In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, workers across the country began organizing at levels not seen in years. From Starbucks to Amazon, employees pushed back against low wages and poor working conditions — and Oregon workers are part of that movement.

One group of Oregon workers who successfully fought to unionize are the workers at Serenity Hospice in Eugene. In this episode of Policy for the People, we hear their story, from what got them to start organizing, to what it took to win their first contract.

We also take a big picture look at labor activity in Oregon.  Kathy Lara of the Oregon Center for Public Policy breaks down the latest figures on worker organizing, why unions continue to matter for wages and workplace standards, and the barriers workers still face when trying to organize.

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Transcript

[We make this transcript available for your convenience and to increase the accessibility of our content. The transcript was generated by software and was slightly edited for clarity. If you are able to, we encourage you to listen to the recording.]

During the depths of the Covid pandemic a few years back, many workers decided to put their foot down about poor wages and working conditions.

They began organizing the workplace at a pace not seen in quite a long time. Across the country, workers succeeded in forming unions at companies that once seemed out of reach. Companies like Starbucks and Amazon.  Unions are essential for having an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few. Unions help workers secure better pay and benefits. And it’s not just union members who benefit.

The presence of unions in an industry raises wages and job standards for everyone, unionized or not. So where do things stand right now in Oregon? How active are workers in trying to organize the workplace? In this episode of Policy for the People, we examine the current state of worker organizing in Oregon. 

My colleague from the Oregon Center for Public Policy, Kathy Lara, discusses what the latest data shows, as she explains by several measures, worker organizing remains at high levels, even as they confront the same barriers that make it difficult for workers to unionize the workplace.

But we begin the episode with the story of a tight knit team of workers in Eugene, Oregon, who overcame those barriers and succeeded in unionizing their workplace. My colleague Jeslyn Lemke spoke with three workers at Serenity Hospice about their decision to fight for a union. Here is their story. 

 

Jeslyn: A team of determined hospice care workers in Eugene recently signed their first union contract. Serenity Hospice in Eugene is a tight knit office of 22 workers, mostly women. Hospice care is tough work. Its long hours caring for patients who are dying. Its dealing with and comforting distraught families and in the case of Serenity Hospice in Eugene, this work also came with low pay and difficult working conditions.

In 2024, the workers had enough. They petitioned to form a union, but that was only part of the journey. It took two more years to finally reach a union contract with Addus Homecare, the billion dollar company that owns Serenity. Negotiating and reaching an agreement with one’s employer often is the hardest and longest stage in the process of making a union.

Despite the pressure put on them by Addus Home Care, they finally succeeded in signing their first union contract in March of this year, officially becoming an SEIU 503 union.

Nancy Giesen:

A lot of times when you have so when we have patients  that are actively dying, they require daily visits. And there are times when you’re walking into families that are in crisis

So you’re walking into this day after day after day, meeting the needs and trying to do the best you can. And sometimes it’s hard. It is hard.

Jeslyn: That’s Nancy Giesen, a licensed practical nurse with Serenity. She began working with Serenity in the period before they began to unionize. Nancy works long hours directly with dying clients on hospice care, helping them with medication, bandages and other end of life concerns. It’s hard work, not just physically, but emotionally as well.

Nancy Giesen:

I mean, having very long days, seeing patients back to back to back to back, you know, and then the long nights charting and then getting up, rolling into the next day.

Jeslyn: Nancy noticed that many of her coworkers were struggling with the same problems.

Nancy Giesen:

Some of the complaints that I was hearing, especially from the salaried employees, is that there was just unfair compensation. The amount of hours that are required from the salaried employees is burdensome. And by the time you break it down, they were earning less than the hourly employees.

And, not only was that grossly unfair, but then the older employees with more experience were also being paid less than the ones who were incoming with less experience. So it was just rubbing salt into the wound.

The trend continued with newer employees that were being hired At market wages.

Dwanna Tarpio: We were, you know, $10 and $15 dollars below everyone else in this area, wage wise. And we weren’t asking for tremendous raises. We just wanted more than 1% of where we were sitting at.

Jeslyn:

That is Dwanna Tarpio, an assistant manager at Serenity. Struggling with low wages, she and her staff raised the issue of their low pay with Addus Homecare, the company that owns Serenity.

Dwanna Tarpio: we would tell them how important a wage increase was for us and how mileage wasn’t enough.

And we kept asking them like, there’s got to be more than this. We weren’t getting adequate raises. They were, minimal to like 1% if we got them that year and our president and our vice president continued to kind of shoo us to the side. They came in with prepared speeches. Would never want to answer our questions.

I love these patients, but it’s really hard to go home and not be able to provide for your family.

