Autism Service Providers Vote to Unionize First Center in Oregon

Behavior technicians and administrative staff working for large autism services provider organize the first union of its kind at a center in East Portland.

Overcoming weeks of anti-union scare tactics, a group of 30 workers at the East Portland Center for Autism and Related Disorders voted decisively on Thursday, May 23 to form a union with OFNHP!

The Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD), with sixteen locations in Oregon and over 230 nationwide claims to be the largest provider of autism services in the world. Workers at the East Portland location are breaking new ground with their successful union election. CARD Portland-East is the first center to unionize to improve working conditions and address their alarming turnover rate.

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Best economy ever?

In AFT President Randi Weingarten’s latest column in the New York Times, she writes that, despite President Trump’s claims that we have the “best economy ever,” his policies are harming working and middle-class Americans, many of whom are struggling just to get by. “Our political and economic systems are so weighted toward the wealthy that opportunity will only come through the power of collective action,” she writes, using “the surest vehicles to increase opportunity for ordinary Americans”—public education, labor unions and voting. Read the full column.

Care Beyond Borders

Check out OFNHP’s new blog series Caring Beyond the Bedside. On our first post, OFNHP members share their experiences volunteering in Lambayeque, Peru for the 2019 FACES Foundation medical mission treating children and adults with cleft lip and palate deformities.

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Never again

“A majority of American teens say they are worried about a shooting happening at their school. Let that sink in,” AFT President Randi Weingarten writes in her latest column for the New York Times. “Young people are demanding meaningful action beyond ‘thoughts and prayers.’ They know, as do law enforcement officers and educators, that there are effective ways to address gun violence.” Read more about the proven strategies that would enhance school safety and reduce gun violence.
 

Delivering Care Beyond The Bedside

The Portland community, including many OFNHP members, turned out in force on Sunday to participate in the Reclaim MLK Annual March for Human Rights and Dignity. The event was sponsored by Don’t Shoot Portland (also called Don’t Shoot PDX), a grass-roots organization with a focus on social justice.

OFNHP members were on hand to give away hundreds of books to children and their families, as well as toothbrushes and first-aid kits. The federation also set up a station for children to make bracelets. The books were hand-selected by OFNHP, which worked with First Book, an AFT partner that helps affiliates in providing free and low-cost books and educational resources to students, families and communities in need.

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Strikes and shutdowns

In Los Angeles, UTLA members took to the picket lines because their schools are starved of resources. In Washington, D.C., President Trump has shut down the government to secure his border wall. In her monthly New York Times column, AFT President Randi Weingarten writes that when our elected leaders fail, whether by not funding public schools or by shutting down services that provide for our safety, they strike at the very heart of what makes us a democratic republic. Read the full column.