SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 116, NUMBER 14
INSIDE
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PORTLAND, OREGON
JULY 17, 2015
A landmark session, but Oregon labor wanted more
By Don McIntosh
Associate Editor
How did working people fare in
Oregon’s 2015 legislative ses-
sion? Depends on your measur-
ing stick. In the days following
the July 6 adjournment, Democ-
rats touted accomplishments like
paid sick leave, a public retire-
ment savings plan, and close to
a billion dollars in job-creating
public infrastructure investment.
Yet many in organized labor
who spent time in the Capitol
came away frustrated. That’s be-
cause expectations were high
when the session began in Feb-
ruary: Democrats had 18 of 30
seats in the Oregon Senate, and
35 of 60 in the Oregon House.
Democrats tend to call them-
selves friends of labor, but it be-
comes harder every year to find
pro-union Republican politi-
cians. Yet on issues that forced
Democrats to take sides, some
Democrats couldn’t be counted
on. Despite the Democratic ma-
jority, there weren’t enough
Democratic votes to raise the
minimum wage, toughen en-
forcement of wage-and-hour
laws, penalize large employers
who don’t offer health insurance,
restore public sector union
rights, or clean up abuses in pub-
lic contracting. Even the Ore-
gonian called the session, “a
mixed bag for workers and the
99 percent.”
Labor’s trouble spot was the
Senate. Call it the Betsy Johnson
problem: In previous legislative
sessions, Sen. Johnson (D-Scap-
poose) prevented labor bills
from passing when Democrats
had a 16-14 edge. To get around
that, enormous effort went to ex-
pand the Senate Democratic ma-
jority in the 2014 election. At the
Oregon AFL-CIO’s urging, De-
mocrats campaigned on a work-
ing families agenda — and
picked up two more Senate
seats. Now it would take three
Photo by Sandy Humphrey
A big Democratic majority led to
high expectations, but Oregon
lawmakers balked at minimum
wage and other labor priorities
SIGNING PAID SICK LEAVE INTO LAW. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown held a bill signing ceremony July 13 for the
“Fair Shot” agenda, comprised of Senate Bill 454 (Paid Sick Leave), House Bill 3025 (Ban the Box), House Bill
2002 (Ending Profiling), and House Bill 2960 (Retirement Security). A large crowd of union and community
and elected leaders packed into the governor’s ceremonial office to witness and celebrate.
wayward Democrats to doom la-
bor-backed legislation. But that’s
exactly what happened on a
number of bills, and making
matters worse, much of the bill-
killing took place in closed door
meetings of the Senate Demo-
cratic caucus. Labor lobbyists
would canvass lawmakers to
tally support for a bill, and think
they had 16 yeses, only to hear
from their Senate allies that in
the caucus meetings their bill
was short of a majority. It could
be a painful discovery — in past
sessions, fair-weather friends in
the Senate could masquerade as
“yes” votes while blaming John-
son for inaction. This year’s
problem senators, according to
interviews with over a dozen la-
bor lobbyists and allies, included
Mark Hass (D-Beaverton), Chris
Edwards (D-Eugene), and Lee
Beyer (D-Springfield).
Meanwhile, a coalition of two
dozen business groups led by
Associated Oregon Industries
made it clear where it stood, put-
ting over a dozen labor-backed
bills on its “job killer” list, and
campaigning hard to limit labor
wins.
What follows is a blow-by-
blow on the bills that made it,
and those that didn’t, on issues
that matter to working people. A
☑ mark means it passed; ☒
means the bill failed.
THE FAIR SHOT FIVE
The biggest labor news in the
Oregon Capitol this year was the
emergence of a powerful coali-
tion of labor and community
groups, led by five organiza-
tions, and joined by 20 others.
Known as Fair Shot for All, the
coalition united around five leg-
islative proposals, and passed
four of them. Now the coalition
will reload and try to pass the
fifth—an increase in the mini-
mum wage—in the February
2016 short legislative session.
☑ Paid sick time Starting Jan. 1,
2016, Oregon workers will have
the right to take up to 40 hours of
sick leave per year—paid where
there are 10 or more employees
(six or more in Portland), and un-
paid where there are fewer. [Con-
struction employers who offer
benefits through union multi-em-
ployer trusts will be exempt.]
Oregon is the fourth state in the
nation to pass such a bill. Sup-
porters wanted to pass it early in
order to move on to other priori-
ties. Instead it took four-and-a-
half months for the Senate to
pass it; in the House, it took two
days. Backers lost ground when
the paid-unpaid threshold rose to
10 (from 5, as initially proposed),
but they defeated an effort to
leave out farmworkers. They
also beat back an attempt by
State Sen. Chris Edwards (D-Eu-
gene) to tie sick leave’s passage
to a ban on all labor ordinances
by local jurisdictions. In the end,
no Republican voted for the paid
sick time. All Democrats voted
for it, except Brian Clem (D-
Salem) and John Lively (D-
Springfield) in the House, and
Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose) in
the Senate.
☑ Retirement security Starting
July 1, 2017, all Oregon workers
who don’t have an employer-
sponsored retirement plan (about
400,000 workers) will have one
automatically set up by the State
of Oregon — unless they choose
to opt out. The low-fee account,
funded by payroll deduction, will
grow over time and enable work-
ers to collect a monthly benefit
when they retire.
☑ Ban the box They did the crime,
served the time, and now they
(and we) need to start over. Ban
the box bars employers from ask-
ing about criminal convictions at
the initial application stage. Law
enforcement agencies and other
employers required by law to
consider an applicant’s criminal
history are exempt. Senate Pres-
ident Peter Courtney (D-Salem)
didn’t like the bill, but the sup-
port of Salem Republican Jackie
Winters, the only African-Amer-
ican state senator, made the dif-
ference. Backers also defeated an
effort to pre-empt stronger local
ban-the-box ordinances, and as a
result, Portland may soon move
forward with something stronger.
☑ Racial profiling Oregon, like
America, has a problem with
race, and one of places that
shows up is police bias, oft-times
unconscious. The new law bans
law enforcement from using pro-
filing as a tactic, requires law en-
forcement agencies to collect
data about profiling, and estab-
lishes a process for accepting and
addressing profiling complaints.
The bill got a boost in April
when Oregon Association
Chiefs of Police backed it.
☒Minimum wage The Legislature
hasn’t lifted a finger to raise the
minimum wage in more than two
decades. Instead, organized labor
dipped into its piggy bank to
fund ballot measure campaigns
in 1996 (to $6.50) and 2002 (to
$6.90, followed by annual raises
for inflation). This year, 10 min-
imum wage bills were intro-
duced, to raise it from $9.25 to-
day to $12.20 to $15 over the
next three years. But none of
them got a vote, not even a bill to
let local jurisdictions set a higher
local minimum wage. Senate
President Peter Courtney (D-
Salem) declared that he wouldn’t
allow a vote on any minimum
wage bill, and that gave cover to
other Democrats who might have
opposed raising the minimum
wage. Of course, the House
didn’t vote on it either, nor was a
word of support for it heard from
Governor Kate Brown (or John
Kitzhaber before her). But the is-
sue’s not dead. An informal task
force of legislators will try to
build consensus to pass it in
2016, and House Speaker Tina
Kotek (D-Portland) says it’s a
priority. If that fails, advocates
are already gathering signatures
to put a $15 minimum wage on
the ballot in November 2016.
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