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Union membership in Oregon has surged by 23 percent since 2013, placing it among the top 10 states for organized labor growth in the country.

Service Employees International Union Local 49, which represents more than 15,000 health-care, janitorial and security workers in the region, reflects this trend. Union president Meg Niemi said they added 1,500 members last year, including workers at Providence St. Vincent, Legacy Mount Hood Medical Centers and Inter-Con Security.

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She predicted that growth will continue.

"We are seeing that more and more workers do want to come together and form unions," she said, "to be able to have protections on the job and advocate for the wages that they need to be able to pay their rent, pay for groceries, and get to and from work.

Oregon is bucking the national trend, which has seen union membership fall by half since the 1980s. Around 16 percent of the state's workforce is now unionized, far exceeding the national average of 10 percent. That growth is driven by organizing in health care, education and the public sector.

Reflecting on past victories, Niemi noted that some workers at Portland International Airport unionized with SEIU Local 49 in 2016. Before that, she said. they worked for minimum wage with no benefits.

"Longtime organizer Stan described having to 'cowboy through' shifts while sick. But thanks to the contract they won, his working life now looks very different," she said. "He pointed to his new glasses that he had just gotten, and he told me he was headed to the dentist to get some dental work done that he'd been putting off for years and then leaving to go pick up his grandkids."

Niemi said labor in Oregon and across the country continues to face serious threats. She pointed to anti-union efforts by the Trump administration and what she called "corporate greed on steroids." She also criticized attacks on immigrant workers, who she said are being unfairly blamed for the hardships facing working families.

"The real crisis," she said, "is that people are struggling to be able to pay their bills, even though they are working full time. And we are going to continue to stand up against this kind of scapegoating and divide and conquer tactics."