Portland's Pro-Labor City Council

By Don McIntosh, Editor, NW Labor Press

If you step aside from the recent drama, and adjust your focus away from the off-and-on quarreling, that fact is that the first year of Portland’s new city council was a breakthrough for organized labor. From day one a strong majority of Portland City Council — arguably even all 12 members — showed pro-union convictions in large and small ways. They passed ordinances aimed at defending working people. And they regularly took and acted on feedback from organized labor — much more so than the previous city councils that were elected citywide, according to local labor leaders who pay close attention to city hall. 

Portland in recent years has faced significant problems, from an unaffordable cost of living to a surge in homelessness, addiction, and untreated mental illness, from over-long 911 wait times to under-maintained roads and infrastructure. 

In the face of all that, voters took a gamble by approving a charter change in 2022 that replaced the old commission form of government with a new 12-member city council composed of three city councilors from each of four districts, plus a mayor who oversees a city administrator.

As nearly 100 candidates lined up to run for city council, organized labor saw an opportunity. Led by the Northwest Oregon Labor Council, unions stepped up their involvement and helped elect viable pro-labor candidates. In the end 12 out of the 12 winners had at least one union endorsement.

The difference in tone alone has been dramatic, says Rob Martineau, president of AFSCME Local 189, the largest union of city employees.

“When we had five commissioners, it was often challenging to have even a quarterly check in … outside of a crisis. Now I can have a five to 15 minute conversation with almost any of them on any given day,” Martineau said.

The new tone started on Day 1. Facing difficulty negotiating an acceptable contract, Local 189 was gearing up for a strike when the new city council took office in January 2025, so members held “practice pickets” the months before. In what the union interpreted as an act of provocation, the outgoing City Council gave the green light to the city attorney’s office to file charges with the Oregon Employment Relations Board, saying the pickets violated a union contract provision barring picketing while the contract was still in force.

The day the new council took office, District 4 Councilor Mitch Green introduced a resolution to withdraw that charge, and it passed 12-0.

Lean budget, few layoffs

A spirit of cooperation continued into the spring. Owing to wobbly revenue forecasts and increased costs for health care, the city faced a budget shortfall amounting to tens of millions of dollars. After the mayor’s initial proposal leaned heavily on staff reductions to balance the budget, city unions formed an ad hoc budget coalition to promote solutions that would limit the need for layoffs. City councilors were receptive. In fact, the council’s labor and workforce committee, headed by District 1 Councilor Loretta Smith, invited city union leaders to present their recommendations. 

“It was invited testimony. That was a respect issue that we deeply appreciated,” said Laurie Wimmer, executive secretary-treasurer of the Northwest Oregon Labor Council.

In the end, through a combination of strategies — including tapping some reserves, creative revenue sharing using restricted funds, bringing some services in-house, and using the previous year’s ending fund balance — the council’s adopted budget resulted in as few as 3 job losses. 

Labor didn’t always get what it asked for. In May, local labor leaders testified in favor of a request by PGE to build a second power line in an existing easement through Forest Park. City Council members were constrained by Oregon’s land use law and voted 12-0 to reject the permit based on technicalities.

If there’s a big exception to Portland city councilors’ love of labor it’s the city’s police union, Portland Police Association. District 3 councilor Angelita Morillo and several others have been publicly hostile to the union, and in a late-breaking ripple of the Defund the Police movement of 2020, seven of the 12 city council members voted in May to transfer $2 million from the Portland police budget to the parks budget: Morillo, plus Sameer Kanal, Candace Avalos, Jamie Dunphy, Mitch Green, Tiffany Koyama Lane, and Steve Novick. 

In July, to address a chronic shortfall of dedicated funding that threatened jobs and service in Portland Parks and Recreation, city council voted 12-0 to refer an increase in the operating levy that funds the bureau to the November ballot. That effort was led by District 2 Councilor (and council president) Elana Pirtle-Guiney and District 3 Councilor Steve Novick. City councilors also campaigned for the levy’s passage, with the notable exception of District 2 councilor Dan Ryan, who came out publicly against the levy after having voted for it. Portlanders approved it anyway, with 56% voting in favor.

