A10
State
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Employers adjust to minimum wage hike
By Paris Achen
Capital Bureau
About half of Deschutes
Brewery’s 500 employees re-
ceived a raise when Oregon’s
new three-tier minimum wage
law kicked in Friday. Cus-
tomers also might notice a
change: Menu items at its
brew pubs are climbing by
about 50 cents each to cover
the cost of the wage increase,
said company founder Gary
Fish.
“There is a direct correla-
tion,” Fish said. “We don’t
cut staff because we don’t
schedule people when we’re
not busy. If, because we raise
prices, volume drops, then
we don’t need to schedule as
many people. We will deal
with that at that time.”
At least 203,000 Orego-
nians received a raise from
the new law Friday, according
to the Oregon Employment
Department. Wages climbed
from $9.25 to $9.75 in most
parts of the state and to $9.50
in rural counties.
“I think it’s a great thing,”
Contributed photo/Yoshida Food
International
Junki Yoshida of Portland-
based Yoshida Food
International said he
will cut many temporary
positions in his company to
offset the cost of the wage
increases.
said Sen. Michael Dembrow,
D-Portland, chairman of the
Senate Workforce Commit-
tee, which irst proposed the
law. “It starts small, but that
is the beauty of the way we
have crafted this. It is spread
out over a number of years.
Workers are still going to get
immediate relief from the i-
nancial pressure they’re under
because of housing and other
costs they face.”
The irst-of-its-kind law
customizes wages by cost
of living and income level
in three different regions of
the state and sets a ive-year
schedule for increases. The
law stemmed from concerns
about the state’s housing
shortage and rising expenses
in a state with relatively low
wages. The Oregon Ofice
of Economic Analysis has
ranked Portland’s affordabil-
ity below Seattle’s because
of a disparity between wages
and living expenses.
The actual number of em-
ployees who beneit from the
pay bump is unknown, said
Nick Beleiciks, state econ-
omist with the Employment
Department. Minimum wage
workers who receive tips may
not on paper appear to be min-
imum wage workers because
of that extra income, Bele-
iciks said.
But those costs still mate-
rialize for employers. Tips in
Oregon don’t count toward
the wages owed to an em-
ployee, but employees are
required to report any money
they receive on the job as in-
come for tax purposes.
Most of the 250 Deschutes
employees who received a raise
from the minimum wage law
also make tips at the company’s
pubs in Portland and Bend.
“The people who receive
minimum wage in our compa-
ny receive tips, and that’s the
lion’s share of their earnings,
plus we provide health care,
even for food and beverage
staff,” said Fish of Deschutes
Brewery. “We know these are
our highest paid employees
getting a raise because those are
our tipped employees.”
The additional cost comes
at a time when employers also
are adjusting to new paid sick
leave requirements and facing
the potential of a corporate tax
increase under Initiative Peti-
tion 28, which voters will con-
sider in the November general
election.
Junki Yoshida of Port-
land-based Yoshida Food Inter-
national said he will cut many
temporary positions in his com-
pany to offset the cost of the
wage increases. He said he also
is looking at ways to pare down
beneits.
“It is hurting those people,”
Yoshida said of the people who
would lose jobs.
In lieu of the temporary
workers, he is asking his bet-
ter-paid staff to increase pro-
duction.
Fish of Deschutes Brew-
ery said despite the burden of
having to pay higher wages, he
doesn’t view the law as a bad
thing.
“There are some employ-
ers who are not treating their
employees as well that are
making it harder on those of
us who are,” Fish said. “With
that being said, the Legislature
doesn’t seem to value business
and risk and all of those kinds
of things as much as maybe
they could.”
“We have terriic people we
get to work with, and this is
not about them,” he added.
The new law has some
complications for employers
who have itinerant employees
working in multiple regions.
Generally, employers have
to pay employees the region-
al rate in which an employee
works more than 50 percent
of the time, but if an employ-
ee works in more than two
regions, the employer has to
track that employee’s time
spent in each region and pay
different wages according to
the amount of time spent in
each region.
The Bureau of Labor and
Industries has scheduled a
series of seminars to help em-
ployers comply with the new
law.
Enforcement of the law
will be mostly complaint
based, said Charlie Burr, a
spokesman for Labor Com-
missioner Brad Avakian.
