Portland Jobs with Justice

The Pacific Coast Coalition for Seafarers is a campaign close to our heart, their work changes lives every day!

Since 2020, the Coalition has mobilized community and labor to uphold the dignity, rights, and wellbeing of seafarers – through generating resources and fostering solidarity. We call on JWJ members and organizations to come through this holiday season for migrant seafarers that pass through the port of Portland, OR and Vancouver, WA!

This holiday season the Coalition is hoping to raise $2000 and prepare holiday care packages for 250 seafarers that will be passing by Portland, OR and Vancouver, WA. They are seeking donations of the following items or monetary donations: toiletries, snacks, warm clothing, for $10 you can sponsor a seafarer, for $250 you can “Adopt a Ship.” This amount will ensure each seafarer on one ship will receive a care package filled with the supplies listed above. The Coalition will be sure to send you photos after the ship visit to share the joy you brought to the seafarers with your generous donation!

For information on how to donate, or if your org would like a presentation on the seafarers struggle, email pccseafarers@gmail.com. Donate by Paypal: tinyurl.com/PCC-SEAFARERS

More about the Coalition:

Since the Coalition’s launching in June 2020, participants have visited ships to deliver care packages and learned more from the seafarers themselves about their conditions. On top of the dangerous and exploitative conditions seafarers face, being away from their families back home can have severe mental and emotional impacts especially during the holiday season when families are all coming together to celebrate. It is in this regard that we are committed to supporting seafarers in any way we can to show them that there are people who care about them even being away from their loved ones.

The most wonderful time of the year is right around the corner. That’s right, Portland Jobs With Justice SCROOGE OF THE YEAR IS BACK! Click here for tickets!

Every holiday season Portland JwJ comes together to celebrate our community, and to bestow this not-so-coveted award. This award is given to a boss, politician, corporation, or some other deserving institution that has been particularly Scroogey over the past year.

Congratulations to our 3 Scrooge of the Year FINALISTS!

• I.A.T.S.E. Local 28 nominated METRO for contracting out their AV workers.
• AFT-Oregon nominated Portland State University Administration.
• OFNHP nominated Mary Mongrain from Peacehealth Southwest.

On Thursday, December 8th at 6:30pm at Taborspace we will vote for one of these bosses to be named Portland’s Scrooge of Year.

Our 3 finalists will write and perform a 7-10 minute entertaining skit demonstrating why we should vote for their nominee. Then we all vote for our favorite/most hated Scrooge.
As we know, votes cost money. So, the nominee who sells the most votes wins the award!
Votes are the tickets to the party. Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door. Each ticket sold is worth 20 votes to put toward your Scrooge nominee. Participants can make additional donations to get more votes for your nominee. More money, more votes!

Share the link below and event flyer with any and everyone!
Ticket donation link: https://bit.ly/3zYTW2z

Thank you to everyone who attended, donated, volunteered, and worked the JwJ Annual Dinner on Thursday, October 6th! It was an amazing and powerful evening, and we couldn’t have done it without you!

Huge shout out to the fantastic band, Lorna Baxter Trio – proud members of American Federation of Musicians Local 99, and the talented A/V team at People’s AV & I.A.T.S.E. Local 28.

If you couldn’t make the event but want to donate to the cause, click here for a direct donation site.

Thank you again and see you soon!!

In case you missed it, tickets for the dinner are officially SOLD OUT at capacity! Thank you! We’re overwhelmed by your support!

If you wish to be added to the waitlist for tickets, please send a message to Amanda@jwjpdx.org! We will let you know as soon as tickets become available. If your organization will not be filling all of your reserved seats, and would like to donate tickets back to the pool so that low wage, unemployed or striking workers can attend, please also contact Amanda!

We look forward to celebrating our movement’s 30th Year and recognizing local leaders in Portland and our special guests from Staten Island, ALU’s Chris Smalls and Derrick Palmer! Their efforts to create change at Amazon, one of the world’s largest and most powerful corporations, have been nothing short of historic!

