessary barriers to employment is one of the simplest and most effective ways to ensure that people who committed crimes in the past will remain on the right side of the law. The income, health benefits, and social stability associated with employment are, in many cases, essential elements in preventing future criminal activity. Employment also makes it more likely that people will pay restitution when there are victims. Finally, given the disproportionate impact of our criminal justice system on people of color, ending the practice of denying consideration to applicants due solely to the disclosure of a past conviction is a matter of racial equity.
 
We were also excited to partner with Fair Shot to help bring an end to police profiling in Oregon. We know that profiling by law enforcement is a problem that exists across our state, particularly within communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. This practice degrades rather than enhances public safety by engendering mistrust among community members. We have seen, time and time again, how racial profiling can lead to people of color—most often black boys and young men—becoming victims of police violence. Profiling also contributes to minority communities being disproportionately represented throughout our criminal and juvenile justice systems.  PSJ was pleased to see Oregon lawmakers begin tackling this issue with the passage of House Bill 2002 in 2015.

While we and our social justice allies accomplished much this session, we have more work to do. With support from everyone from the president to local legislative leaders on both sides of the aisle, there is reason for optimism. At the same time, we should not underestimate what it will take to build an effective system that we believe in, rather than simply tearing down one that have now.

Meet Our Coalition Partner: Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon

Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon is the statewide political voice for women’s health care and for Planned Parenthood’s 12 health centers serving communities from Ashland to Bend to Milwaukie. PPAO defends the Planned Parenthood mission by advocating for public policy that will enhance and protect women’s health; by building support and accountability among our elected officials in Oregon; and by engaging and motivating the public. 

At Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon, we know that women’s health and economic well-being go hand in hand. More than a third of female voters have struggled to afford prescription birth control at some point in their lives and, as a result, used birth control inconsistently. Women make up nearly two-thirds of minimum-wage workers, the vast majority of whom receive no paid sick days. For every dollar men earned in 2012, Oregon women earned 79 cents – and black and Hispanic women earned even less on average.

That’s why we’re proud to be part of the Fair Shot for All Coalition, which helps level the playing field for women and working families. The Affordable Care Act’s birth control benefit is already saving women across the country a whopping $1.4 billion a year, but we still have a long way to go. The ability to plan, prevent and space pregnancies is directly linked to benefits to women, men, children and society, including more educational and economic opportunities, healthier babies, more stable families and a reduced taxpayer burden.

PPAO at the Fair Shot 2016 Legislative Agenda launch!

Meet Our Coalition Partner: PCUN

PCUN, Oregon’s Farmworker Union, A member of the Fair Shot Coalition.
 
PCUN (Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United) is Oregon's union of farmworkers, nursery and reforestation workers.  PCUN is the state's largest Latino organization.  98% of PCUN’s 6,500 members are low-income immigrants from Mexico and Central America.
 
Our mission is to change the agricultural labor system in a manner that institutionalizes better working and living conditions, redresses the power imbalance between growers and workers, and establishes respect, fairness and dignity as the bases for the employment relationship. 
 
Together, PCUN and it’s sister organizations reach and engage an astounding variety of people and entities:  farmworkers, Latino youth, new immigrants, new citizens, immigrants leaving agricultural for construction and service work, allies in small business, in labor, religious, student, environmental, human rights, civil liberties and community groups, the media, public officials, law enforcement, local educators, growers, consumers and financial institutions.  The list of programmatic areas is similarly comprehensive:  workplace power and security, housing, emergency aid, child care and pre-school, police abuse and discrimination, educational equality, government and corporate accountability, adult education, public school curricula, economic self-help, public awareness and understanding of farmworkers and immigrants, public policy analysis and advocacy, litigation, immigration casework, cultural activities, community-base radio documentation and archiving, coalition and alliance building.

Speaker Kotek and students from PCUN at the minimum wage public hearing in April. 

Meet Our Coalition Partner: Oregon Action

Oregon Action works across urban and rural divides to build a unified intercultural movement for justice in Oregon. For over 30 years we have been empowering people to come together and advocate on their own behalf to address community needs in areas such as access to healthcare, immigrant rights, racial justice, wages, affordable housing, student debt, voter registration, and turnout. Through leadership development and community organizing, we provide the organizational base for participatory democracy, just communities, and a fair economy.

