Skip to main contentFive years after it started, the trade association Oregon Manufacturers and Commerce is closing its doors.
“OMC was formed at a critical time when manufacturers faced threats from extreme regulations and excessive tax proposals,” says Stuart Gray, chief operating officer for Roseburg Forest Products and a founding board member of the organization. “The membership and board of directors is proud of the work accomplished.”
Along with Roseburg Forest Products, other founding members included Entek International, the Lebanon-based battery separator, and Lyons-based Freres Lumber.
In 2018, when Salem lobbyist and OMC founder Shaun Jillions established the group, business interests were riding high in their battle with organized labor. In November 2016, business interests funded the defeat of a large tax increase at the ballot box in Oregon, Measure 97, and in June 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court struck a blow against public employee unions, ruling in Janus v. AFSCME that bargaining unit members didn’t have to pay dues.
Jillions pitched OMC as a force that could continue that trend in Oregon.
“The Oregon Legislative Assembly has become increasingly combative to business interests in Oregon,” the slides Jillions showed prospective members in 2018 said. “The influence of Oregon’s public employee unions and significant out-of-state donors with extreme environmental agendas have pushed the majority Democrats further and further to the left.” (Jillions declined to comment for this story.)
But Democrats redoubled their efforts, passing the Student Success Act in 2019. That was a refined version of Measure 97 that now raises more than $1 billion a year from a new tax on businesses.
In 2020, OMC and others opposed cap-and-trade legislation, leading to a Republican walkout in the Oregon Senate that blocked a vote on the legislation. That was a temporary victory for OMC and its allies, however, because Gov. Kate Brown subsequently issued an executive order that mirrored much of the blocked climate legislation.
OMC also had to contend with another business group, Oregon Business and Industry, formed in 2017 from a merger of the more conservative Associated Oregon Industries and the more moderate Oregon Business Association. After a slow start, OBI has found its footing and appears to have convinced OMC members it can provide an effective voice for employers in Salem.