Jeslyn:

Fed up, the workers at Serenity began to organize.  In 2024 all of the workers at the facility, signed a petition and presented their executive director with that and a formal letter.

But that wasn’t the end of the story, because petitioning to form a union is just the first step in the process. After that comes another difficult, often time consuming step; reaching a union contract with the employer through negotiations.

But instead of voluntarily recognizing their union, Addus Homecare began applying pressure, sending daily emails to the workers at Serenity discouraging them from unionizing.

But the workers were undeterred. They used a group thread to continue organizing and to encourage one another.

The negotiating team met at Starbucks regularly.

This is how Dwanna describes what came next.

Dwanna Tarpio:

We were mostly worried about being fired or, that they would just shut the office down because we’re not, we’re not a huge office. We’re an office of, you know, 22 people. So, we really were like, there’s only 22 of us compared to this billion dollar company. They could just let us go. They tried to separate who out of the whole office might be unionized, who could be unionized.

Then we would get emails every day, sometimes twice a day, in our work, emails that were very against unionizing. Then the anti-union lawyers went to the other two offices and had meetings with them. I think they were afraid that we were trying to unionize every office they owned in the state, which we weren’t. We were just worried about the 22 of us here.

It took us two years to actually ratify. And I think it was probably a year and a half before we realized that the lawyer that was coming in to bargain with us was going to actually be serious. They postponed a lot of things. The weather, the flights. I can’t this month, and we spent a lot of back and forth for a very long time, and it was probably a year and a half. And before we were like, no, this is moving. It’s moving forward. We’re really going to do this. But we just kept sticking with it.

Jeslyn: And they succeeded. In March of this year, the workers at Serenity won their first union contract.

Dwanna Tarpio: I think we all cried. Literally I did. It was such a relief because we had put so much time of our own personal time outside of work. Due to the union and being ratified, now we have an immense package that everyone who comes here has higher wages covered, health care and, 99, 90% of federal gas mileage reimbursement. I know for myself, I went from $29 to $43 an hour. I think we did the math on that, and it was around 60% increase. Most people seen 33% increases in their wages.

We all got a 100% coverage for our health care premiums.

Jeslyn:  Another bargaining team member, Deb McLaughlin, a social worker with Serenity who counsels dying patients and their families, says the long struggle to form a union paid off.

Deb:  Absolutely. My pay and my benefits have been influenced by the union I was making. I started at this job at $30 an hour. I’ve been a social worker for 20 years. And now after we’re unionized, I’m at $43 an hour. That is a huge increase. We chose to stay because we believed in each other. And now we get to believe in each other and get paid well. And that’s priceless. It really is.

Jeslyn: Dwanna has a message for other workers in Oregon looking to break out of their working conditions and form a union is simple.

Dwanna Tarpio: To let other people who want to start a union or be unionized, I would just like to tell them to not be afraid that if you want your voice heard, this is one of the biggest steps that you can make to do that.

And  not allow a company to make them, make them feel like it’s you against them because it’s not you against them. You’re trying to better yourself for them.

Main show. 

Juan Carlos: 

The success of workers in unionizing Serenity Hospice is one example of the wave of unionizing efforts that followed in the wake of the Covid pandemic. Recent years have seen increased levels of worker organizing across many industries. But does that heightened level of worker organizing remain in place? Where do things stand today? To explore that question, I spoke with my colleague at the Oregon Center for Public Policy, Kathy Lara.

Kathy is a policy analyst at the center, where she researches issues related to work of power. Here’s my conversation with Kathy. Hi, Kathy, how are you?

Kathy: I’m good, Juan Carlos, how are you?

Juan Carlos:  I’m doing well, thanks. So you recently published the paper examining the state of labor activity here in Oregon. How would you summarize the findings of your reports?

Kathy: I would say that we see both, we both have some positive news and also some not so positive news when it comes to the state of worker or labor organizing in Oregon. So the first thing to note for positive news is that the level of worker worker organizing that we saw first start during the pandemic or increase during the pandemic is generally still in place.

So that’s really good news. This plus other data that we see tells us that workers are still in favor of unions, right? So they’re still, unions are viewed very positively by workers. But the not so good news is that union density or like the percent or the proportion of workers that belong to unions in Oregon has really not budged in quite a bit.

And so that’s really connected to the fact that workers still face barriers when it comes to joining or forming their unions today.

Juan Carlos: I want to break all that down and kind of dive deeper into the data. But before we do that, maybe we can just talk a little bit about the benefits of unions. Why? Why are unions good for workers and what advantages do they provide?

Kathy:  I think the most important thing to first note and the most basic thing is unions give workers a voice. Usually when people go to work, you’re not really in a position to dictate the terms and conditions of your employment. It’s you go to work and the employer tells you these are the terms and conditions.