We envision a community where immigrants don’t fear local police, law enforcement is trained and committed to community policing, where everyone has access to affordable education and quality healthcare regardless of background or income, where no one works and lives in poverty, and where our local, state, and federal representatives are accountable to a strong community of trained leaders and the chamber of commerce has to wait to get an appointment.

Like most of our partners and fellow Fair Shot coalition members, we know we’re more powerful when we work together. Oregon Action is part of the coalition not only because of the collective strength behind it, but also because of its commitment to holding itself and its members accountable to the voices that our movements so often ignore—the voices, needs, and leadership of communities of color, immigrants, women, refugees, LGBTQ, and rural communities.

Oregon Action members rallying for a fair shot!

Meet Our Coalition Partner: Oregon Nurses Association

The Oregon Nurses Association is Oregon’s oldest and largest nursing union and professional association. We are proud to represent more than 13,000 registered nurses, advanced practice nurses and nursing students in Oregon. Oregon nurses make up the largest segment of Oregon’s health care workforce, and practice in nearly every health care setting, from large hospitals to local clinics, from corrections to school-based health centers, and in community-based public health.  Nurses understand the connection between public health and policy, which is why we advocated for the Fair Shot issues, particularly around paid sick days and raising the minimum wage. 

ONA’s nurses brought their voices to testimony at the capitol on the public health importance of keeping sick workers at home. Low-wage workers should not have to choose between paying their rent or working while sick. And thanks to the passage of the paid sick days legislation, Oregon workers can now stay home from work when they or their children are ill, keeping their co-workers and members of the public healthy, speeding up their own recovery time, and bolstering out health care system by addressing treatable illnesses before they worsen. Before the passage of this legislation, nurses saw far too many people going into work sick, putting Oregon’s families and communities at greater risk. 

Oregon nurses also understand the importance of maintaining living wage jobs to improve our state’s health and economy. For hundreds of thousands of working Oregonians and their families, raising the minimum wage could also have life-changing health benefits -- research shows that income affects the rates at which individuals contract diseases like diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease; and the likelihood they will suffer premature mortality. Raising children out of poverty in particular can have long-lasting effects that improve Oregonians’ health and extend their lives; from healthier births to fewer chronic diseases later in life. By ensuring every Oregonian has the ability to earn a living wage we can help improve the health of workers and their families.

ONA Executive Director Susan King testifying alongside the AFL-CIO's Tom Chamberlain in support of passing paid sick days. 

Meet Our Coalition Partner: Oregon Education Association

The Oregon Education Association represents approximately 43,000 professional educators across the state of Oregon, working every day for the schools Oregon children deserve. OEA fights for educational policy that best serves our students, but also fights for a society that sends kids to school ready to learn and succeed. 

That is why OEA is a proud leader of the Fair Shot coalition. We worked with the coalition to help pass a number of policies that will strengthen families and provide students the foundation to succeed in school.  

OEA was proud to help lead the way on passing earned sick time for all Oregonians, because of the impact it will have on a child’s success in school. Teachers routinely have students in their classes who must miss school in order to care for a younger sibling because their parents can’t afford to take time off; in other instances, students come to school sick because there is no one available to stay home and care for them. This will change with the passage of Oregon’s new earned sick time law.  

Educators also know that students’ scholastic performance suffers when their parents don’t earn enough to support a family. OEA members routinely purchase with their own money clothing and school supplies for students whose families are unable to afford them. OEA continues to work with coalition partners to increase Oregon’s minimum wage so that more parents who work full time will be able to afford basic items such as school clothes and pens and pencils.  

By working together with the coalition, the Oregon Education Association will help make sure that every Oregon student has a fair shot.

OEA members meeting with Representative Barton for a lobby visit. 

