Earned Sick Days Campaign

Cascadian Dreams

Earned Sick Days Campaign

During my work with the Oregon Working Families Party, one of the key campaigns that we worked on was to get the Portland City Council to pass an Earned Sick Days policy for all working Portlandians.  We were part of a coalition called Everybody Benefits.  My goal was to build up a canvass team to go out into key neighborhoods around Portland, talk to people on their doorstep, and get them to sign on to a letter to put pressure on the City Council. 

The Earned Sick Days Team in an Early Incarnation.  

We talked to people in several zipcodes in Portland.  They were 97211, 97214, 97215 and 97219.  We knocked on about 10,000 doors, talked to about 4,000 people and got about 2,500 signed letters to the council.  

After collecting all of these signed letters, on February 25th, we went to City Hall to deliver the signed letters. 

Cortina, a single mom talks about why Earned Sick Days are important for her family. 

Then, the canvass team followed up by calling about 1,000 people we had canvassed earlier and getting about 800 of them to make calls to the City Council.  Amanda Fritz was an absolute champion on this issue, and called a series of hearings.  I went to one of these hearings with my canvassers and was able to hear many people speak incredibly passionately about the issue. 

The City Council chambers were packed.  

After the hearings, the City Council got to vote. 

Earned Sick Days for Portland passed 5-0 on March 13th, 2013, even though the Oregonian editorial board was dead-set against it. 

This is why I organize.