“Workers Over Billionaires” protest planned for Labor Day in Salem
Salem residents will join national protests against the Trump administration planned for Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 1.
The theme of “Workers Over Billionaires” is meant to call attention to what organizers described as anti-worker and anti-union actions by President Donald Trump.
Those include cuts to the federal workforce and efforts this week to strip union protections from federal workers.
It will take place from 1-4 p.m. on the north end of the Oregon Capitol Mall, along Northeast Center Street near the intersection with Northeast Summer Street.
The protest is organized by Salem Region Indivisible, a group that came together earlier in the year and has evolved into the primary organizer of recent protests against the administration.
“We’re just continuously trying to keep these issues in front of people and not letting any of this stuff that the administration perpetrates on us all from becoming normalized. We’re really just hoping to grow the movement, keep these issues in front of people,” said Tom Gapen, the group’s communications director.
He said the group has organized about six demonstrations this year, drawing crowds of hundreds and sometimes thousands of people to the Oregon Capitol Mall.
Monday’s protest will include a lineup of six speakers representing organized labor including state Rep. Lesly Muñoz, D-Woodburn, whose district includes portions of north Salem and Keizer. She serves as vice chair of the House Committee On Labor and Workplace Standards.
Gapen said the group has collected signatures at some protests, including a recent effort urging Gov. Tina Kotek to uphold Oregon’s sanctuary law.
Aside from labor, Gapen said a top concern for the group is the rapid expansion of immigration enforcement operations, as well as “the administration attacking everything from universities to media companies and gutting entire government agencies, disappearing people off the streets, deploying military troops to our cities.”
Correction: This article misstated the date of Labor Day. It is Sept. 1. Salem Reporter apologizes for the error.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers education, economic development and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for over a decade and is a past president of Oregon's Society of Professional Journalists chapter. Outside of work, you can often find her gardening or with her nose buried in a book.
