Oregon-Based Group Becomes First Ballot Initiative Campaign to Unionize
Labor unions are making inroads among Democratic and progressive campaigns workers. (Credit: yaom via iStock)
A ballot initiative campaign out of Oregon is joining the ranks of political campaign and firm staffers who have won union recognition.
The steering committee of the Eugene Clean Energy Fund, a Eugene, Ore.-based group pushing for a ballot measure to create efficient renewable energy programs and infrastructure, has officially recognized a campaign staff union and agreed to a tentative collecting bargaining agreement.
The move makes the ECEF the first ballot initiative campaign to unionize. The staffers are represented by the Campaign Workers Guild, the main labor union seeking to organize campaign workers.
The collective bargaining agreement will cover both staff organizers and paid canvassers, the group said, and includes nearly seven-percent raises, as well as severance pay, disciplinary and successorship protections, improved scheduling procedures and protections against workers being replaced by AI.
Union members are set to vote next week on whether to ratify the agreement.
“The Eugene Clean Energy Fund campaign was born out of a belief that our environment, workers, and our community deserve better, and that the clean energy transition must be union-built,” steering committee member Jennifer Davis said in a statement. “It’s important that we live up to these values and expectations internally. Everyone deserves a union, and our staff are no different.”
While the ECEF is a local campaign, the union effort could be held up as an example for other ballot initiative campaigns, which, like candidate campaigns and party committees, operate on tight schedules and rely on cyclical workers, who frequently struggle with job insecurity in between election years.
“This Agreement helps set strong standards for all campaign workers in Oregon and around the country,” Ky Fireside, a paid canvasser with ECEF and a CWG shop steward, said.
The union recognition marks the latest win for the CWG, which first helped organize workers on the 2018 House campaign of Wisconsin Democrat Randy Bryce – a step that made Bryce’s team the first-ever political campaign staff to unionize. Since then, workers across the Democratic and progressive space – ranging from presidential campaign staffers, ActBlue employees and consulting firm workers – have followed suit.
Earlier this year, the CWG launched a new push – dubbed the “Union Wave” initiative – to grow its numbers in the runup to the 2026 midterm elections. That initiative is effectively an effort to make it easier for campaign workers to unionize on the compressed timelines typical of political cycles.
Unionization has been a controversial topic among political professionals over the past decade. Opponents of the effort have expressed skepticism about campaign unions, arguing that it exacerbates tensions between campaign staffers and management in temporary organizations created for the singular purpose of winning elections.
Pro-union advocates, however, argue that union organizing has become increasingly necessary in an industry that frequently demands round-the-clock work, often for mediocre wages and sparse benefits. At the same time, many campaign workers experience intermittent unemployment and a lapse in health insurance coverage between the time their races end and they find new work.
