My name is Alexander, and I work at the East County Family Service Center in Portland, in Child Welfare. I have worked in Child Welfare for almost two years, and I have been a member of SEIU for just as long.

I chose to receive the Covid-19 vaccine earlier this year and support the vaccine mandate; however I also think it is critical that everyone in our union engages in the bargaining process to ensure that all members’ feedback is represented in how this policy gets implemented. Over the last few weeks, State workers across Oregon filled out the vaccine mandate bargaining survey, so that our bargaining team would know what matters most to us. Issues like this get to the heart of what it means to be a union member. We may not all fall on the same side of the issue, but we can all agree that the best way to make this Vaccine Mandate work for us, is to unite and use our collective power as union members to make our voices heard.

We are at a critical moment in the fight against this pandemic which has impacted every single one of us, as well as the clients we serve and the communities that we live in. I believe that the only way we are going to beat this pandemic, and protect our most vulnerable union members, is by ensuring that every worker who is able to get the vaccine does so safely, with paid time-off work to do so, and with the full support of their union brothers and sisters.

In Solidarity,
Alexander Baker