These are the wages and benefits and that’s it. But that’s not the case when you’re in a union. The union is a vehicle that workers have in order to negotiate something different, in order to have a say in those terms and conditions of work that may be related to wages, benefits, safety standards and other conditions. So it gives them a voice to not just accept things as they are, but have an ability to negotiate with the employer for changes in those employment conditions.

The second thing to note is that when you are part of a union as well, when you have a collective bargaining agreement, you also have job security, right? Job protection. So when we live in an at will country,  meaning employers can have the ability to discipline or fire you for any or all reasons or no reason at all, as long as it’s not related to a protected characteristic,  like your race or your gender. 

But that changes when you have a union contract and job protection, right? There is just cause in place, which is a transparent protocol that employers have to follow that when they need to discipline or terminate an employee, that they have to have a valid reason in order to do so, and have the proportionate discipline connected to that infraction of the employee.

So that’s, you know, another sense that another benefit that they have a certain level of job security or job protection as well. I think we also should remember that union members also tend to have employer provided health care, right? Compared to non-union workers, union workers are more likely to have employer provided health care, and those union employers also tend to pay more into that employer provided health care.

And just one other thing to note. Union workers tend to have higher wages than nonunion workers. I think in general, union workers tend to make around 12, 12.8% more in wages compared to non nonunion workers. And again, that has to do with the fact that they have leverage to negotiate terms and conditions of employment.

It’s not one single worker asking, hey can I get a raise. It’s everyone collectively. And so when you have that kind of power leverage workers can ask for more. 

Juan Carlos: What do we know about how the public perceives union? Do they see them favorably? What’s the general perception of the public? 

Kathy: The latest research done by Gallup. They conducted a poll last year. And I want to say that about 68% of the population views unions in a positive light, very favorably. And so that’s more than half of the population is really supportive or view unions in a very positive light. 

Juan Carlos: Let’s go back to something you said at the beginning, which is that the level of worker organizing here in Oregon has tended to be fairly healthy, at least in recent years.It’s been quite a bit of activity. Can you dive a little bit deeper into that? What are we seeing? 

Kathy: Yeah. So the data tells us that when it comes to workers seeking union election, there’s been an increase. Union election just means when workers get together, they file a petition with the National Labor Relations Board in order to hold an election so that voters in that particular workplace can vote for a union.

I’m really talking about all the workers that we see in that election process on a yearly basis. And we’ve seen this grow starting in the pandemic. Before the pandemic, we could see around 17, just under 1700 workers a year. So you can have a union election or to organize. And so that those things change. That changed during the pandemic, when more workers started to seek more union elections, right?

It grew from that average yearly rate of 1700 to, I believe, 3100 in 2022 to 3800 in 2023. Right. So there’s an increase that we started to see. And that increase has continued as well. If we look at just 2025 figures, we saw that 5600 workers wanted to unionize that year alone. And so that’s a significant increase, right?

That’s a 47% increase from just 2023 to 2025 alone. So, you know, we did see more workers wanting to join unions in 2025. So that was a peak year for us. 

Juan Carlos: And Kathy, you also spoke about some bad news that the levels of unionization, the share of workers belonging to the unions is not looking so good. Can you flesh that out for us? 

Kathy: I want to flesh it out, like at the state level, at the national level too, because there’s a difference. So in Oregon, we see the union density. And again, the proportion of workers belonging to unions has remained relatively unchanged from the beginning of the millennium. Right. In 2000, it was around 15.7% of the population belong to unions.

Just last year in 2025, that’s around 15.1. So it hasn’t a really changed through all that time. Yes, we can say there’s been fluctuations, but on average Oregon has been really consistent in staying around that 15% level. But it’s a different story when you look at national level data. So in the US as a whole, if we start at two in the year 2000 and what that union membership was like, it was around 13% of the population or 13% of workers belonged to unions.

25 years later, in 2025, that has gone down to 10% of workers belonging to unions. So it’s been a steady but slow decline in union membership for the country as a whole. Since 2000, which is, of course, part of a larger decline that we’ve seen in this country since the union heyday in the 1940s, when union membership was at 33%.

Juan Carlos: 

If you’re just joining us, you’re listening to Policy for the People and speaking with Kathy Lara of the Oregon Center for Public Policy. And we’re discussing the state of worker organizing in Oregon. Here is the rest of our conversation.

So we discussed earlier how unions are popular. A large majority of the public views them favorably. And yet, as you just mentioned, the levels of unionization are fairly low by historical standards. And what explains that disconnect? What’s behind that? The fact that the levels of unionization don’t match with their popularity.