In November, Portland renters notched a win when City Council voted 6-2 in favor of an ordinance put forward by Councilor Morillo to ban algorithmic price fixing by landlords. The ordinance has to do with a Texas software firm called RealPage, which created an online platform in which landlords share what they charge for rent, and then an algorithm suggests they raise the rent to what other nearby landlords are charging. In 2024, the Federal Trade Commission filed suit saying RealPage was enabling landlords to illegally collude to raise rents; the company settled in November 2025, agreeing on some curbs to the practice. Councilors Olivia Clark and Dan Ryan voted no, and Steve Novick and Eric Zimmerman were absent.

In October, city council was considering a proposal by Councilor Loretta Smith to fund a study to defend a city program that helps women and minority contractors get work on city construction projects. Labor leaders showed up testify, asking that the study also look at opportunities for women and minority workers. Councilors Mitch Green and Dan Ryan offered amendments responding to their input, which passed unanimously.

“That’s all any organization could ever hope for when they have business before any legislative body,” Wimmer said, “that they will be listened to, their concerns taken seriously, and to the extent they’re able, policy changes will result.” 

High point of tension

The closest local labor came to conflict with city council was a dispute with AFSCME Local 189 over the fate of workers in the city’s legacy Independent Police Review (IPR) system. After Portland voters approved a new system of police accountability, the 11 workers at IPR joined Local 189 and tried to negotiate opportunities for them to continue in their jobs in the new program. City negotiators balked at that, and on Nov. 8, IPR workers went on strike. Their office is at city hall, so their picket meant city councilors might be crossing a union picket line. To avoid that, Council president Elana Pirtle-Guiney used her discretion to cancel a city council hearing that was scheduled that day. In the end, the City relented and gave IPR workers at least some job protections — guaranteeing them interviews before outside candidates would be considered, and/or offering them equivalent positions elsewhere in the city. City Council ratified the agreement Dec. 18, with only District 2 Councilor Sameer Kanal voting against it.

Over the course of the year, individual council members sometimes went to bat on issues that mattered to individual unions.

One example is the city’s fair wage policy, a 1998 ordinance that set standards for employees working for city contractors like janitorial firms. The outgoing city council repealed it in 2024 as part of an effort to reduce red tape. But at the request of SEIU Local 49 — which represents city janitors and security officers — District 1 Councilor Jamie Dunphy sponsored an ordinance to bring it back, which passed unanimously. 

Dunphy is also the most focused of any councilor on the health of Portland’s live entertainment industry. Members of IATSE Local 28 and other entertainment unions are worried about the fate of the city-owned Keller Auditorium, which is in need of seismic and other repairs. If there’s no other suitable venue and the Keller closes for years of repairs, that could result in hundreds of theater job losses and long-term loss of the local workers who make traveling Broadway shows possible in Portland. Dunphy made sure Local 28 leader Rose Etta Venetucci was appointed to the advisory group that’s weighing options like an equivalent venue at Portland State University.

Councilor Pirtle-Guiney was also helpful behind the scenes, making sure local union officers knew whenever something that mattered to them was going to be considered by city council. Pirtle-Guiney also intervened to influence a mayoral appointment. A little-known three-member city board considers disciplinary appeals for city employees who don’t have union protection. It’s supposed to have someone from a labor background, someone from management, and a neutral member representing the general public. For the neutral spot, Mayor Keith Wilson was looking to appoint someone who had an HR background; Guiney said she’d oppose that, and he reconsidered.

There’s likely more to come in year two. Councilor Steve Novick is working on an ordinance to give greater rights to rideshare workers. Councilor Smith is working on a proposal to combat wage theft. Councilor Olivia Clark is developing plans for alternative revenue so the Portland Bureau of Transportation can address its road maintenance backlog. And Councilors Morillo and Eric Zimmerman have been looking at simplifying the city’s design review process to speed up construction of affordable housing.  

The Labor Press invited all 12 city council members to share details of their record on issues that mattered to organized labor. Five took us up on the invitation: Jamie Dunphy, Elana Pirtle-Guiney, Tiffany Koyama Lane, Olivia Clark, and Candace Avalos.