🎤 We’re thrilled to welcome Scot Nakagawa to NWJP’s Celebration of Worker Justice! 🗓 Tuesday, June 3 | 5:30 PM�📍 Irving Street Studio, Portland Scot is a political strategist and organizer with over four decades of experience exploring questions of structural racism, white supremacy, and social justice. Scot has deep Oregon roots, reaching back to co-chairing the groundbreaking 1992 No On 9 campaign. https://noon9remembered.org/ He is the co-founder and director of the 22nd Century Initiative, a national strategy and action hub building power at the intersection of opposition to authoritarianism and expanding democratic governance in the U.S. Check out his substack, Anti-Authoritarian Playbook https://antiauthoritarianplaybook.substack.com/ 🎙️ NWJP board member Jill Pham will be leading a conversation with Scot about the intersections of our work. 💥 This is a unique opportunity to hear from Scot and connect with others dedicated to protecting workers’ rights and advancing justice. 🎟️ Tickets are going fast! Last year’s event sold out — don’t wait:�👉 https://nwjp.org/2025-event/ Join us as we celebrate resilience, solidarity, and collective action.�We can't wait to see you there! (fb)

NWJP's Kate Suisman is quoted here: Trump promised to deport millions of immigrant workers. Oregon bill would bar employers from capitalizing on that fear Published: Apr. 04, 2025 Aimee Green | The Oregonian/OregonLive A bill before the Oregon Legislature would attempt to take a stand against President Donald Trump’s national crackdown on immigrants by penalizing local employers who call or threaten to summon federal deportation authorities. The aim is to protect undocumented employees who complain about workplace conditions, unpaid wages and other on-the-job abuses. Various versions of Senate Bill 1119 would fine employers $1,000 to $10,000 for each instance of retaliation, or as supporters termed it, each effort to “scare the worker into submission.” Opponents of the bill say it lays out an unneeded fix to a highly improbable scenario, because employers are unlikely to admit to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators that they have undocumented workers on their payrolls. The Oregon Farm Bureau, which represents more than 6,500 farms and ranches that employ large numbers of immigrants, says the idea that an employer would initiate a federal investigation into one of its undocumented workers “defies basic logic.” “Employers don’t do this,” agreed Paloma Sparks, general counsel for the advocacy group Oregon Business & Industry. “If you have knowingly hired somebody or have reason to know that you’ve hired somebody with uncertain immigration status, you’re in much bigger trouble.” Both groups say the far more likely occurrence is that a spiteful coworker might report a colleague to federal authorities. The proposed legislation, they say, doesn’t do anything to prevent that. Supporters of the bill, however, contend employers often make threats that their immigrant employees don’t know are idle. “For us, this is not a hypothetical,” said Mike Powers, president of the 70,000-worker union SEIU Local 503. “This bill sends a message that we’re going to protect all of our workers, whether a family arrived in 1824 or 2024.” The bill’s chief sponsor is Sen. Kathleen Taylor, a Portland Democrat and chair of the Senate Labor and Business Committee. That panel held a public hearing for the bill earlier this week. The bill is scheduled for a vote to potentially advance out of committee on Tuesday. The proposal has attracted support from some of Oregon’s largest unions, including the Oregon Education Association, which represents teachers, and Oregon AFSCME, which represents public and private sector employees. Leaders say they worry employers may target immigrants for attempting to form unions. But the bill also garnered written opposition from individuals across the state, including one who wrote the bill is an attempt to “thwart the will of the people who voted in a new President and the #1 reason was to curb ILLEGAL immigration.” Since Trump took office, he’s promised to unfurl the largest mass deportation in the country’s history. Immigrants’ rights advocates say that has instilled widespread fear because federal authorities have swept up immigrants who’ve entered the country legally and have no criminal history. “Sadly, in today’s hateful national political climate, some unscrupulous employers are increasing their threats against immigrant workers who stand up for their rights,” Kate Suisman, an attorney for the Northwest Workers’ Justice Project, told the committee. “And right now, no one feels safe so it’s almost beside the point if you have a green card, citizenship etc.,” she told The Oregonian/OregonLive, “since this administration is detaining plenty of people who have permission to be here.” (fb)