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A6 The BulleTin • SaTurday, auguST 21, 2021 OSHA Continued from A5 PCUN recently conducted surveys with 50 farmworkers in the Willamette Valley to assess how well they felt employers were complying with the rules. The vast majority, Lopez said, indicated they were being pro- vided with enough water and shade during the extreme heat. “Overall, people feel like there are steps being taken to follow the rules,” she said. Since July 9, Oregon OSHA has fielded 971 workplace complaints from across the state, according to the agency’s records. Of those, 136 were marked as “heat-related.” A Capital Press review found that, of the 136 heat-related complaints, 18 complaints were made against 12 differ- ent farms and food processing companies. Complaints ranged from not providing access to Pot farm Continued from A5 “And then, they are trans- ported up to the location. From what we are under- standing, these workers are not paid until the end of the year when the shipment goes out and the money is brought in. There’s not like a weekly payroll going on here.” Investigators are looking Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Press File The new emergency rules adopted by Oregon OSHA are intended to protect workers. water or breaks, to workers not being trained to recognize the into an operation that involves more than 1,300 acres of prop- erty and 200 workers. Due to the size of the farm and the scope of the investigation, the Josephine County Sheriffs department was joined by 16 other state and federal agen- cies, including the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. These agencies seized ten firearms and $140,000 in cash Dutch Bros Continued from A5 Dutch Bros, which had grown rapidly by franchising its drive-thru coffee stands in prior years, has moved over the past four years to expand through compa- ny-owned outlets. Dutch Bros reported Friday that it no longer franchises at all, and nearly half its stores are now compa- ny-owned. And the company indicated it believes it could grow to as many as 4,000 locations. In its filing, Dutch Bros said it sees a big opportunity among coffee drinkers who want their beverages on the go. But it warned its “substantial debt” — and more debt it may take on in the future to support its expansion — poses a risk to the business if it runs into trouble with its ambitious growth plans. And the filing hints at some of the growing pains Dutch Bros will face as it moves to the public markets. The company reported in Friday’s fil- ing that audits of its financial statements for the past two years found “a material weakness” in its internal accounting, be- cause it lacked “personnel capable of ap- propriately accounting for complex trans- actions we undertake.” Dutch Bros said it hired more accoun- tants this year, but warned that a weak- Insurance Continued from A5 While it was also the right thing to do for the climate, the decision to ask for divestment and disclosure was based on the financial risk facing these investments, he said. Jones’ office monitored in- surers’ reserve portfolios, ap- plied different climate-risk scenarios and performed stress tests to examine how certain investments might perform un- der various future greenhouse gas emission policies, he said. Regulators in the U.S. don’t generally scrutinize insurers’ reserve portfolios for climate risk, but those practices are more common in other coun- tries, he said. “Those climate risk regula- tory practices are the standard among financial regulators in Europe and Asia,” he said. “By and large, both the U.S. insur- ance industry and state insur- ance regulators are behind the curve.” Climate risk assessments are something that more compa- nies and regulators in the U.S. “ought to be doing,” Jones said. IPCC’s sixth climate change assessment was published on Aug. 9, and its conclusions were stark. UN Secretary-Gen- eral António Guterres called the report’s findings a “code red for humanity.” “The alarm bells are deafen- ing, and the evidence is irrefut- able: greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil-fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk,” Gu- terres added. “Global heating is affecting every region on Earth, signs of heat-related illnesses. Each of those complaints are this week. In addition, offi- cials destroyed 72,283 can- nabis plants along with 6,000 pounds of processed cannabis and 373 greenhouses. More than 250 law en- forcement officers entered the property on Tuesday, they found the workers living in squalid conditions, sleeping on cardboard mats or in tents. Although the workers denied that they had been trafficked, nesses in its internal controls continued through the end of 2020 because the company has a “limited number” of em- ployees with adequate expertise. No Oregon company has raised $100 million in an IPO since 2004. Founded with a single pushcart in 1992 in Grants Pass by brothers Dane and Travis Boersma, Dutch Bros is now positioned to be one of Oregon’s largest businesses. In a state known