Winning a strong contract begins long before we sit down at the bargaining table. Months and even years of member engagement and political engagement lay the groundwork to have sufficient resources for a fair contract. Our Tentative Agreement with the state for homecare workers is the result of years of hard work by SEIU 503 members. 

Since a ballot initiative capped real property taxes in 1990, Oregon has had a critical need for meaningful revenue reform to fund the quality services that the people of our state rely on every day, including in-home care. Many of us can recall the Measure 97 campaign in 2016. While millions of dollars from corporate-interests kept our effort to pass a tax on large corporations from passing at the ballot box, all of the doors we knocked, phone calls we made, and conversations we had with voters were not in vain. 

Passing revenue-raising legislation requires a two-thirds “supermajority” in the Oregon State Senate and House of Representatives, which is no easy tax, but SEIU members volunteered thousands of hours to elect a Legislature capable of passing revenue reform in 2018. Our hard work resulted in the passage of the Student Success Act earlier this year, which will raise more than $1 billion a year in new revenue to fund education, and relieve stress on the overall state budget. Not forcing in-home care and other important public services against education for limited public funding finally created an opportunity to reach a contract that better reflects the value of our labor. 

SEIU 503’s United for a Better Oregon campaign aimed to ensure that the Legislature invested in the people who make our state work by dedicating resources to fund strong contracts for public workers. Oregon passed a budget that had double the money for homecare worker salaries as the last budget. Double! The members on our bargaining team made sure that the extra investment by the Legislature ends up going to workers. 

We thank every SEIU 503 member who participated in this work. It’s a real testament to the fact that we are stronger together. This is the union difference.