When the Oregon Legislature ended its 2025 session June 27, labor lobbyists looked back on significant policy wins, but also on months of frustration as dozens of labor-backed proposals died without becoming law. After picking up seats in the November 2024 election, Democrats went into the session with a 36-24 majority in the Oregon House and an 18-12 majority in the Oregon Senate, and yet it took a Republican vote to pass one of labor’s priority bills.

At least four new laws passed this year will have major impacts for workers: A law letting strikers collect unemployment benefits, a big boost in funding for labor law enforcement, a law meant to combat wage theft in construction, and a law that extends the state prevailing wage law to pre-fab construction components.

Of course, the bills that failed to pass would have made an impact too. And probably no setback was more grievous than the failure to pass a bill to shore up funding for road and highway maintenance and improvements. As a result, local transit districts and state and local road maintenance departments are set to suffer significant layoffs and some state highway projects may be put on ice.

State lawmakers also reached a low point of another sort June 23 with a late-night sneak attack on Multnomah County’s fledgling preschool for all program — in order to cut taxes on high income earners. Lawmakers backed off within 24 hours after a massive public outcry, but the signal was sent — and received — that the governor and other leading Democrats may be willing to use state preemption to scrap a voter-approved program of free preschool in Oregon’s most populous county.

Why was it so hard?

When the session began Jan. 25, local labor leaders were bracing for attacks at the federal level on workers’ union rights and workplace safety, but they had high hopes that the newly expanded Democratic majority that they had helped to elect to the Oregon Legislature would make it a marquee year for state labor legislation. It was not to be. 

Some Democratic legislators are friends of labor who could be relied on through thick and thin. But for other Democrats, votes for labor priorities felt grudging. Republicans meanwhile were plenty ready to talk about making life better for working Oregonians, but they played naysayer to nearly every union-backed bill.

“We had a Democratic supermajority, but we didn’t have a pro-worker supermajority,” said one prominent labor lobbyist. 

“It almost felt as though our few wins were passed by some folks who held their collective noses to give us the necessary votes,” said another.

It was remarkable how often Republicans voted “no” — as a bloc — on labor-backed legislation. That meant it was notable when some Republican legislators stood with labor on some bills. 

The Oregon AFL-CIO’s official ratings of state lawmakers won’t be announced until the labor federation’s biennial convention in September, but there’s consensus about some of the Democrats who will be at or near the top of that list. In a category of her own was State Rep. Dacia Grayber, a union member who works as a Tualatin Valley firefighter when the legislature is not in session. As chair of the House Committee on Labor and Workplace Standards, Grayber was tenacious in shepherding priority labor bills to passage, fighting both publicly and behind the scenes. Some other solid labor stalwarts in the House were Travis Nelson, Zack Hudson, Ben Bowman, Rob Nosse, Nathan Sosa, Paul Evans, and Jason Kropf and freshman legislators Lisa Fragala, Willy Chotzen, and Lesley Munoz, as well as newly appointed Sue Rieke Smith. In the Senate, labor had dependable allies in Chris Gorsek, Deb Patterson, Kathleen Taylor, and Kayse Jama. 

But a smaller group of Democrats shocked union advocates with votes against priority labor bills — after having sought and received union endorsements. That list included Mark Meek, Jeff Golden, and Janeen Sollman in the Senate. In the House, it included John Lively, Emerson Levy, Daniel Nguyen, Ricki Ruiz, and first-term lawmakers Shannon Isadore and Mari Watanabe.

What passed?

A number of important new labor-backed laws passed this session:

