Hundreds gather in Seaside for union rally
Published 10:28 am Sunday, September 7, 2025
Demonstrators urge “Stop the Billionaire Takeover”
Over 200 union members and workers spilled out onto the sidewalks of Seaside Saturday for a rally for an “Oregon Labor Takes on the Billionaire Takeover” rally.
The union members left the Seaside Convention Center, where moments before the Oregon AFL-CIO concluded its biennial convention, and marched carrying signs and shouting slogans of “Workers over billionaires” to the Lewis and Clark Monument on the Promenade.
The convention itself was closed to the public and media was not permitted inside.
“Our democracy and our labor movement is at a crossroads, the only way out of this situation is to come together, to fight the billionaire class as a unified front,” shouted Graham Trainor, Oregon AFL-CIO president, into a microphone. “It is time to unite, to fight, and to stop the billionaire takeover … of our federal government.”
Oregon AFL-CIO President Graham Trainor speaks in Seaside. Photo by Mathias Lehman-Winters
Nina Sparr, an employee of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, said she had driven to the convention from Portland.
“Since January we’ve been under attack more, so I’ve been more active,” Sparr said. “I’m one of the agencies where they’ve took our bargaining agreement away, so we still have a union but we don’t have protection.”
Sparr said she believes unions protect workers, and that they are under threat.
“People that do regular jobs need greater protections, and need help, because it’s pretty bad,” Sparr said. “The federal unions are first, and I don’t know what will happen if that (goes away).”
Linda Jauron-Mills, a retiree of the Amalgamated Transit Union, had driven to Seaside from Scappoose.
“We have nurses, we have firefighters, the trade unionists are here…and we are focusing on things that matter to working people so that they don’t get messed up in the whole disaster that is coming,” Jauron-Mills said. “We are fighting for the working people of Oregon.”
Union members rally at the Lewis and Clark Monument in Seaside.
Union members were led in a song of “Solidarity Forever” and waved signs that read, “Hands Off Workers Rights,” and “Stop the Billionaire Takeover.”
SEIU Local 503 President Johnny Earl speaking to the crowd said it is imperative that labor stays engaged with politics.
“Today we are all one… this union is going to fight like hell to make sure we win the next midterm election,” Earl said.