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A compromise bill granting striking workers 10 weeks of unemployment benefits passed both chambers of the Oregon Legislature on Thursday. It now moves to Gov. Tina Kotek’s desk, where she’s expected to sign it.
Senate Bill 916 faced a surprising setback Tuesday morning, after four Democrats in the Senate joined Republicans to reject the bill as amended by the House on June 3. (The Senate had previously passed the bill in late March.) Subsequently, members of both chambers formed a conference committee to try and reach concurrence between the two versions.
Ultimately, the amendment approved by both chambers limited benefits to 10 weeks, down from 26 (the standard for how long unemployment benefits are available for a valid claim in Oregon). While the two Democrats who have steadily cast “no” votes in the Senate—Janeen Sollman of Hillsboro and Jeff Golden of Ashland—kept their positions consistent, the language was enough to sway two of Tuesday’s dissenters. Both Sen. Mark Meek (D-Gladstone) and Sen. Courtney Neron Misslin (D-Wilsonville) voted to approve SB 916.
The new version of the bill is a compromise among Democrats, including some of the bill’s staunchest supporters. At the conference committee meeting, Rep. Dacia Grayber (D-Portland) said reducing the benefits to 10 weeks was “not something I’m entirely thrilled with.”
Republicans in both chambers are, on the whole, still firmly opposed to SB 916.
Kotek, for her part, has indicated support for the bill. Her spokeswoman, Elisabeth Shepard, told WW on June 6 the governor intends to sign it if it hits her desk. Kotek reiterated her support at a June 9 press conference.
“The decision to strike isn’t taken lightly, and the governor believes the bill will not create more strikes as opponents claim,” Shepard said. “[Kotek] believes that Oregon workers cannot fully fight for a fair contract if doing so means jeopardizing their basic needs.”
But the amendment will likely not do much to reduce nationwide scrutiny of SB 916 because the bill still has effects on public employers felt in no other U.S. state. In three states with similar bills, New York, New Jersey, and Washington, public employees are barred from striking. That means that, if Kotek signs the bill, Oregon will be the first state with such benefits required to be paid by public employers, including cities, counties and school districts.
How this bill may affect Oregon’s school districts, many of which currently face budget deficits, has become an emerging argument for its opposition. While private employers’ payroll taxes fund Oregon’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, thus cushioning the bill’s impact, public employers like school districts don’t pay into this trust and would shoulder the full cost of unemployment benefits.
That led legislators to build in a provision that would make benefits that school district employees receive during strikes count toward total compensation. In other words, districts would not be required to pay employees more than their salaries.
For some of the state’s largest school districts, alongside supporting groups like the Oregon School Board Association, those provisions, while well-intentioned, bring up additional concerns about implementation. Stacey Michaelson, OSBA’s government relations and communications director, tells WW that the organization does not believe the bill “was based in good policy.”
“Our fundamental concern is the impact to students of adding pressure to the bargaining process and increasing the likelihood of a strike,” Michaelson says. “In terms of the technical side of implementation and mitigating any unemployment insurance costs incurred by a district during a strike…the process [from the Oregon Employment Department] will be lengthy and cumbersome.”
Unions have largely rallied around SB 916, with many saying it’s the first step toward leveling a deeply uneven playing field. “No worker should be forced into an unfair contract that further perpetuates the ills of our society at large: corporate greed, unsafe conditions, and a culture where we are not respecting working people for the work that ultimately makes our society run,” Graham Trainor, president of Oregon AFL-CIO, said in a media statement.
Legislators in support of SB 916 have said they’ve done the appropriate workshopping to minimize harm to public employers. Many of them have also cited the rarity of school strikes—there have been eight teacher strikes across the state since 2000, which the Oregon Education Association, the statewide teachers’ union, has said means the bill would have “a negligible impact” on the unemployment system.
Rep. Daniel Nguyen (D-Lake Oswego) said he’d listened to the concerns of public employers, but “it was a combination of conversations about elements including intent, frequency of use, guardrails like a cap based on fund solvency, and special consideration for taxpayer-funded schools…that brought him to his decision to vote yes,” says his spokeswoman, Hazel Tylinski.
Rep. Grayber, one of the bill’s sponsors, says amendments in both the Senate and House have catered to the needs of Oregon school districts. “I also committed during the floor debate to revisiting this policy in the future if any undue burden in complexity is discovered throughout implementation,” she said in a statement to WW.