Oregon Labor Candidate School

After yesterday’s virtual field class, the 2026 cohort is halfway through! We started out the day being joined by OLCS alumni , who has already knocked on thousands of doors for her run for Salem Mayor. Councilor Nordyke talk about the importance of field and connecting with voters. Later in the afternoon we were joined by Oregon Attorney General to share his experiences knocking thousands of doors as a candidate and for other candidates. Next month we talk Comms!

It was so tremendous to be joined by OLCS alumni Senator this morning for our Oregon Labor Candidate School field class! She has knocked over 14k doors across two elections and her results show winning last time by nearly 6%.

Wrapped class two for our in-person cohort today. When talking about fundraising we called in the big guns and were joined by OLCS Class 1 alumni, Rep. Rob Nosse. Big shout out to for hosting and our trainers Emily and Abigail for sharing their knowledge.

And with that, we have officially finished class one for both our in-person and virtual cohorts! We are super excited to spend the next 6 months with these leaders. This year’s cohort features 24 union members representing 15 different unions living in 19 different cities across Oregon.

Another year another amazing cohort! Kicked off our first in-person class of OLCS 2026! Thank you to the for hosting us and our board chair Catie for co-training today. Next week we kick off our virtual cohort with 13 more folks! That’s right, it’s our largest cohort to-date with 24 total participants across two classes!

Very lucky to share space with today on a panel with our amazing Alumni and Willow Ryan from . Such great energy from these leaders!

Will probably come as no shock to anyone but OLCS had over 20 alumni present at the statewide convention representing 9 different unions across the state! THIS is what solidarity looks like!

On June 14th, we graduated one of our largest classes to date, with 21 folks representing 11 cities from Klamath Falls, Oregon, up to Vancouver, Washington, and 10 different unions. Congrats to the OLCS class of 2025, we are so excited to see what is next for you all.

Feeling extremely grateful to be joined again by Bob Bussel and OLCS Board Members, Hayley with the Oregon State Building & Construction Trades Council and Marshall with IBEW Local 48 for our virtual cohort class 5 this weekend. Next up??? Graduation on June 14th for 20 new OLCS Alumni!

What a tremendous weekend, absolutely one of my favorite classes. We were joined by the incomparable Bob Bussel who lead a brief history of the Labor Movement. Later we welcomed Board members Hayley Watson and Lorne Bulling and OLCS alumni Alex Beall to talk about how Trade unions work. We have our virtual cohort this weekend then it’s on to graduation!