If you’d like to support us but can’t attend the event, a donation to our silent auction, wine table, or financial contribution would be welcome! On behalf of everyone at Portland Jobs with Justice “J with J,” your support makes our work possible, your fight is our fight, and thank you!

Portland Jobs with Justice Annual Dinner is back. We are thrilled to announce the return of this event along with our keynote speakers, Amazon Labor Union President Chris Smalls and Chair of Organizing Derrick Palmer! RSVP by Thursday, September 22nd. Seating is limited to 248 attendees. If your organization is interested in purchasing a table but unable to fill all the seats, please consider sharing your table by donating those seats to our scholarship fund.

Please use our Action Network payment link or contact Amanda – amanda@jwjpdx.org- for a digital copy of the sponsorship packet and for any other questions.

Can you help make it a success? JWJ is seeking in-kind donations of art, theatre tickets, and gift certificates for our evening’s silent auction, and wine for the wine wall! Donations can be by the bottle, any varietal, and any price range.

We are looking forward to coming together in solidarity October 6th. Click Here to Secure Your Seats!

On Tuesday, July 26th, on the Postal Service’s 247th birthday, JWJ called for investments in career Postal jobs, as good jobs = great service. Postal workers, and community, united, also called to fulfill the vision of postal unions: that the Postal Service be a vital hub for community services, with delivery powered by union-made electric vehicles!

Rev. David Wheeler of JWJ’s Faith Labor Committee gave a strong opening. It was inviting and humorous, citing real life experience many communities, especially rural, share. The postal service is a hub for public life! Twitter thread.

Video and excerpt below:

Excerpt of Rev. David Wheeler’s speech to Postal Workers.

“Efficiency is having workers who know what they’re doing, have a long tenure on their jobs, and who care about those jobs.”

(Audible “Amen” from the crowd!)

“I’m a Baptist and that’s a dirty word in a lot of places of our culture now, because that’s a word associated with the religious right and reactionary forces. But I’m a Martin Luther King Jr Baptist. I’m a Rep. John Lewis Good Trouble Baptist. I’m a follower of Jesus when he made Good Trouble on Earth, and his most faithful disciples continue to make Good Trouble. He talked about a vein of God that was Shalom and Respect.

When we support Workers Rights, we support the Divine Reign of Shalom. Here’s why that’s important. Sometimes bad ideas, misguided people, just plain bad people seem to have all the power. Sometimes our struggles for justice, for caring, for opportunity, for fairness, seem futile. But as MLK Jr said a long time ago, “the arc of history is long but it bends towards justice. We are not perfect but we are on the right side. I want you, I want us, to be encouraged. I want you to know that in the long run, that one step at a time, one rally at a time, one contract negotiation at a time, one conversation with supervisors at a time. Step by step by step in the long run we are on the right side. Be of good courage. I’m fascinated that this is a birthday celebration. We celebrated the birthday of our poor, fractured, threatened, union called the United States of America 246th birthday just a few weeks ago. but the USPS, going all the way back to the initiative of Benjamin Franklin is 247 years old. And from what I understand, 247 years later, Benjamin Franklin is going to put in an appearance today. Man am I stoked about that. But these things can happen. Once at First Baptist church downtown, we had a live debate between Martin Luther and the Pope. So I know these things can happen. What do we look for in a US Postal Service? Yes we look for efficiencies if they’re fair. Yes we look for good equipment and we want to keep it and enhance it rather than mothball it. Yes we want good transportation. We want American made electric vehicles instead of gas guzzlers. We look for efficiencies, we aren’t immune to business sense. But first and last and foremost, the United States Postal Service is Service. My parents grew up in a couple small towns in KY 8 miles apart. The post office was the hub of the community. We know that’s still the case in places in rural Oregon, but it could be so much more. Not only a place to meet. A place to pick up your mail. A place to do your banking. A place to access social services. These initiatives which are part of what the postal unions want are further steps toward the Shalom of God. I grew up in a city, Kentucky, Louisville. My neighborhood post office is a place where folks met. It was a service to the community and that is what we want, .And in the long run, step by step by step, we are on the right side. And we shall prevail. Thank you very much God Bless You all!”