I decided to run for president of AFT-Oregon at the request of many members of the AFT-Oregon community. I am running as a part of a slate of qualified and passionate candidates for AFT-OR executive council because we love AFT-Oregon and we see how crucial it is for changes to be made to how AFT-Oregon is being lead. We need more voices to be included in key decision making processes, more accountability, more financial transparency, and more connections between our locals.

I started my journey with union organizing when my friend invited me to attend a union committee meeting and it turned out we were the only 2 people who showed up. I recognized then that the union is really just us, showing up for each other. My first official role began in 2016 as a grievance officer with PSUFA, the adjunct faculty union at Portland State. In this role I supported members in accessing their union rights and basic dignity, and successfully challenged university administration on their infractions and disregard.

I fell in love with union work and wanted to improve our contract, not just enforce it, so I moved into the Chair of Bargaining role and became our lead negotiator. Since then I have led two rounds of successful negotiations where we made our greatest economic gains, increased the amount in all our benefits funds, strengthened our assignment rights to increase job security, and initiated the first university wide orientation for newly hired adjunct faculty as a collaboration between the union and the university.

Through the experience of being the Chair of Bargaining it became clear that many of the changes needed to improve the working and living conditions of our coworkers must be made at a level beyond any one of our institutions. This led me in 2019 to join AFT-Oregon’s Executive Council and Political and Legislative Action Committee to pursue increased funding for public higher education, and pursue coordinated advocacy strategies across Oregon and beyond. It has been exciting to be a part of the process of proposing legislation, and organizing our union colleagues across the state to advocate for and successfully pass new laws that will provide access to loan forgiveness and health insurance for contingent workers.

Since 2021 I have also been organizing at the national level with Higher Education Labor United, and am the Chair of their Political Committee where we are working on building coast to coast, wall to wall union power across the job divisions and geographies. I am committed to building stronger connections between our unions to increase our power, share our knowledge, and grow our sense of community.

My goals for AFT-Oregon are:

• Make sure that members and locals feel heard, supported, and empowered to guide the future of AFT-Oregon.
• Lead by listening to people, synthesizing diverse perspectives and collaboratively making effective, actionable plans.
• Strategically plan for AFT-Oregon to transform to meet what we will need it to be in the future.
• Use our statewide resources to invest in locals through wise use of money, organizing and political advocacy.
• Increase our sense of connection and shared purpose across job types, union roles, institutions and locations.