JULY 3, 2009:NWLP
6/30/09
10:25 AM
Page 8
Labor’s ‘jobs-and-justice’ agenda made
progress as Oregon Legislature adjourns
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
SALEM — Despite a tough econ-
omy, organized labor made progress on
a jobs-and-justice agenda in the 2009
session of the Oregon Legislature,
which ended June 29.
The increase in the minimum corpo-
rate income tax and a new top personal
income tax bracket will bring in $733
million in the next couple years, reliev-
ing pressure to cut school and public
safety budgets. Under the previous cor-
porate minimum, some of Oregon’s
biggest corporations paid just $10 a year
in income tax if their books showed they
didn’t turn a profit, even if they did hun-
dreds of millions of dollars of business.
The new minimum will be $150 a year
for corporations grossing under
$500,000 a year, rising to $100,000 for
companies grossing over $100 million.
And a new top bracket of 9 percent
means tax will go up 2 percent on in-
come over $125,000 for single filers and
$250,000 for joint filers.
“I’ve been in this since 1989 and I’ve
seen slowly but surely a tax shift away
from the rich and powerful, business and
corporations,” said Oregon AFL-CIO
President Tom Chamberlain. “Where at
one time it was almost 50-50, it’s now
almost entirely on the back of the mid-
dle class. So the tax fairness piece, re-
cession or not, it’s just the right thing to
do.”
Lawmakers also passed the Worker
Freedom Act, a labor law reform that the
Oregon AFL-CIO judged its top prior-
ity. The bill, SB 519, gives workers the
right to refuse to attend employer-led
anti-union meetings. Business groups
lobbied hard against the scaled-back bill,
but it passed the House 34-24 on June
19, after earlier passing the Senate. The
bill was opposed in the House by all Re-
publicans and one Democrat, Suzanne
VanOrman of Hood River.
Labor also backed new laws to clean
up the initiative system, reform health
care, and help the unemployed.
Initiative reforms contained in HB
2005 require ballot measure campaigns
to turn in their signatures every 30 days.
The previous practice was to turn in sig-
natures all at once on or near the filing
deadline, but critics of initiative abuse
said that doesn’t give officials enough
time to look for forgery or fraud before a
measure must be certified for the ballot.
HB 2005 also says signatures won’t be
counted if they were gathered by a cir-
culator who is found to have violated
laws related to signature-gathering if
they turn a blind eye when their em-
ployees are knowingly breaking the law.
The bill was backed by Oregon Secre-
tary of State Kate Brown, who fulfilled a
2008 campaign pledge to build on re-
forms passed by the 2007 Legislature.
More uninsured Oregonians — chil-
dren and low-income adults — will be
covered by the Oregon Health Plan,
thanks to HB 2116, which levies a 1 per-
cent tax on insurance companies, plus a
tax of around 3 percent on hospitals.
PAGE 8
Those revenues then get federal match-
ing funds. Also passed was HB 2009,
the latest increment in a now four-year-
old process to develop a program of
comprehensive health coverage; the bill
consolidates state health governance
bodies into one agency, and mandates
that a proposal for an insurance buying
clearinghouse be developed for the 2011
Legislature to consider.
Jobs are always a big part of labor’s
agenda in Salem, and in the next several
years, many building trades union mem-
bers will have continued employment
thanks to increased state spending. A
$1.3 billion bond issue will fund new
construction on state university cam-
puses, state hospitals, and phase one of a
new prison at Junction City. That capital
construction package followed earlier
passage of $700 million for highway
construction and maintenance, and $100
million in “Connect Oregon” improve-
ments to ports, airports, and railroad fa-
cilities. The highway spending is funded
partly by a 2-cent-a-gallon increase in
the gas tax expected to take effect in
2010.
Things will be a little easier for the
unemployed: Lawmakers voted not to
tax the first $2,400 of unemployment
benefits, and they approved a slightly
more generous benefit formula. And a
new law sponsored by State Reps. Brad
Witt and Chip Shields allows workers
whose hours are cut 20 to 40 percent to
collect a partial unemployment benefit
under the state’s Work Share program.
HB 2815, authored by State Rep.
(and Carpenters business agent) Paul
Holvey, creates a multi-agency task
force to go after contractors that operate
unlicensed, pay workers under the table,
fail to pay workers compensation insur-
ance, and commit other abuses. Up to
now, these violations have been dealt
with by separate agencies that haven’t
shared information.
HB 2420, passed early in the session,
changed workers’ compensation rules so
that firefighters no longer have to prove
that their work was the cause if they are
diagnosed with any of 12 cancers that
are linked to that profession.
A proposal aimed at reining in priva-
tization passed both chambers. HB 2867
requires that before local and state gov-
ernments can contract out work cur-
rently performed in-house, they have to
do a cost-benefit analysis to show that
the move would save money, and if it
only saves money by cutting wages and
benefits of the workers doing the job,
then the contracting out is not allowed.
Another new law will cause the auto-
matic “sunset” of tax breaks. Portland
Democratic Rep. Michael Dembrow
(who is also a community college fac-
ulty union leader), thinks this may prove
one of the most important laws of the
session: It means tax credits and tax de-
ductions will have to be re-approved
every six years. Up to now, tax breaks,
once approved, tend to stay on the books
forever, whether or not they deliver the
promised jobs or other benefits. Reining
in tax breaks has required a three-fifths
“supermajority” of legislators. But un-
der the new law, tax breaks will end af-
ter six years unless a majority votes to
continue them.
Labor had its share of disappoint-
ments too. One union-backed bill, HB
2699 would have required payment of
the prevailing wage on construction
projects of $5 million or more that get
enterprise zone property tax subsidies:
It passed the House 38-21, but was op-
posed by city and county elected lead-
ers and failed to find a majority in the
Senate. Bob Shiprack, president of the
Oregon State Building and Construction
Trades Council, said he hopes to rein-
troduce that proposal in future sessions,
including the planned February 2010
special session.
Another bill that faltered in the Sen-
ate was HB 2831, a grab-bag of union-
supported reforms to the state’s public
employee collective bargaining law —
including a ban on permanent striker re-
placements in the public sector. It passed
the House on a party-line vote, but didn’t
get a vote in the Senate because only 14
of the needed 16 Democrats supported
it.
Chamberlain said the Oregon AFL-
CIO was very disappointed that law-
makers didn’t heed calls for more ac-
countability in the Business Energy Tax
Credit, which gives out millions of dol-
lars to makers and installers of solar and
wind projects, but with no requirements
about the jobs created.
By contrast, Rep. Jules Bailey agreed
with an AFL-CIO suggestion to add a
wage requirement to his HB 2626,
which pools funds so that homeowners
can get low-interest long-term loans to
pay for energy efficiency improvements,
which can then be paid back on utility
bills. Under HB 2626, the workers do-
ing the retrofits will make 180 percent
of the Oregon minimum wage.
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NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
JULY 3, 2009