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Greetings!
In any other year, this newsletter would be celebrating a new school year and wishing you a safe and relaxing Labor Day weekend. Union members from across the Portland area would be gearing up to gather for AFL-CIO's annual Labor Day picnic, ready to celebrate worker solidarity, hear from political candidates, and grill some burgers.
 Labor Day, 2019. This year, please don't stand this close to people outside your household!
Of course, this year is unlike any other year. For one thing, both the Labor Day picnic and the start of the school year are going virtual this time around. But one aspect of this weekend hasn’t changed: it’s a chance to reflect on the immense contributions the labor movement have made to our nation’s history and present.
I come from a union family, and I know first-hand that everyone is better off when workers band together to advocate for safe working conditions and a fair economy. We are now depending on “frontline” workers more than ever: the doctors and nurses who are treating COVID patients, but also the grocery store clerks, custodians, first responders, teachers, and many others who have kept our lives running over the last six months.
It's important that we honor, thank, and applaud these workers. It’s also important that we adopt policies that protect them, and keep them safe and whole. Workers here in Oregon are demanding protections and fair treatment like hazard pay, stronger rules to protect people in the workplace, and reassurance that workers who get sick on the job will be covered by worker’s compensation.
I’m very proud of the progress Oregon has made protecting worker rights over the time I’ve been in the Legislature. We’ve protected the right to organize, made pay equity a priority, and put in place the best paid family and medical leave program in the country. But this pandemic has revealed continuing inequalities and vulnerabilities in how we value the work people do and the lives they put on the line. Let’s do better, and make sure Oregon’s recovery lifts up the workers who are keeping us safe and fed.
We got some positive news last week: Multnomah County has been taken off of the state’s coronavirus “watch list.” The state developed the watch list as a way to keep an eye on counties where COVID is spreading quickly and where we can’t trace that spread to specific sources—in other words, areas at risk of seeing a dangerous spike in cases.
Multnomah County had been on the watch list since late July, but as of last week our rate of “sporadic cases” (cases that cannot be traced back to any particular source) is below 50 per 100,000 people. That is a good sign, and it indicates that county and state health officials’ hard work—and our community's smart action—are paying off.
However. This is no time to rest on our laurels. As I wrote in my last newsletter, Multnomah County is still pretty far from where we’d need to be in order to open our schools to in-person classes. While our teachers and school staff are doing everything they can to make distance learning equitable and valuable for kids, everyone wants to be able to get kids back to school safely. County officials are now asking for your help to get us to that point.
 Questions to ask as you make plans: Who is involved? Where will you be? How close will you be to people outside your household, and for how long? For more information, go to healthoregon.org/coronavirus
And that brings us back to Labor Day, because officials are asking you to “rethink your Labor Day plans.” This weekend should be a time for rest, relaxation, and quality time with your family. It's also a time to be mindful of how we are celebrating.
Informal gatherings have been a major spreader of COVID in the last few months. Consider this OPB article about twenty friends who rented a beach house for the weekend. No one felt sick at the time, but a few asymptomatic individuals at the party ballooned into over 300 cases of coronavirus as the twenty original friends returned to work, home, and daily life. Back in early June, we saw a wave of new cases across the state, which health officials were able to link back to Memorial Day gatherings.
So as you’re making plans for this weekend, please be careful. The decisions we make can have an enormous impact on our neighbors, schools, and the workers who are working to put food on their own tables.
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Foreclosure moratorium extended: The Governor announced this week that she is extending the moratorium on foreclosures passed by the Legislature earlier in the summer. Homeowners and commercial property owners who fall behind on mortgage payments due to the COVID crisis will now be protected from foreclosure through December 31 (check that’s right).
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National eviction moratorium: The CDC is putting a pause on evictions nationwide, citing the dangers of widespread evictions and homelessness in the midst of a pandemic. This is good news for renters across the country and will hopefully give families more certainty about the months ahead. But it’s an incomplete action without meaningful rental assistance from Congress.
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TAKE THE CENSUS: The deadline to fill out your census form is less than thirty days away! The Census will impact the next ten years of our political representation and funding for programs like Medicaid, roads, schools, and more. It takes about five minutes: 2020census.gov.
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Unemployment Department updates: The Employment Department will be implementing an additional $300 per week benefit from FEMA to Oregonians who are out of work. They expect to begin payments in late September. They are also on track to pay out the “waiting week” to Oregonians in November. In addition, OED leadership provided an update and took some hard questions from legislators this week at three Senate committee hearings. You can view that testimony here.
My staff will be out of the office next week, so we may be a little delayed getting back to you, but please do not hesitate to email with any questions or concerns. Have fun, stay safe, and thank a union!
Sincerely,
 Carla C. Piluso
State Representative
House District 50
email: Rep.CarlaPiluso@oregonlegislature.gov I phone: 503-986-1450
address: 900 Court St NE, H-491, Salem, OR 97301
website: http://www.oregonlegislature.gov/piluso
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