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Hi, this is Emory (campaign manager for Marnie):
This past weekend, Marnie and the team visited two different grocery worker strikes in North and Northeast Portland. First, we went to stand with Fred Meyer's workers represented by UFCW 555, who did a 5-day strike of the company region-wide. We visited the Hollywood Fred Meyer in District 2 and heard from workers that they had taken a strike vote about a month ago, and management had been recruiting replacement workers and bringing in managers from other regions to cover shifts ever since.
The next day, we visited the New Seasons on North Williams and found dozens of members and friends of the independent New Seasons Labor Union around all 4 corners of the store. We watched as our "soft picket" encouraged would-be shoppers to choose another grocer for just 1 day. The NSLU, led by workers themselves, has organized unions in eleven stores in the region and completed their first strike, a 1-day strike at ten stores, demanding the new company owners show up at the bargaining table and take employees' basic work condition requests seriously. One demand we heard was for 12 hours between the close of one shift and the start of another. Another is for starting wages to match the actual cost of living in the city.
Time to hit the streets:
This month, the Marnie campaign will be reaching a lot of Portlanders by canvassing, flyering homes, knocking on doors of renters, and putting up lawn signs. Can you or someone you know come out this weekend, September 7th and 8th, or next weekend on the 14th and 15th? Now is the time to pick a weekend to show up for Marnie, as many people start considering tuning in to this new form of elections in Portland.
Find out more about our upcoming events here:
September 7th (Saturday) and September 8th (Sunday) at 11:30 am - meet point: Albina Press - we will be canvassing for lawn sign hosts. Get experience having brief, friendly conversations with Portlanders at their door.
September 14th (Saturday) at 10 am - meet point: Alberta Park - meet Marnie and Mayoral Candidate Carmen Rubio for a joint flyering event in northeast Portland. Sign up to either event here or show up at the specified date/time.
Let's build momentum for the campaign:
We are so happy to have the support of Lead Locally, who has chosen to support Marnie as a local climate champion. Lead Locally is helping out the campaign by supporting an organizing fellow working on behalf of our campaign. Elysia, District 2 renter and campaign veteran, is already proving a huge asset to our team. As you see our work improve, know that it's because of the awesome crew of people Marnie and I are lucky to have with us.
Marnie has received a number of great endorsements over the past weeks, including from housing and transportation planning advocates at The Street Trust Action Fund, Portland: Neighbors Welcome, HOME PAC, Sunrise PDX, Sierra Club, and American Federation of Teachers Oregon. We put a lot of work into earning these endorsements and hope to follow them up with important nods of approval from our local independent outlets, The Portland Mercury and Willamette Week. The Mercury has selected Marnie as one of the final candidates in the running for their endorsement, and we are taking our job seriously as one of the viable progressive campaigns in District 2.
Thank you, as always, for your support of Marnie's campaign to be on City Council from 2025-2029. She's up for the challenge, and if you're up to contribute, we can win a seat. It won't be easy, but it will be a lot of fun if we all pitch in.
from, Emory