NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Saturday, June 19, 2021
Oregon ag overtime bill amended with $100M price tag
By MATEUSZ
PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
SALEM — A bill requir-
ing Oregon farmers to pay
higher overtime wages has
passed a key legislative
committee, though it now
includes a hefty price tag that
may hinder further progress.
The House Rules Commit-
tee voted 4-3 to approve
House Bill 2358 with an
amendment that would phase
out the agricultural overtime
exemption over three years
and allocate $100 million to
help farmers make the tran-
sition.
To put that amount in
perspective, it’s more than
twice the general fund tax
dollars appropriated for the
entire Oregon Department of
Agriculture during the most
recent biennium.
Before the House votes
on HB 2358, it must first
clear the budget-setting Joint
Committee on Ways and
Means. The bill would then
need to pass the Senate before
the end of this year’s legisla-
tive session, which is consti-
tutionally required to end by
June 27.
Under the amended
version of HB 2358, farm
workers would be owed
one-and-a-half the regular
wage rate after 55 hours per
week in 2022, after 48 hours
Andrea Johnson/Capital Press
Workers harvest Oregon wine grapes in this file photo. A bill that would end the Oregon agriculture industry’s exemption
from higher overtime wages has been amended to include $100 million to help farmers transition.
per week in 2023 and after 40
hours per week in 2024.
Rep. Andrea Salinas,
D-Lake Oswego, said that
“everybody thought the bill
was dead” but she proposed
the amendment to provide
justice for farm workers while
alleviating the economic
burden on their employers.
“It won’t make them whole
by any stretch but it will help
them transition,” she said
during a June 16 legislative
hearing.
The $100 million would
be overseen by the Oregon
Business Development
Department, which would
pay eligible farmers for 80%
Forecast for Pendleton Area
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TODAY
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hot
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hot
Hot; breezy in the
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PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
97° 65°
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HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
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OREGON FORECAST
ALMANAC
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PENDLETON
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Pullman
Yakima 91/65
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Portland
Hermiston
82/60
The Dalles 94/62
Salem
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81/56
Yesterday
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La Grande
84/60
PRECIPITATION
John Day
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Ontario
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Caldwell
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Pendleton 81/53
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HERMISTON
Enterprise
90/60
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PRECIPITATION
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77/53
Aberdeen
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Tacoma
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of the amount they spent on
overtime in 2022, 2023 and
2024. Priority would go to
farmers who paid the high-
est proportion of their net
income in overtime and who
employed fewer than 25
workers per year.
Requiring farmers to pay
overtime wages may cause
a shift to mechanization or
drive some crops out-of-state
but it’s ultimately what’s fair
to workers, Salinas said.
With the neighboring
states of Washington and
Californian ending the agri-
cultural overtime exemption,
“I don’t see how Oregon can
avoid this,” she said.
Rep. Daniel Bonham,
R-The Dalles, said there
is “broad recognition that
something should be done”
about the agricultural over-
time exemption, but he would
prefer that a task force issue
recommendations for change
later this year.
For example, farm work-
ers could be paid overtime
wages after 40 hours per
week except for the harvest
periods for specific labor-in-
tensive crops, he said. “Some-
thing like that could be a
compromise solution.”
Establishing a task force
is “not an intention to dodge”
the issue but would “deal
thoughtfully with the unin-
tended consequences,” said
Rep. Christine Drazan,
R-Canby.
Farmers must accept
market prices for crops and
livestock, unlike other indus-
tries that can raise prices to
compensate for Oregon’s
stricter labor regulations,
she said. “That isn’t how this
industry works.”
Growers cannot force
buyers to purchase prod-
ucts from Oregon instead of
competing regions, so they’ll
switch to other crops and
reduce the variety of what’s
grown in-state, Drazan said.
“We feed people out of
Oregon and I want that to
continue to be the case,”
she said.