Kathy: One of the biggest obstacles to this is the fact that workers face barriers in terms of employer opposition and employer intimidation when it comes to them trying to form or join their union. So, for example, employers engage in a variety of anti-union behaviors to stop or to try and convince their workers not to join their union. 

And they use a variety of tactics. One is using captive audience meetings where employers get their employees together in a meeting and try to persuade them not to join the union. And usually this is done under some type of duress or duress or implied threats of discharge or discipline that can happen if they join. Employers might threaten certain loss of wages or benefits for workers who want to join the union, or might do the opposite, or might do the opposite and promise more wages or benefits if  they don’t join the union.

Employers also engage in surveillance or spy on their workers. They might use an employee social media account to spy on them. So in addition to that, we know that this type of behavior is not a one off. It’s systemic. According to a national level research, we see that employers break federal law or violate federal law 41% of the time during union elections.

So this is a consistent pattern that employers are engaging in. You can take a look at the penalties. There is a very low level or lack of penalties when it comes to when employers retaliate against their workers, when they engage in concerted activities. So it’s not really a deterrent. And the last thing to mention is that employers are heavily invested in engaging in these kinds of activities.

I think research shows that employers invest around $400 million a year just to stop workers from engaging in these protected, concerted activities, or from joining unions. 

Juan Carlos: What’s happening with federal labor law? Because there is a law called the National Labor Relations Act that is supposed to protect the right to to unionize.  Why isn’t that ensuring that workers actually fulfill their desires to form a unit?

Kathy: I will say that a lot of research academics have said that labor law needs to be fixed, right? It needs to make it easier for workers to organize, limit employer hostility or intimidation when it comes to this. And there’s been avenues to try and do that as well. There’s been efforts to pass legislation like the Pro act, which would intend to do just that, make it easier for workers to join their union, try to limit or reduce employer hostility or intimidation, and increase penalties. So they are de-incentivized to not break federal labor law. 

Juan Carlos: Beyond fixing federal law, which seems, in a fundamental way, fairly broken, are there things that we can do here in Oregon at the state level, to address some of these problems that workers are facing when it comes to forming unions?

Kathy: Yeah, I think there’s plenty that Oregon can do. One, I think we should make sure we extend bargaining or organizing rights to historically excluded workers. We should remember that the National Labor Relations Act, an act that protects worker rights, to organize in the private sector, to unionize, and the private sector has historically excluded domestic workers and agriculture workers because of a racist compromise to pass the bill.

So we have categories of these workers excluded, and it also excludes gig workers or independent contractors from organizing. So we have groups of workers excluded from this. And so what Oregon can do is extend these organizing rights to these historically excluded workers, so they have a chance to partake in these same rights that other workers do.

Or you can also consider establishing workforce standards boards. Workforce standard boards are just public bodies made up of workers, employers and the public that come together that work to set industry minimum standards. Yeah, they work together to set minimum standards for an entire sector or industry at a time. And so what that means is that there are certain costs to employers at an industry that become equalized.

All employers have to follow the same labor and labor costs and other workplace costs. And so when you have those kinds of conditions, employers are to stop unionized efforts since they’re not at a competitive disadvantage compared to the other firms. And lastly, I would also say that Oregon can extend “Just Cause” protections to workers. 

I think I’ve mentioned before that union workers work under “Just Cause” protections. They don’t work at will. Which is when workers work under at will protection, meaning they can be fired for any reason or no reason at all. And so this is really detrimental because this allows and undermines workers ability to exercise their organizing rights when they can just be fired for any and all reasons.

It’s up to the worker to prove that, hey, they were fired for engaging in their legally protected concerted activities, but extending just cause protections will shift that dynamic, so that instead of just allowing employers that ability, there would be standards in place where employers would need a good and valid reason to discipline or discharge their employee, which would allow workers more freedom to exercise their rights.

Juan Carlos: Kathy, any final thoughts you want to share with us regarding the state of unions here in Oregon, and also ways that situation may improve? 

Kathy: Yeah, I mean, number one, I want to say that we’ve seen a record number of workers organizing in 2025, and we should be really proud of that fact, that more and more workers are seeking unions, to want to form unions, want to join unions.

And so we should really be proud of the fact that in the face of a lot of diversity, workers are continuing to organize and that we hopefully see more of this organizing next year in the years after that. I think in general as well, if we want to see a more equitable society, a society where the average person has a voice and power, we really need to support workers in having or joining unions of their choosing.

We know historically the benefits of unions, higher wages, better benefits, and having a voice in the workplace. And so if you want households, if we want families to thrive, it’s important that we allow workers to have a say in their workplace.

Juan Carlos: Well, Kathy, thank you so much.  And thank you for listening to Policy for the People. We will see you next time.