Meet Our Coalition Partner: Northwest Workers' Justice Project

NWJP exists to support the efforts of low-wage, immigrant and contingent workers to protect their workplace dignity and to improve wages and working conditions. It offers high-quality legal assistance to workers and their organizations; supports organizing efforts; educates workers, their leaders and the public about workplace rights; lobbies for better employment laws; and promotes greater access to low-cost employment legal assistance.

NWJP also leads the Oregon Coalition to Stop Wage Theft – a contingent of 36 organizations (and growing) representing labor, legal, faith, and small-business communities. The Coalition is dedicated to putting an end to the practice of wage theft by passing stronger laws, supporting stronger enforcement of existing regulations, and creating stronger communities.

NWJP believes that long-lasting change and sustainable solutions to the problems of economic and social disparities can only come from the people who are most affected by them. That’s why we are committed to supporting grassroots efforts to end injustice, amplifying workers’ voices in law-making forums, providing opportunities to workers to build and develop their leadership skills, and encouraging workers – especially those who have been disenfranchised and traditionally ignored – to participate in political and social processes that will bring about the end of structural and entrenched economic, social and environmental inequities.

NWJP's Executive Director, Michael Dale, joins Fair Shot For All for a Raise the Wage Day of Action. 

Meet Our Coalition Partner: NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon

NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon is dedicated to developing and sustaining a constituency that uses the political process to guarantee every woman the right to make personal decisions regarding the full range of reproductive choices, including preventing unintended pregnancy, bearing healthy children, and choosing legal abortion.  We envision an Oregon where all people have reproductive self-determination to decide when or whether they will have children, and where every woman and transgender person who can become pregnant can exercise reproductive choices with dignity, without discrimination or coercion.

During the 2015 legislative session, we joined the Fair Shot Coalition and advocated for policies that support women, families, and communities, and give us all a fair shot at a secure future. We took an active stance on Ban the Box, End Profiling, and Paid Sick Days, and educated our members and supporters on how these issues intersect with reproductive justice. 

Every person should have the opportunity to compete for jobs and stable housing, and have the power and resources to make decisions for themselves and their families without fear of discrimination, exclusion, or harm. Leveling the playing field, creating equitable opportunity for women and families, is a reproductive justice issue.

Every person should have the right to parent children in a safe, healthy environment. Every person deserves to raise a family without fear that their children will be harmed just because of the color of their skin, their gender identity, or their sexual orientation. 

Women need to be able to take a day off of work, or even an hour or two, without the risk of losing their job to access the health care they need. Without this economic security, women’s access to health care is vulnerable and their ability to take care of themselves and their families is threatened.

We are members of the Fair Shot Coalition because economic justice and reproductive justice are intimately connected. Every woman, no matter where she lives or how much she earns, deserves a fair shot. Along with our coalition partners, NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon is committed to breaking down barriers to health care and employment so that all people can have a secure future and thrive. 

NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon joining OHEA to lobby on Fair Shot issues. 

Meet Our Coalition Partner: Jobs with Justice

Portland Jobs with Justice is a coalition of nearly 100 labor, community, faith, student and environmental groups dedicated to protecting the rights of working people and supporting community struggles to build a more just society. We are a movement hub that has helped thousands of diverse workers improve their lives and the lives of their communities in the Portland Metro Area through impact research, strategic media & communications, cultural transformation, and direct action organizing and campaigning.
 
We were excited to see the Fair Shot Coalition bringing community and labor groups together and making such important connections between worksite issues and racial discrimination. We salute the many successes Fair Shot has had in its first year. We helped get folks to Salem for a number of hearings, we collected post cards, and we helped celebrate the big wins!
 
One of our contributions to the fight to raise the minimum wage is the Portland Area Campaign for $15.  Through this campaign, we will win access to a $15 minimum wage for 30,000 workers in Portland by 2017! We are doing this by uniting and coordinating unions, workers organizations, small businesses, faith institutions, and community organizations through contract campaigns, new organizing, and voluntary commitments.

Jobs with Justice rallying in Portland with Fair Shot For All. 

