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August 4, 2017 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
...Legislature
From Page 1
maintain Oregon’s ‘Obamacare’ Medicaid
expansion in the face of a long-planned
reduction in the federal government’s
share of the program’s costs. It does that
by increasing Oregon’s existing hospital
provider tax to 6 percent of net revenue
(from 5.3 percent) and adding a 1.5
percent tax on insurers and 4 percent on
smaller rural hospitals. [Passed House 36-
23, Senate 20-10]
■ Reproductive Health Equity HB 3391
requires insurers to cover reproductive
services at no cost to the patient, and
extends Oregon Health Plan coverage of
reproductive health services to 23,000
women who would be eligible for Medicaid
except for their immigration status. [Passed
House 33-23, Senate 17-13]
■ Overtime protections for
manufacturing workers HB 3458
started as a business-backed effort to strike
down a worker-friendly legal interpretation
of a law requiring overtime pay after 10
hours in factories and mills. But labor
organizations succeeded in amending the
bill to guarantee 10 hours rest between
shifts of eight hours or more, plus a new
weekly cap of 60 hours, and no mandatory
workweeks longer than 55. Unionized
workers are allowed to waive some of
those provisions in their collective barg-
aining agreement. [Passed Senate 30-0,
THE TOP THREE UNION-BACKED BILLS: HOW MEMBERS OF THE OREGON SENATE VOTED
LEGEND
✓ -voted for the bill
✗- voted against
N/A - didn’t cast a vote
House 51-8]
■ Apprentice opportunities on public
works HB 2162 mandates that state
construction contracts of over $5 million
require contractors to make sure at least 10
percent of the work hours are performed
by apprentices. The requirement also
applies to subcontractors that do at least
25 percent or $1 million of the work.
[Passed House 54-4, Senate 24-4]
■ Expanded union rights for professors
HB 3170, a priority for AFT-Oregon, allows
public university
faculty to unionize even when they have
some supervisory responsibility. [Passed
Senate 17-13, House 36-22]
Some key union-backed bills
that failed to win passage
Protection for Renters In response to a
crisis of rising rents, HB 2004 would have
lifted a state-wide pre-emption on local
rent control ordinances, and it would have
barred landlords from evicting a tenant for
no cause after six months of a tenancy. It
passed the House with support from all
Democrats except Caddy McKeown and
Brad Witt. But it couldn’t find majority
support in the Senate, even after the bill
was watered down so much that it lost
the support of the union-styled group
Portland Tenants United. Housing
advocates blame Democratic Senators Rod
Monroe and Betsy Johnson for the failure.
Former state rep Shemia Fagan has
already announced she will challenge
Monroe in the primary because of it.
[Passed House 31-27; failed to get a vote
in the Senate]
Paid Family Leave HB 3087 would have
created a family and medical leave
insurance program to provide workers
with paid leave for the birth of a child, an
illness, or military service, funded by
payroll contributions up to 0.05 percent of
employee wages to be paid by employers
and employees. The Legislature’s attorneys
determined that those contributions
would be considered a tax, which meant
supporters would have to get a 3/5
supermajority to pass it. Given that hurdle,
the bill didn’t make it to a vote.
On nearly every legislative is-
sue, unions went to Salem with
allies and in coalitions. One of
those was Fair Shot for All,
which includes the Oregon AFL-
CIO, Oregon AFSCME, Oregon
Education Association, Ameri-
can Federation of Teachers-Ore-
gon, Oregon Nurses Association,
Service Employees International
Union, and United Food and
Commercial Workers, and over a
dozen community groups. Three
of its five priority bills passed
this year: Cover All Kids bill, Re-
productive Health Equity, and a
bill targeting racial profiling by
police. But two came up short:
the paid family medical leave bill
and the renter protection bill.
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EXPIRES: August 31, 2017-NWLP
Beaverton - 503.914.4003
Chehalis - 360.639.3377
Eugene/Springfield - 541.622.0602
Gresham- 503.914.4005
Hillsboro - 503.719.6452
Longview - 360.639.3388
Milwaukie - 503.821.0089
Salem - 503.914.4007
Salmon Creek - 360.639.3399
Coming soon!
Southern Oregon - 541.227.6966