A5
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 2021
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BRIEFING
COVID-19 | Federal stimulus package
Inventor of audio
cassette dies
Aid brings companies to scale back layoffs
THE HAGUE, Neth-
erlands — Lou Ottens,
the Dutch inventor of
the cassette tape, the
medium of choice for
millions of bedroom
mix tapes, has died, said
Philips, the company
where he also helped
develop the compact
disc.
Ottens died March 6
at 94, Philips confirmed.
He joined Philips in
1952 and was head of
the Dutch company’s
product development
department when he
began work on an al-
ternative for existing
tape recorders with
their cumbersome large
spools of tape.
His goal was simple.
Make tapes and their
players far more porta-
ble and easier to use.
The final product cre-
ated in 1962 later turned
into a worldwide hit,
with more than 100 bil-
lion cassettes sold, many
to music fans who would
record their own com-
pilations direct from the
radio.
Its popularity waned
with the development
of the compact disc, an
invention Ottens also
helped create as super-
visor of a development
team, Philips said.
BY ELI ROSENBERG
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — Two
airline giants said that they
would cancel tens of thou-
sands of planned layoffs be-
cause of aid earmarked for
them in the $1.9 trillion stim-
ulus measure passed by Con-
gress this week, an early sign of
job losses averted by the land-
mark package.
Scott Kirby, CEO of United
Airlines, which had warned
employees about 14,000 lay-
offs last month, said in a so-
cial media post that Congress’s
new funding for airlines would
allow the workers to receive
their paychecks and health care
through September.
American Airlines said it
planned to rescind notices it
sent last month to 13,000 em-
ployees about coming layoffs.
“Those are happily canceled
— you can tear them up!”
Doug Parker, American’s CEO,
and Robert Isom, its president,
wrote in a note to employees.
“We are grateful for the sup-
port of our government leaders
and their continued acknowl-
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonia
BY JAMIE GOLDBERG
The Oregonian
PEOPLE ON
THE MOVE
Bird pitches its electric
scooters to new market
... Pendleton?
BY ANTONIO SIERRA • East Oregonian
A
Los Angeles-area company has been pitching small-town America on
adopting its electric scooter program, and Pendleton is its next target.
At a Tuesday workshop, Michael Covato of Bird, a Santa Monica, California,
company, fielded numerous questions from the Pendleton City Council as it
As the COVID-19 vaccine
rollout ramps up this spring,
though, Oregon workers may
wonder whether their bosses
could require them to get
vaccinated.
In most cases, the answer is
yes. But there are exceptions,
and very few employers re-
quire the vaccinations now or
are likely to in the future.
“I think ultimately most
employers would be able to
require it,” said Henry Drum-
monds, a Lewis & Clark Law
School professor specializing
in labor and employment law.
“But I think most employers
probably wouldn’t want to
require it. I think employers
could first encourage and ed-
ucate employees about the
safety of the vaccine and the
desirability of it in terms of
protecting yourself and your
co-workers.”
Drummonds said that at-
will employment standards
allow private businesses to
dictate and change the terms
of employment at any time
and fire employees for any
reason, as long as they don’t
As part of the terms,
some money will go
to people of other
races who applied
BY JAMIE GOLDBERG
The Oregonian
Pendleton River Parkway.
Organizers of the state’s
$62 million coronavirus re-
lief fund for Black Orego-
nians could soon be allowed
to resume distributing grant
money after agreeing to a
settlement with a John Day
logging company that chal-
lenged the constitutionality of
the unique state fund.
Pending court approval,
the fund could resume pay-
ing out aid to Black Orego-
nians while the state will pay
an undetermined sum to ap-
plicants of other races who
applied for help from the
fund last year.
The Oregon Cares Fund
distributed $49.5 million to
nearly 15,600 Black individ-
uals, 466 Black-owned busi-
nesses and 103 Black-led
nonprofits last year before
agreeing to suspend opera-
tions and hand over their re-
maining money to a federal
court in December amid the
ongoing legal challenge.
More than $9 million has
been tied up with the legal
case ever since.
scooters.
Pending council ap-
proval, Bird intends to
introduce as many as 55
scooters in April at no
charge to the city. Covato
said Bird would partner
with a local business or or-
ganization to act as a “fleet
manager” for its scooters.
In exchange for a cut of the
scooter rental revenue, the
manager would oversee
the program locally and
resolve any issues with the
scooters.
All customer interac-
tions with the scooter
— locating a scooter, pay-
ment, activation and deac-
tivation — will be handled
by a downloadable cell-
phone app.
Covato also fielded nu-
merous questions about
the safety of the scooters
and how they would inte-
grate into existing traffic.
Across several answers,
See Layoffs / A6
Covato said all riders will
be required to view a safety
tutorial before operating
the scooters. When oper-
ating a scooter, a rider will
also be required to wear a
helmet and avoid driving
on the sidewalks.
