We exist because Black workers in Oregon deserve more.
OBWC is a statewide center building power, dignity, and a real shot at economic justice for Black workers across Oregon.
Who We Are
The Oregon Black Worker Center is the only worker center in Oregon built explicitly for Black workers. We organize, educate, advocate, and hold space for community care. Because you can't sustain this work without all of it.
Black workers in Oregon are being paid less, passed over, pushed out, and left without recourse. That's not new. And it won't change by itself. It changes when workers have each other, have real knowledge of their rights, and have somewhere to go.
OBWC is that somewhere.
Building power from where workers are.
Organizing
We build power where Black workers work and live.
Leadership Development
We support workers to grow into organizers, advocates, and community leaders.
Know Your Rights
We give workers the real information they need about workplace protections, wage theft, discrimination, and more.
Wellness & Community Care
Living under capitalism is hard. We hold space for rest, peer support, and taking care of the whole person.
Permission to Be Black
Workers show up as their full selves, and OBWC meets them there with a space and support system built to reflect that.
Workers deserve power, dignity, and a real shot.
Change happens when workers have each other, understand their rights, and have somewhere to turn. OBWC creates that space while building collective power for Black workers across Oregon.
Black workers across Oregon.
- Youth entering the workforce for the first time
- Service workers, retail workers, caregivers
- Healthcare, public sector, and union workers
- Gig workers, temp workers, and contractors
- Construction workers
- Formerly incarcerated workers
- Unemployed and underemployed Black workers
The people most often left out belong here too.
We give special attention to queer, trans and gender non-conforming (GNC), femme, poor, disabled, and undocumented workers. They are the folks most often left out of spaces that claim to be for everyone.
And to be clear: this center is for
Black workers. Not Black businesses.
Rooted in Oregon. Built through relationships.
Imagine Black Futures
Committed to helping our Black community imagine the alternatives we deserve and building our civic participation and leadership to achieve those alternatives.
The Rosewood Initiative
Promoting community resilience, collective wellbeing, and economic development for Black communities in the Portland metro and beyond.
Guided by the National Black Worker Center
These aren't partnerships of convenience. They're rooted relationships, tested in the community and not just written on paper. We're also guided by the National Black Worker Center, a national network advancing Black worker justice across the country.