for fancy coffees, Dutch Bros has gone the opposite direc- tion by offering a range of mass-market drinks, from simple drip coffee to energy drinks and frothy coffee shakes. Dutch Bros (it’s pronounced “bros,” not “brothers”) has built an avid following with a reputation for friendly, outgoing “broistas” who rush from the coffee kiosk to greet people waiting in line at its drive- thrus. “The most important thing for us was building customer loyalty. If we could figure that out, we were winning,” Tra- vis Boersma, now Dutch Bros’ chairman, wrote in a letter to prospective investors included in Friday’s filing. “So when people would come back day after day, we rolled out the red carpet. Our broistas would have fun trying to make everyone smile and create a mag- netic, contagious experience,” Boersma wrote. “That lives on in our company. It’s with many of the changes be- coming irreversible.” Granville Martin, director of U.S. policy and outreach at Value Reporting Foundation, said the specter of rising pay- outs from environmental ca- tastrophes demonstrates the need more robust climate dis- closure. “It’s unsustainable,” Martin said, noting that California’s property and casualty industry paid out more than $26 bil- lion in claims in 2017-18. Since then, officials have been ex- panding fire risk maps and the amount of destruction caused by wildfire appears to be wors- “in progress,” according to Or- egon OSHA. Daniel, the sheriff, suggested that this could be because they were scared to talk. The Department of Home- land Security offered victim services to the workers, but they all turned the services down. This could be for var- ious reasons, including fear of their employers and fear of immigration authorities. No arrests have been made since the raid. CENTRAL OREGON SCHOOL DIRECTORY • Handy, easy to use school reference guide. • One stop reference to all of the schools in Central Oregon. In The Bulletin This Sunday! giving them very little time to accomplish what is mandated in each of these rules.” For example, Dresler said farms in Southern Oregon were struggling to find N95 masks on short notice as the AQI rose above 200 because of nearby wildfires. “I was just getting endless calls saying they couldn’t find these masks,” she said. “People just panicked.” Lesley Tamura, who grows 42 acres of pears at her family’s orchard near Hood River, Ore., said the rules are also costing money, such as buying window air conditioners for workers living in on-farm housing. “Because the rules are con- stantly changing ... it’s defi- nitely difficult to keep up, and it’s definitely a financial burden,” Tamura said. “At the same time, we have to figure out what we can realistically do to protect (workers).” Labor The number of union mem- bers has long been in decline. Private-sector union member- ship hit a new low of 6.2% in 2019. Yet, labor remains a pow- erful force in Washington, D.C. It has a vocal ally in the White House in Joe Biden. Shuler said she will continue to work to get an infrastructure bill passed. Some economists have estimated the legislation could create 650,000 jobs. Beyond that, Shuler said the union needs to “look inward” and determine how to make unions relevant to more Amer- icans. The AFL-CIO needs to show that “the labor move- ment is the path to a good, sus- tainable job.” Shuler had served as AFL- CIO secretary-treasurer since 2009. The AFL-CIO also elected Fred Redmond, international vice president of the United Steelworkers, to replace Shuler as secretary-treasurer. Red- mond is the first African American to hold the No. 2 job. Shuler is generally seen as a shrewd politician and talented team-builder. Last winter, Red- mond lauded Shuler for tack- ling the deep divisions within the 56 unions that belong to the AFL-CIO. “Liz is tenacious; she has an ability to pull people together,” he said. “Look, we have a lot of work to do in our union and throughout all of labor. But there ain’t no one else try- ing to tackle this, getting the Black workers, the beat cops, the prison guards to the same table.” Shuler, 51, grew up in a wooded corner of Milwaukie that still feels far removed from the city. Both her parents worked for Portland General Electric. Her father, Lance, was a lineman for the utility and a proud union member. She graduated from the University of Oregon with a journalism degree. But her dreams of a broadcasting ca- reer never materialized, and she got a job with the Interna- tional Brotherhood of Electri- cal Workers in Oregon. The job became a calling when her father saw his retirement nest egg decimated after Texas en- ergy giant Enron took over the local utility. She was 34 when she was tapped to be chief of staff for IBEW President Ed Hill, a move that brought her to Washington, D.C. Many viewed Shuler as the heavy favorite to replace Trumka, who was 72 and had announced his intention to retire. The other union leader considered a potential rival to Shuler was Sara Nelson, the high-profile head of the Asso- ciation of Flight Attendants. Another Oregonian, Nelson grew up in