Meet Our Coalition Partner: Forward Together

Forward Together is a multi-racial organization that works with community leaders and organizations to transform culture and policy to catalyze social change. Our mission is to ensure that women, youth and families have the power and resources they need to reach their full potential.  By developing strong leaders, building networks across communities, and implementing innovative campaigns, we are making our mission a reality.  Race, gender and sexuality are at the center of all our work.

Forward Together a national movement building organization with an active base in several states. We staff and lead a national network of over 175 organizations called Strong Families, including a number of Fair Shot coalition members. Forward Together has staff in Portland, OR; Oakland, CA; Los Angeles, CA and Albuquerque, NM.  

Strong Families assesses policies and bills based on their potential to support families in thriving. We support policies that:

• Recognize and support families of all formations. 
• Promote equitable outcomes for all families. 
• Expand government programs and services that support family wellbeing and the wellbeing of individuals with families. 
• Remove barriers that harm families in accessing government programs and services. 
• Protect families, and the individuals that comprise them, against discrimination, profiling, and harassment. 

The 2015 Fair Shot legislative agenda of raising the minimum wage, ending profiling, ensuring all Oregonians have paid sick days, establishing ways to make saving for retirement easier and creating job opportunities for people with prior convictions and arrests are policies advance race and gender equity for families in Oregon. 

Over the course of the 2015 legislative session we activated our list on multiple Fair Shot issues. Here are some of the ways we supported Fair Shot: 

Paid Sick Days: 

• 524 phone calls to legislators
• 1036 emails to legislators
• Testimony from Forward Together Board member at joint hearing
• 6 person delegation for lobby visits with 12 legislators. 

Ban the Box:

• 228 phone calls to legislators
• 79 emails to legislators 

We continue to be excited about Fair Shot’s multi-issue approach and prioritization of race and gender equity and the work the coalition does to help families in Oregon thrive. 

Meet Our Coalition Partner: Family Forward Oregon

Our mission is to create a family-forward Oregon where all women and families can be economically secure and have the time it takes to care for a family. Today, too many families in Oregon — and across the nation, really — are forced to sacrifice one or the other. But it doesn't have to be this way.  Other countries have found ways to adjust their policies as family structures have changed in recent decades.  The U.S. is quite behind in this area, but we’re working hard to change that by engaging and partnering with parents, employers and policy-makers to shape our economy into one that works better for employees and employers.  

We co-founded the Fair Shot for All coalition with partners who share our values and goals because we know that for too many women and people of color in Oregon there are too many outdated roadblocks on the path to economic stability and success.  We also know that together our voices are more powerful — and more true.  Our work together throughout Oregon's 2015 legislative session was incredibly rewarding because the laws we supported that became law will enable so many Oregonians to move ahead financially because we removed barriers — which is really our raison d'etre. (Oy! There are too many!) In our Executive DirectorAndrea Paluso's words, 

"At Family Forward Oregon, our goal is for every woman and working family in our state to be economically secure and have a fair shot at economic opportunity without family caregiving responsibilities blocking the way. During the state's now-ended 2015 legislative session, we made impressive strides toward that goal. We extended sick time to all Oregonians, made it easier to save for retirement, protected health insurance for people out on family and medical leave, helped more families afford childcare when looking for and holding down a job, provided basic workplace protections to domestic workers, and allowed workers to share their salary information without fear of punishment to help close the wage gap. It's no stretch to conclude that these new laws will make Oregon work better for more people, especially women and families, who have waited too long for a fair shot at economic success."

The Fair Shot for All coalition is an incredibly rewarding approach to policy change.  We are grateful for strong partners and opportunities to expand our own horizons.  

Family Forward Oregon staff with Governor Brown at the Fair Shot For All bill signing. 

Portland Labor Day Picnic

On Monday Fair Shot For All joined out labor partners to celebrate Labor Day in Portland. The annual picnic was held at Oaks Park and saw around 20,000 attendees. 

Elected officials each had the opportunity to speak and it was clear that Fair Shot had made an impact this past session. Our accomplishments on Ban the Box, Retirement Security, and Paid Sick Leave were mentioned over and over again. Representative Vega Pederson even held up our postcard!

