Over a century of reporting for working people: Northwest Labor Press

Since 1900, one newspaper has kept Oregon and Southwest Washington union members informed about their own work, their contracts, and their communities. Northwest Labor Press began that year as the Portland Labor Press and has carried its current name since 1987. It is one of the oldest trade union publications in the country, and it is still independent and still union-supported.

The paper reaches its readers in two ways. The print edition is mailed twice a month to about 45,000 members of more than three dozen local unions. Online, nwlaborpress.org has been running since 1997, with an archive that reaches back to the first issue in 1900.

What makes it valuable is the range of what it covers: organizing drives, bargaining and contract fights, job training, workplace safety, health care, retirement, union democracy, labor history, and the community issues that touch every working family. Much of that is reporting you will not find in a general-interest paper, written by a staff that is itself represented by OPEIU Local 11.

It also does the unglamorous work well. A recent issue ran a union guide to the November election, followed county workers’ response to a return-to-office order, and covered the closing of Daimler’s Portland truck plant. It also still prints obituaries for union members, such as a longtime Bricklayers Local 1 member.

And it is funded by the people it serves: local unions and reader donations, rather than by owners with another agenda.

At The Frank Doolittle Company, we have spent 37 years supplying custom union-made and USA-made apparel and promotional products to unions and the people in them. We know how much a trusted paper matters to a labor community, and we think Northwest Labor Press is a model of how to do it. If you aren’t already reading, you can find out more or subscribe at nwlaborpress.org.