Addressing concerns
that scooters will litter
sidewalks and impede
pedestrians, Covato said
users will need to send
a picture of their parked
scooter before finishing
their ride. If the scooter
is improperly parked, the
app will ask the user to
reposition it and send an-
other picture as proof.
“It’s going to be new,
but people will get used to
it,” City Attorney Nancy
Kerns said.
Kerns said she and other
staff worked with Covato
to iron out any safety con-
cerns, including talks with
Police Chief Chuck Byram.
discriminate on the basis of
race, gender, age or any other
protected category.
In practice, this means that
employers probably could
require employees to receive
the vaccine to remain em-
ployed or return to the office.
Both the U.S. Equal Employ-
ment Opportunity Commis-
sion and the Oregon Bureau
of Labor & Industries have
released guidance stating that
employers can mandate that
employees get vaccinated.
There are, of course, ex-
ceptions.
Workers can request an
exemption for religious rea-
sons or if a disability pre-
vents them from receiving
the vaccine. Employers must
make reasonable accommo-
dations for those employees if
it doesn’t cause undue hard-
ship.
That could mean allow-
ing an employee to work
from home or requiring an
unvaccinated employee to
wear a mask in the work-
place, Drummonds said, after
vaccinated colleagues are al-
lowed to go unmasked.
See Vaccine / A6
State settles suit, may
resume giving grants
to Black recipients
prepares to vote on an ordinance allowing Bird’s scooters on city streets and the
While Bird has been in
large metro areas for years,
Covato told the coun-
cil that the company has
been looking to expand its
presence across the globe.
He said one of the rea-
sons Bird was interested in
Pendleton was because of
its demographics and its
“phenomenal grid struc-
ture” in the city’s core.
“I don’t think we’ll be
competing with the Los
Angeleses of the world, but
I don’t think we need to,”
he said.
A cursory Google
search shows that Bird has
been soliciting its services
to rural and suburban
towns across the country,
many of them with popu-
lations under 50,000 peo-
ple. If the council gives
Bird the green light, Pend-
leton would join Herm-
iston, which has already
launched the company’s
tel and Lodging Association,
called it a vital step forward
that will help small businesses
and protect jobs. He said that
the pandemic has wiped out 10
years of hotel industry growth,
noting that leisure and hospi-
tality accounted for about 39%
of the jobs lost during the pan-
demic.
Employers can,
but aren’t likely,
to require vaccine
A group of four Bird e-scooters sits parked
Wednesday along E. Main Street in Hermis-
ton. Bird, which recently began operations in
Hermiston, is looking to expand to Pendleton.
— Bulletin wire report
• Gunnar Haugan has
been
hired as
a senior
tax man-
ager at
Kernutt
Stokes, a Haugan
full-ser-
vice accounting and
business consulting firm
established in 1945 with
offices in Eugene, Bend,
Corvallis, and Lake Os-
wego. Haugan works in
the Bend location.
• Mike Guerchon has
been
hired as
senior
vice
presi-
dent of
people
Guerchon
at Vo-
lansi, a San Francisco
Bay area drone startup
with offices in Bend.
Guerchon has more
than 25 years of expe-
rience in both ground-
level startups and
global public compa-
nies and will be work-
ing out of the Bend
office.
• Chrissy Christoferson
has
been
hired by
Brooks
Re-
sources
Corp., a
Christofer-
Central
son
Oregon
development firm, to
run its newly formed
property management
division, Heartwood
Commercial Manage-
ment.
• Jim Mazziotti, known
to his clients and the
Realtor community as
Mazz, has announced
that he is stepping
down as the principal
managing broker and
franchise owner of EXIT
Realty Bend effective
July 1. Juana Beede will
take over and continue
to train new and expe-
rienced agents and con-
tinue to grow the com-
pany, which increased
from 32 to 50 agents in
her first year.
edgment of all you do.”
The $1.9 trillion stimulus
package includes far less for
companies, but it does include
$65 billion that is directed to
range of hurting industries in-
cluding restaurants, aviation,
live entertainment and tour-
ism.
Chip Rogers, president and
CEO of the American Ho-
But the two sides filed a
settlement proposal Friday
that would enable the fund’s
organizers to immediately
recoup $5.3 million held by
the court. The fund can dis-
tribute that money to Black
Oregonians and businesses
that were approved for aid
but never got their money be-
cause of the lawsuit.
However, as part of the
settlement, the state of Ore-
gon has agreed to use its own
funds to pay grants to up to
1,252 non-Black applicants
that sought funding through
the program before Dec. 8,
2020. A separate party will
determine how much money
those newly eligible will re-
ceive.
Those non-Black appli-
cants constitute only a small
portion of those who applied
for grants through the fund,
since the application explic-
itly stated that the money was
meant only for Black Orego-
nians.
The court will retain $3.7
million deposited by fund
organizers until the state has
paid out those grants. At that
point, that money could be
released back to fund orga-
nizers to distribute to Black
Oregonians.
The settlement still needs
approval from U.S. Judge
Karin Immergut.
See Suit / A6