Representative Hoyle said it best when she stated, "We're going to finish the Fair Shot agenda in 2016." It's time that we raise the minimum wage to lift hardworking Oregonians out of poverty. Let's hold these legislators accountable to the promises they made on Labor Day.

Travelling Ken Allen, Executive Director of Oregon AFSCME. 

OEA Political Organizer Jenny Smith. 

Fair Shot Coalition Coordinator Christine Jarlstrom. 

Raise the Wage staffers collecting pledge cards. 

Oregon House Democrats speaking about their accomplishments in the 2015 legislative session. 

Speaker of the House, Tina Kotek. 

Mayor of Portland, Charlie Haless

Portland City Commissioner, Amanda Fritz

Meet Our Coalition Partner: Center for Intercultural Organizing

Center for Intercultural Organizing is a multi-ethnic, multicultural membership organization that leads grassroots efforts to increase access to opportunities for immigrants, refugees, and people of color through community education, policy advocacy, grassroots organizing, and intergenerational leadership development. Since 9/11, we have organized against the targeting and profiling of Muslims and other groups, while broadening our focus toward building power in immigrant and refugee communities.  CIO has engaged thousands of individuals from diverse cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, trained new immigrant and refugee community leaders, produced hundreds of educational events and mobilized countless immigrant and refugee community members who are directly impacted by these issues to advocate on their own behalf.

The Center for Intercultural Organizing is a founding member of The Fair Shot Coalition.  For years, there was a perception that labor and community groups—particularly communities of color and immigrant and refugees—could not work together to achieve social justice, even as the attacks we faced came from the same groups.  We came to recognize that in order to be effective on the ground, in our communities,  and in the legislature, we needed to work together to build a strong and diverse alliance.  We also recognized that the demographics in Oregon and across the country were shifting quickly and we simply could not afford to continue doing “business as usual.”  We needed to collectively find a way to shift the paradigm.  The Fair Shot Campaign gave us that opportunity:  to create a new narrative that would go beyond the middle class and be led by looking at our campaigns through racial and gender justice lens.  

Our years of organizing to end profiling in Oregon,  and the coalition that was The Fair Shot Campaign, paid off with a tremendous victory in the 2015 legislature—the passage of HB 2002, a comprehensive anti-profiling bill  that provides a clear definition of profiling and requires all law enforcement agencies in the state to ban it. The definition encompasses profiling based on race, ethnicity, skin color, national origin, language, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, political affiliation, homelessness, and disability – a comprehensive definition that can serve as a model for other states.  

CIO members lobbying at the Oregon State Capitol. 

Meet Our Coalition Partner: Causa

Causa is Oregon’s statewide Latino immigrant rights organization. Causa is committed to improving the lives of Latino immigrants and their families through policy advocacy, coalition building, leadership development, and civic engagement. We were founded in 1995 by farmworkers, immigrants, and allies that came together to defeat anti-immigrant ballot measures. Over the past 20 years, Causa has become a key voice advocating on issues that impact Latino families and workers in Oregon. 

Latino immigrant families are the soul of Causa and inspire, implement, and champion our work. Causa’s constituency spans Oregon—Marion, Multnomah, Washington, Deschutes, Jefferson counties and more, and we survey them every year to ask about issues that affect their daily lives. Causa found that issues regarding employee wages and benefits were among the top priorities identified among our members. 

It should come as no surprise when statistics on economic disparities among Latinos are considered. Low-wage workers are disproportionality communities of color. 66% of Latinos earn less than $15/hour, compared to 34% of whites, while 62% of Latino workers didn’t have access to one paid sick day, compared to 47% of the general workforce, and only one-third of Latino workers have access to a retirement account through their employer. 

That’s why Causa’s work with the Fair Shot Coalition has been so important. Together, community and labor became a powerful force to pass legislation that will improve economic opportunities for all communities. Causa turned out families and workers for hearings, collected stories, organized our annual May Day march and rally featuring Fair Shot issues, and collected and delivered post cards in support of Fair Shot during the legislative session. 

We look forward to the work ahead, as Fair Shot continues to advance economic justice for all Oregon communities. Si, se puede!

Causa members with Governor Brown after she signed paid sick days legislation.