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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (July 17, 2015)
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | July 17, 2015 | PAGE 7 ...Legislature adjourns From Page 1 OTHER WINS AND LOSSES ☑ Domestic worker bill of rights Starting Jan. 1, nearly 10,000 nannies, house cleaners, and housekeepers who work in Ore- gon homes will have a right to three days off a year, meal and rest breaks, and protections against harassment and discrim- ination. Those living in employ- ers’ homes will get eight hours of uninterrupted rest every 24 hours, overtime pay after 44 hours of work, and the right to cook their own meals. Others will get overtime after 40 hours and at least one day off a week. Oregon is the fifth state to pass such a bill, giving domestic workers some of the same legal rights other workers have. ☑ Wage transparency Employers will be barred from retaliating against workers for disclosing their wages. Such workplace policies can mask unfair wage disparities, including compensa- tion differences between male and female workers. ☑ Increase worker’s comp attor- ney fees It’s gotten harder to get a lawyer when a worker’s comp claim is denied in Oregon, be- cause low fees make it hard for lawyers to take cases. But this year MLAC, the management- labor committee on workers’ comp, recommended a bill to raise fees in a way that doesn’t come out of a worker’s settle- ment; it passed. ☑ Cannabis workers rights United Food and Commercial Workers, which has unionized cannabis workers in other states, was able to get workers’ rights provisions added to Oregon’s new law regulating the newly-le- galized cannabis industry. A sec- tion of the new law guarantees cannabis workers the right to unionize, and makes it an unlaw- ful employment practice to retal- iate against workers for that. It also lets the Oregon Liquor Con- trol Commission set merit-based criteria for issuing or renewing licenses, including whether an applicant offers employees living wages and benefits. ☒ Wage theft The Oregon Coali- tion to Stop Wage Theft, a coali- tion of eight unions and 29 faith and community groups, teamed up with Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian to push bills crack- ing down on employers who vi- olate wage and hour laws. They had almost no success. Associ- ated Oregon Industries and As- sociated General Contractors tarred the bills as “job-killers.” Just one bill passed, allowing the Bureau of Labor and Industries to garnish employer accounts to enforce wage orders. ☒ Employer health insurance The Oregon AFL-CIO’s “health- care accountability” bill would have penalized large employers whose employees end up on publicly subsidized health care. No state has done this so far. ☒ Scheduling abuses A landmark San Francisco ordinance puts a halt to abusive scheduling prac- tices like giving workers little notice of schedules, making last- minute schedule changes, requir- ing workers to be on-call, and sending workers home early when sales are slow. No one thought Oregon lawmakers would be as bold as San Fran- cisco, but advocates dipped a toe in the water with bills giving workers the right to ask for pre- dictable schedules. Instead, the Legislature went the other way, passing a two-year moratorium on local jurisdictions taking ac- tion on scheduling. That anti- worker move was led by State Sen. Chris Edwards (D-Eugene), who got it attached to passage of the sick leave measure. BUILDING TRADES Every year, the Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council goes to Salem to advocate for public infrastruc- ture investment, help clear ob- stacles to private construction projects, and protect and expand the requirement to pay the pre- vailing wage to workers on con- struction projects that spend public money. Building Trades executive secretary-treasurer John Mohlis State ended this year’s session more aggrieved than celebratory. Mohlis called it “almost inconceivable” that law- makers would leave without passing a transportation bill, and says a needed renovation of the State Capitol won’t get easier or cheaper just because lawmakers kicked that down the road. Still, lawmakers did approve hun- dreds of millions in new infra- structure spending, and passed union-supported fixes to past tax and prevailing wage legislation. ☑ Clean fuels Oregon’s Low Car- bon Fuel Standard, also known as the Clean Fuels Program, was first approved by the Legislature in 2009, and needed to be re-ap- proved in 2015 in order to go for- ward to implementation after six years of research. The bill had the backing of the building trades, as well as AFSCME Local 3336, which represents Oregon DEQ. The plan is to reduce the carbon needed to make transportation fu- els by 10 percent over the next 10 years. It’s likely to create jobs: Salem’s SeQuential Pacific Bio- Fuels is expanding its refinery ca- pacity by 20 percent, and Fort Collins, Colorado-based Red Rock Biofuels is pursuing per- mits to construct a new $200 mil- lion plant in Lakeview. ☑ Convention Center hotel A new law makes it clear that the Metro regional government has the authority to finance construc- tion of a convention center head- quarters hotel. ☑ Flaggers A new law backed by the Laborers requires construc- tion flagging contractors to get a license and show that they’re bonded and carry insurance. ☒ Solar arrays A bill to incen- tivize utility-scale solar installa- tions of up to 300 megawatts was backed by IBEW, but failed to pass. IBEW Local 48 political di- rector Joe Esmonde thinks law- makers balked at the price tag. ☒ 4-cent gas tax increase to fund road improvements Because cars are more efficient than they used to be, Oregon’s gas tax isn’t keeping up with the need to maintain roads. The state gas tax is currently 30 cents per gallon, and hasn’t increased since 2011. Lawmakers put together a plan for two 2-cent increases. [Any more than that, and the trucking industry and AAA threatened to campaign to overturn it with a ballot measure.] The tax increase — plus higher vehicle fees — Turn to Page 8 VANCOUVER CITY COUNCIL Position #4 Position #5 Position #6 BART HANSEN TY STOBER GEORGE FRANCISCO CLARK COUNTY COUNCIL See you at the AFL-CIO Summer School, August 7-9, where Chris Frost has a workshop on Workers’ Comp. Go online for more info: Chair, At Large MARC BOLDT MIKE DALESANDRO Councilor, Dist. 2 CHUCK GREEN NO MADORE http://lerc.uoregon.edu/eve nts/summer-school/ BATTLE GROUND CITY COUNCIL Councilor, Pos. #7 CANDY BONNEVILLE EVERGREEN SCHOOL DISTRICT Representative, Dist. 3 VICTORIA BRADFORD
