PNW Labor History conference will be April 25 & 26

The 2025 Pacific Northwest Labor History Association’s annual conference will convene in Portland, OR

PORTLAND, OR (March 4, 2025) — Under the theme Labor in a Hostile Political Environment – What Can Labor History Teach Us?, trade unionists will gather in the Rose City in April to dive deep into history’s lessons for today. Political hostility to Labor is strong in 2025, but it is not new. As the labor movement navigates these hostile waters, how labor activists of the past responded to this hostility provides inspiration for modern resistance and success.

The conference will open with an evening panel on Friday, April 25 tackling these very issues, featuring leaders from across Cascadia: WSLC President April Sims, OR AFL-CIO President Graham Trainor, and BC Federation of Labour President Sussane Skidmore.

On Saturday, April 26, participants will choose from a wide variety of plenaries and workshops, from in-depth looks at the history of public worker organizing, historic parallels in immigration policy and treatment of immigrant workers, the legacy of PNW teachers’ strikes, and more. A complete draft program can be found on the PNLHA website.

Participants at the 2024 PNLHA conference.

With opportunities for discussion and fellowship, the PNLHA’s annual conference is a connect with fellow union members, labor advocates and allies — and learn about the long history of the movement we are now part of, history that holds lessons for our work today.

More information on the conference is available on the PNLHA website. Click this link to register online.