Bill Gates’ company bidding in
auction of Easterday properties
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
KENNEWICK — Farms
owned by Eastern Washington
cattleman Cody Easterday will
be sold Thursday, June 17, at an
auction expected to draw bids
from firms associated with Bill
Gates and the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Delaware-based 100C
LLC, linked to Gates in a
previous large farmland sale
in Eastern Washington, has
bid $200.8 million for proper-
ties owned by Easterday, his
wife and mother, said Richard
Pachulski, the attorney repre-
senting the family’s holdings,
on June 15 in federal bank-
ruptcy court.
The bid topped the $193
million offer submitted by the
Mormon church’s Farmland
Reserve Inc. in May. Farm-
land’s bid set a baseline value
and gave other bidders some-
thing to top in submitting writ-
ten bids earlier this month.
Pachulski said 100C’s bid
set the new floor. The auction
will be open to only qualified
bidders. Bidders will have to
up the price in $1 million incre-
ments, Pachulski said.
The sale will transfer an
operation that Easterday’s
grandfather, Ervin Easter-
day, started in 1958 by buying
300 undeveloped acres in the
Columbia Basin. The family
farm grew to more than 18,000
acres of potatoes, onions, corn
and wheat, according to court
records.
Cody Easterday, 49,
defrauded Tyson Fresh Meats
of about $233 million and
another unnamed company
of about $11 million by billing
the companies for more than
200,000 head of nonexistent
cattle.
Easterday pleaded guilty
March 31 to one count of
wire fraud and is scheduled
to be sentenced Aug. 4 in
U.S. District Court for East-
ern Washington. He faces up
to 20 years in prison and has
been ordered to pay restitution.
After the fraud was uncov-
ered, the Easterdays filed for
bankruptcy. Tyson estimated
in a court document that it
represents about 90% of the
money owed to dozens of cred-
itors.
Properties to be auctioned
include Nine Canyon Farm,
Goose Gap Farm, River Farm
and Cox Farm.
Oregon Public Broad-
casting first reported Gates’
apparent interest in buying the
property. Efforts to reach 100C
LLC were unsuccessful.
The Land Report, a maga-
zine that follows the real estate
industry, linked Gates to 100C
LLC in the 2018 acquisition
of 14,500 acres of farmland
in Benton County in Eastern
Washington.
The publication in January
reported that Bill and Melinda
Gates are the largest farm-
land owners in the U.S., with
242,000 acres in 19 states.
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
94/53
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NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
IN BRIEF
Oregon senator faces
potential recall
JOHN DAY — State Sen. Lynn Findley,
R-Vale, faces a potential recall effort.
Chief petitioner Patrick A. Kopke-Hales of
Mount Vernon filed a prospective recall peti-
tion with the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office
on June 14.
Kopke-Hales wrote in his justification that
Findley had acted “against the values and prin-
ciples of the constituents he represents” for
supporting Senate Bill 865, and for not walking
out to prevent the passage of Senate Bill 554 on
gun control legislation.
Findley — who represents Senate District
30 covering all of Baker, Grant, Harney, Jeffer-
son, Malheur and Wheeler counties and parts
of Deschutes, Lake and Wasco counties — told
the Blue Mountain Eagle he was in the final
days of the legislative session and there is too
much going on right now to be “distracted” by
“something else.”
Kopke-Hales declined to comment.
Kopke-Hales wrote in the prospective
petition that Findley betrayed the “will of the
people” by introducing Senate Bill 865. The
proposed legislation would have prevented
elected officials at the state level — including
governor, secretary of state, state treasurer,
labor commissioner, state lawmaker, supreme
court judge or appeals court judge — from
serving as an elected officer on the state central
committee of a political party.
Kopke-Hales wrote that Findley “facilitated
the passing” of SB 554 by not walking out of
the session to prevent Democrats from having
the required quorum to approve the bill in the
Senate, where it passed 16-7. Findley voted
against it. It was signed two weeks ago by Gov.
Kate Brown.
Findley said SB 865 was a bill constituents
requested he introduce that has since been
withdrawn.
Findley said he had been questioned on SB
554 and he chose to stay in session and fight
the bill’s passage.
— EO Media Group
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