In Salem
2013 shaping up to be an active legislative session for labor
SALEM — Oregon’s House of Representatives
passed a bill April 25 outlawing public sector
union-busting. One of dozens of bills labor unions
are following in the State Capitol this year, HB
3342 prohibits public employers from using public
funds to deter (or assist) union organizing, or from
using public property to hold meetings whose pur-
pose is to deter (or assist) union organizing. The
bill, sponsored by State Rep. Michael Dembrow
(D-Portland) passed 34-26 along party lines, and
now goes to the Senate for consideration.
Since the 2013 legislative session began in Feb-
ruary, three labor-backed bills have passed:
• HB 2800 — authorizing $450 million for an I-
5 replacement bridge over the Columbia River —
was signed by the governor March 12.
• HB 2787 — which lets students who graduate
from Oregon high schools pay in-state tuition at
public universities, regardless of legal residency
status, was signed into law April 12.
• SB 833 — which authorizes drivers licenses
to Oregon residents regardless of legal status —
passed the Senate 20-7 April 23 and the House 47-
7 April 29.
Other labor-backed bills have made it through
at least one chamber thus far:
• HB 2657 — which makes it harder to rezone
land that is set aside for industrial use — passed
the House 31-24 April 29.
• HB 2820 — making it easier to site utility-
MAY 3, 2013
scale solar development on non-arable land in East-
ern Oregon — passed the House 43-12 April 29.
• HB 2950 — which allows workers to take up
to two weeks unpaid leave to deal with the death of
family member, passed the House April 12 by 40-
18. The bill is the long-time dream of Bakers Lo-
cal 114 member Robin Zimmerman, whose wife
died of cancer in May 2008.
• HB 2646 — to require prevailing wage on all
construction projects on public university land,
even if it’s donor-funded — is in the Senate Busi-
ness and Transportation committee after passing
the House March 21 by 47-10.
• SJM 5 — a non-binding resolution urging the
U.S. government to investigate Chinese subsidies
to paper manufacturers — passed the Senate unan-
imously March 18 and is now in the House Busi-
ness and Labor Committee.
Other bills of note to labor were still in com-
mittee as of press time, including HB 3390, which
would mandate seven days of paid sick leave per
year at employers with six or more employees.
Democrats occupy the governor’s office and
have a 16-14 majority in the Oregon Senate and
34-26 in the Oregon House. But that doesn’t mean
the session is a cakewalk for labor.
Unions opposed SB 822 — a plan to trim cost-
of-living increases for public employee retirees —
but the bill passed the Senate April 11 by 16-13
and the House April 24 by 33-27, with Democrats
making up the yes votes in both cases, and Repub-
licans saying the bill didn’t go far enough in cut-
ting the costs of the Oregon Public Employee Re-
tirement System (PERS). It had not been signed
by the governor as of press time, but it was his own
proposal, so that seems assured. A coalition of
public sector unions plans to challenge it in court
the moment it is signed.
And Democrats were unable to come up with
the three-fifths supermajority required to approve a
new tax measure in the case of HB 2456, which
would have raised $150 million a year in addi-
tional revenue, mostly by raising taxes on the 2.4
percent highest-income Oregonians and on a small
percentage of very large corporations. Instead, the
House unanimously passed a watered down ver-
sion of the bill on April 24, raising an estimated
$18 million a year by cracking down on corpora-
tions attributing income to operations in countries
where they have little, if any, economic presence.
The revenue raised is dedicated to the Mental
Health Services Fund.
Two days later, the union-backed non-profit
Our Oregon filed six initiative petitions aimed at
the November 2014 ballot. With titles like “Large
Corporations Should Pay Their Fair Share” and “If
Corporations Are People, Let’s Tax Them Like It,”
the prospective ballot initiatives would be avail-
able for signature gathering once official ballot ti-
tles are approved.
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
Meanwhile, the Oregon AFL-CIO took a stand
against a symbolic bill, SJM 7, that tells the U.S.
Department of Labor (DOL) not to use its strongest
sanction, known as the “hot goods” provision,
when farm employers violate the Fair Labor Stan-
dards Act. DOL is cracking down nationwide on
child farm labor and minimum wage law violations
in the blueberry industry, both of which are often
disguised by the use of workers who are not on the
books. The resolution declares that using the hot
goods provision was, “coercive and extortive.” The
measure passed the Senate April 2 by 26-3, with
only Jackie Dingfelder, Diane Rosenbaum, and
Elizabeth Steiner Hayward voting no. It’s now in
the House Business and Labor Committee, and the
AFL-CIO says it’s working with other groups to
prevent it from reaching the governor’s desk.
The Legislature is expected to wrap up the ses-
sion by June 21, and self-imposed deadlines have
ostensibly killed several bills. To be considered for
further action, bills were supposed to have had at
least one committee work session by April 18. Bills
can be resurrected, however, either as amendments
to other bills, or because the speaker of the House
and the president of the Senate choose to move a
bill through their chamber’s Rules Committee.
A union-opposed bill requested by TriMet —
to restore transit workers’ right to strike (and thus
get rid of their right to binding arbitration) — was
one that died without a hearing.
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