My name is Farallon Broughton, and I am running for Secretary of AFT-Oregon.

I serve as current President of the Coalition of Graduate Employees, AFT Local 6069. I am an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, and a Ph.D. Candidate in Wildlife Science in the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences at Oregon State University. I graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Biology from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. My dissertation research focuses on trematode parasites in streams in western Oregon and the Cascades, specifically how seasonality, spatiotemporal heterogeneity, and disturbance (with a focus on wildfire) affect abundance and prevalence of Nanophyetus salmincola, the vector for Salmon Poisoning Disease. During my undergraduate degree, I pursued independent field and lab research on parasites of the California two-spot octopus, Octopus bimaculoides, and parasitism in kelp forest zooplankton in the Santa Barbara Channel.

I am proud to represent multiple marginalized identities in STEM and in the labor movement, and proud to organize my fellow workers to fight for a better life. I hope to bring my demonstrated dedication to equity, accountability, and justice to AFT-Oregon, where I would use my role as Secretary to ensure state federation leadership and executive council meetings are functioning democratically and transparently, and to actively facilitate engagement of local leadership and rank-and-file membership in our state fed. I have six years of nonstop labor organizing experience and have served in numerous roles throughout my local.

Within CGE, I have served for five years as a steward, as well as on the Steward Communications Council and the Hardship Fund, Conduct Policy, and Finance committees. I was our bargaining team’s head of research and data analysis during the 2019-20 full contract reopener. I previously served on the CGE Executive Council as Vice President for Communications 2020-21, and currently serve as President 2022-23. I was an invited instructor at LERC Summer School and at AFT-Oregon Winter School this past year, where I co-taught two intensive workshops on fighting sexual harassment in the workplace with my Local’s staff organizer. I was twice elected delegate to the AFT-Oregon state convention, and have served as a delegate at the 2020 AFT National convention. I am a founding member of my union’s Pride Caucus, which is dedicated to protecting the rights and interests of LGBTQIA2+ Graduate Employees. In 2018, I served as a member of Oregon State University’s Trans Taskforce, a coalition dedicated to protecting the rights of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming students and workers; I also successfully organized workers in my employing unit and throughout the university to demand equitable access to all-gender restrooms, generating a working Restroom Coalition composed of graduate employees, faculty, staff, and undergraduates, as well as a successful petition for improved access to all-gender restrooms across campus that I presented to the interim president of the university. In 2022, I was given the Community Builder award, which honors an individual in the university community whose work contributes significantly to the campus environment through advocacy of gender equity, by the OSU President’s Commission on the Status of Women.

As a Queer nonbinary scientist, I’ve faced a lot of harassment, discrimination, and other barriers to earning my graduate degree and surviving in academia and in Oregon. No one should have to go through challenges like these alone - and when we stand in solidarity as unionists, we can dismantle these barriers and ensure that those who come after us experience better working and living conditions than we did. I organize for the survival of myself and of my community. As a founding member of the Democracy Caucus, I am proud of what our coalition has been able to accomplish so far, and I am excited to work towards my vision of a transparent and participatory state federation that can effectively meet the needs of locals, and where we can stand in genuine solidarity and community with one another. I’ll be serving as chief delegate for my local at this year’s convention - please don’t hesitate to say hi if you have questions or want to talk about my goals if I am elected!