Corvallis. It’s unclear whether Nelson wanted the job. Shuler was the only candidate for president on the ballot Friday. Shuler and Redmond’s terms will last just until June 2022. At that point, AFL-CIO dele- gates will gather at the group’s convention in Philadelphia and elect leaders to full four-year terms. holder engagement and activ- ism defense for the firm. “There’s a tension between long-term and short-term investors on the relative im- portance of environmental factors,” Bieber said in an in- terview. Institutional investors are more concerned with compa- nies’ long-term financial risks, including sustainability factors, she said. On the other hand, short-term investors are less willing to consider longer time horizons and would prefer im- mediate financial returns over significant long-term invest- ment. “I don’t think one can any longer deny this is occurring; the question is will we act quickly and strongly enough to reduce the impacts of climate change which we’re already seeing all around us,” said Jones, the former California in- surance commissioner. Continued from A5 our culture, what we look for in our em- ployees and our differentiator.” Dane Boersma died in 2009 of amy- otrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease. The chain has 471 stores across the West, with the greatest number in Ore- gon and locations as far east as Texas and Oklahoma. Three years ago, when it took an investment from a private equity firm called TSG Consumer Partners, the cof- fee chain said it hoped to have 800 loca- tions altogether by 2023. Notably, Friday’s filing did not disclose how much of the business TSG owns, nor how much Travis Boersma and other family members own. Those details will become public if Dutch Bros proceeds with in its offering. No new, large businesses have emerged in Oregon for several decades. But the re- gion now has a handful of big companies emerging, some in Oregon and others just across the Columbia River in Van- couver. Vancouver marketing data broker ZoomInfo, for example, held its IPO last year and now has a market value of nearly $24 billion. And Portland vacation rental powerhouse Vacasa plans to go public this fall by merging with a publicly traded investment fund in a deal that values that business at $4.5 billion. ening, he added. Affordable and reliable in- surance is essential to manag- ing risk and touches on every sector of the economy, Martin said. Martin’s Value Reporting Foundation formed in June in a merger of the International Integrated Reporting Coun- cil and the Sustainability Ac- counting Standards Board. The group develops international standards for ESG disclosure. Martin says companies in vulnerable sectors, including insurance, are more attuned to environmental risks, but there still aren’t adequate methods The PCUN survey found that most workers, however, were not aware of the new rules and had not been trained by their employer. “That part seemed to be lacking a lot,” Lo- pez said. Another gap, Lopez said, is whether workers are willing to take safety breaks. While hourly workers said they had no problem with rest periods, piece rate workers paid based on how much they harvest were less willing. “Every minute they weren’t out there, it meant money lost,” she said. Jenny Dresler, a lobbyist for the Oregon Farm Bureau, said the biggest challenge for farms boils down to timing. “Particularly family farms and ranches, what I’m hearing is just a sense of being over- whelmed and overloaded,” she said. “We are asking the world of these small employers, and for tracking this information. “We need standards so in- vestors can understand the prospects of particular com- panies but also so they can understand the sector-wide implications of climate risk,” Martin said. Elizabeth Bieber, an attor- ney at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP in New York, said an investor’s attention to climate risk often depends on their time horizon. Bieber is head of share- OBITUARY Linda Lee Pernell December 07, 1942 - July 17, 2021 On Saturday, July 17th, Linda Lee Pernell lost her 12-year batt le with cancer in her home in Bend, OR at the age of 78. Born 12/07/42 to Howard and Pauline Pernell, her dog Wimpy was her closest companion and inspired a lifelong advocacy for animals. She enjoyed high school, Tomahawk Ski Bowl, and waterskiing at Lake of the Woods. In 1961, she married James Kenneth Hall, became a loving mother and raised 3 children in Eugene. She remodeled homes in Eugene, Austi n, TX, and Bend with the impeccable taste and att enti on to detail she was known for in everything. In Austi n, her love of houses made her an excepti onal real estate agent. Tragically, her son Greg Hall passed, but she is survived by daughters Karina Mayorga & Kristi na Hall, and grandchildren Giovanna & Steven Mayorga. She is missed as mother, grandmother, friend, and neighbor. Linda’s ashes and animal companion’s will be interred next to her son in the historic Masonic Cemetery in Eugene. Gift s can be made to Defenders of Wildlife, PETA, or the Humane Society.
