City Council Entrance Interview: Jonathan Tasini

Seeks to represent: District 2 (North and Northeast)

Age: 68

Pronouns: He/him

Job: Founder and executive director of Just Transition for All

Fun fact: He makes a mean plum torte.

Two years ago, Jonathan Tasini founded Just Transition For All, a free collection of materials that workers, unions and government agencies can use to shift to cleaner energy. He’s also been hosting his “Working Life” podcast for eight years.

“My heart and soul, for the past 40 years, has been about one thing: making sure people earn a decent wage,” Tasini says. “That is going to be the thing I carry with me every single day at the council.”

Tasini was a campaign surrogate for Bernie Sanders in 2016 and is the author of the book The Essential Bernie Sanders and His Vision for America. In 2012 he was as director of campaigns and communications for the Maritime Union of Australia, and he served as president of the National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981 for 13 years.

Tasini’s economic policy ideas include raising the minimum wage for city workers. He hopes his worker-based approach to change will help him be a part of the transition in Portland as he runs to represent District 2.

“Portland is a very special city to me, but Portland has the same main challenge that people everywhere have, which is people are not being paid enough,” he tells WW.

His campaign has raised $85,000, qualifying for $40,000 in public funds. Over 20 unions have endorsed him, including Northwest Oregon Labor Council, SEIU, Portland Association of Teachers, and AFSCME Local 189 and 328.

We spoke to Tasini about his campaign. The conversation has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

WW: What are your top three priorities if elected?

Jonathan Tasini: Wages, wages, wages. I’ve been endorsed by more labor unions than anybody in the city. The standard of living of all working people has been declining because we’ve been robbed over the past 40 or 50 years of the sweat of our brow.

A related priority is homelessness. It bothers me that too often the focus tends to be on people who are suffering from either mental issues or addiction, because I think that’s blaming the victim. The truth is the majority of people are homeless because they can’t afford to pay the rent. Something people don’t talk about is that setting up the homeless services or addiction services perfectly, you cannot find enough people to fill the slots to take the jobs of a specialist because the wages are too low. I am the only person in this campaign calling for the minimum wage in the city to be $25 an hour to start.

Beyond policing, what measures would you take to improve public safety in Portland neighborhoods?

I’m a lifelong cyclist, and I want to hugely expand and support more greenways, safe, protected cycleways, and bike paths so the mother with her kid either cycling or walking can do so safely.

How would you support local businesses and foster economic growth in Portland?

The people who create economic growth in the city are the working people in the city. I think that’s been forgotten. So when I think about economic growth, I think, how are we going to make sure people have enough money in their paychecks?

Henry Ford was a son of a bitch—not a nice person, but because the United Auto Workers represented his workers, he understood he had to pay his workers enough money so they could buy his cars. And that is to me what the business leaders, the CEOs, the people who talk about economic growth have forgotten: Economic growth means broad unionization and making sure people earn enough money.

What aspects of the city’s current approach to drug use and overdose deaths do you support, and what would you change?

I did not support the rollback of Measure 110 because I think it was a political response, not a policy response. Some politicians ran scared because people were upset about that. It kind of links to the question of homelessness, right? I don’t think we did a very good job of setting up the systems for that, but the response, then, is not to criminalize drug use.

Do you support the city staying in the Joint Office of Homeless Services? What’s your plan to address homelessness?

We have to continue to work in the Joint Office. We cannot solve this alone. The issue of homelessness is economic, principally. I am always thinking, “How do we solve and make sure people earn enough money so they don’t end up on the street?” The number one reason people go bankrupt in this country is health care. You could be a middle-class person and you are one health care crisis away from going bankrupt and then losing your home.

Which current City Council member do you and your policies most align with?

Carmen Rubio. And I would say that she and I have had some conversations, and if I were voting today, I would vote for her for mayor.

See the other Portland City Council Candidates here!