The minimum wage grad-
ually climbs to $12.50 by
2022 in rural areas, includ-
ing Grant, Malheur, Lake,
Harney, Wheeler, Sherman,
Gilliam, Wallowa, Jefferson,
Baker, Union, Crook, Klam-
ath, Douglas, Coos, Curry,
Umatilla and Morrow coun-
ties.
Pierce agrees to SPJ debate
Support slips in Oregon for
in Bend, Brown mum for now international trade pacts
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
GOP gubernatorial candi-
date Bud Pierce says he has
accepted an invitation from
the Oregon Territory chapter
of the Society of Professional
Journalists to debate Sept. 24
in Bend.
Gov. Kate Brown’s cam-
paign spokeswoman, Liz Ac-
cola Meunier, declined to com-
ment on whether the governor
plans to join him in the debate.
“Conversations about this
debate are conidential until we
hear more from the host,” said
Liz Accola Meunier, Brown’s
campaign spokeswoman.
The hourlong debate will
“focus solely on issues impact-
ing exurban and rural Oregon,”
according to a memo by John
Sepulvado, an Oregon Territory
SPJ board member. Sepulvado
sent the memo to the Pierce
campaign June 24, said Stac-
ey Kafka, a spokeswoman for
Pierce’s campaign.
The candidates will take
questions from a panel of jour-
nalists on subjects ranging from
agriculture to transportation, in
front of a live studio audience
in Bend, Sepulvado wrote.
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SPJ has partnered with
three media organizations that
serve rural Oregon, including
The East Oregonian, Jefferson
Public Radio and KTVZ-TV,
to organize the event, the
memo stated.
Pierce issued a news release
Wednesday in which he called
for six debates during the cam-
paign and announced he had
accepted SPJ’s invitation.
The GOP candidate ac-
cepted SPJ’s invitation within
hours of receiving it, Kafka
said.
“We’re trying to be open
and transparent with voters so
they can plan to attend,” Kafka
said.
Brown has received wide-
spread criticism for declining
to participate in a July 22 de-
bate sponsored by the Oregon
Newspaper Publishers Asso-
ciation. That debate has tra-
ditionally served as the irst
debate of the campaign. No
other gubernatorial incumbent
has declined to appear in the
debate since it began 30 years
ago, according to ONPA.
Brown has said she plans to
participate in at least three de-
bates, starting no sooner than
Sept. 1, and will consider more
on a case-by-case basis.
By Jim Redden
Capital Bureau
Support for internation-
al trade slipped in Oregon
while the major candidates
for president criticized the
Trans-Paciic
Partnership
agreement that Congress
could consider later this year.
According to two polls
conducted by DHM Re-
search, the percentage of
Oregonians who believe
foreign trade is an opportu-
nity for economic growth
dropped from 65 percent in
March 2014 to 53 percent in
April 2016.
During that time, the per-
centage of Oregonians who
believe trade is more of a
threat to the economy in-
creased from 19 percent to
36 percent.
“Our polling data reveal
that Oregonians are less cer-
tain that international trade
is a good deal for our state
and our country in 2016 than
they were two years prior,”
says DHM Research found-
ing partner Adam Davis.
The drop in support fol-
lowed repeated attacks on
international trade treaties
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Cargo containers are shown being loaded on
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According to two polls conducted by DHM
Research, the percentage of Oregonians who
believe foreign trade is more of an opportunity
for economic growth dropped from 65 percent in
March 2014 to 53 percent in April 2016.
by Republican presidential
candidate Donald Trump and
Democratic presidential can-
didates Bernie Sanders and
Hillary Clinton. All three
candidates came out against
the TPP, even though Clin-
ton had previously called it
the “gold standard” of such
treaties.
“The seemingly 24-7
coverage of Trump and
Sanders this past year has
taken its toll on public un-
derstanding and apprecia-
tion of the beneits of trade,”
Davis says. “It’s been a
constant drumbeat of Amer-
icans losing jobs and big
companies being the only
beneiciaries of policies like
the Trans-Paciic Partner-
ship.”
Doug Badger, execu-
tive director of the Paciic
Northwest
International
Trade Association, deplores
the criticisms. Although
Trump, Sanders and — to
a lesser extent — Clinton
have all claimed such trea-
ties have reduced the num-
ber of American jobs, Bad-
ger says the opposite is true,
especially in Oregon.
“Trade is creating jobs in
the country and the region,
which is especially depen-
dent on trade. And they are
good-paying jobs,” says
Badger, whose organization
is aligned with the Portland
Business Alliance and is
pushing for approval of the
TPP.
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