• Unemployment benefits for strikers  Until this year only New York and New Jersey allowed striking workers to collect unemployment insurance benefits. Washington became the third in May. But Oregon lawmakers became the first in the nation to explicitly allow public-sector strikers to collect the benefit too. SB 916 allows Oregon strikers to collect up to 10 weeks of unemployment benefits, starting two weeks into a strike. But if their strike settlement includes any kind of back pay, like striking Portland teachers got in 2023, strikers could be on the hook to pay back unemployment benefits they collected. SB 916 takes effect Jan. 1, 2026. Opponents say it will lead to a strike wave and will deplete the unemployment insurance fund and increase unemployment insurance taxes for employers. But the numbers don’t bear that out: Strikes are rare, and would still involve risk and sacrifice for workers, not just because of the two-week waiting period but also because Oregon unemployment benefits replace at most two-thirds of working wages. SB 916’s backers think the most likely effect is just that employers will be restrained from making unreasonable bargaining proposals — because workers will have some support if they stand up against what they see as deeply unfair terms. SB 916 is almost universally seen as Oregon labor’s biggest achievement in the 2025 legislative session. But the road to yes was tortuous, and exposed a gulf between labor and some Democratic lawmakers. The original bill let strikers collect unemployment benefits like any other worker, but at each step as the bill progressed, lawmakers added conditions and limitations. In its first Senate vote, it passed 16-12 with Democrats Jeff Golden (Ashland) and Janeen Sollman (Hillsboro) joining all Senate Republicans in voting no. It then passed 33-23 in the House with Democrat John Lively (Springfield) joining Republicans in voting no. Because the House changed what the Senate had approved, it had to be re-voted in the Senate, and that’s when things got weird. Democrat Mark Meek (Gladstone), who had signed on as one of the original sponsors of the bill and had voted for it in March, joined newly appointed Democrat Courtney Neron Misslin (Wilsonville) and all Republicans in voting no, and it failed 14-15. At that point, Democratic leaders convened a conference committee to consider how the bill could be further watered down to win the votes of Neron Misslin and Meek. They added a 10-week limit to benefits, and it passed 16-12 in the Senate and 35-22 in the House, with Golden and Sollman as the only Democrats sticking with their earlier no votes.
• Taking responsibility for wage theft  SB 426 makes general contractors jointly liable when the subcontractors that they hire cheat workers out of pay. Advocates say that may prove to be a powerful incentive for general contractors to stop “looking the other way” — profiting from low-bid subcontractors that rely on cheating as their business model. The bill may also incentivize hiring of union contractors: The law doesn’t cover wage theft by union subcontractors, because those workers have grievance procedures under their collective bargaining agreements that they can use in cases of wage theft. The bill was opposed by Associated General Contractors, National Association of Minority Contractors, and the landlord lobby group Multifamily NW. Passage was led by Western States Regional Council of Carpenters with support from Oregon Building Trades Council, the Oregon AFL-CIO, and other construction unions. Republican Senator Suzanne Weber joined Democrats in supporting SB 426 on the first vote, then voted no on it after it was amended by the House. In the House, labor discovered that a few Democrats weren’t on board with the proposed crackdown on wage theft: Shannon Isadore, John Lively, Daniel Nguyen, and Mari Watanabe​ voted against it. If it wasn’t for Republican Greg Smith voting yes in the House, it would have failed. Isadore and Watanabe filed written explanations of their no votes. Echoing arguments made by minority contractors, Isadore said SB 426 would disproportionately impact minority-owned companies, and Watanabe said it would undermine diversity because general contractors would be less likely to hire emerging and small contractors. In a speech on the House floor, Daniel Nguyen said much the same: Nguyen, co-owner of the Bambuza restaurant chain, he said he opposes stealing from workers paychecks, but couldn’t support the legislation because it might cause businesses owned by people of color and women to miss out on opportunities.
• Prevailing wage in off-site fabrication  Oregon’s prevailing wage law sets union wages and benefits as the standard for all contractors on state and local public construction projects. But contractors often look for ways around it. Construction projects are increasingly using some custom-made components that are pre-fabricated elsewhere and then brought to the construction site. There can be significant efficiencies to making plumbing, electrical, and sheet metal assemblies off-site, for example. Union contractors commonly pay union scale for such off-site work, but union leaders think some other contractors may be using prefab to dodge the prevailing wage requirement. Led by Sheet Metal Local 16 with support from building trades unions and several union contractor associations, HB 2688 honors the spirit of the prevailing wage law by extending it to custom-made components assembled off-site. For building trades unions, support for prevailing wage is a litmus test that shows which side a politician is on. Most Democrats passed, and so did Republican Greg Smith. But six Democrats couldn’t bring themselves to support the bill: State representatives Annessa Hartman, Shannon Isadore, Pam Marsh, Susan McLain, and Mari Watanabe voted no, and so did state senators Jeff Golden and Mark Meek. It passed on a 31-22 vote in the House and 16-13 in the Senate.
• No fake union reps HB 3789 makes it unlawful to falsely impersonate a union representative. It’s a response to reports that the anti-union group Freedom Foundation has sent misleading mailers to union members or shown up at their homes and made false claims in order to get them to opt out of their union membership. Under the new law unions can file a civil lawsuit against an individual or group that has falsely claimed to represent a union. It passed the House 33-22 and the Senate 18-12, both on strict party lines with only Republicans voting no.
• Full funding for BOLI  Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) has been starved for funding for so long that it’s no longer able to properly enforce Oregon labor laws. This year Labor Commissioner Christina Stephenson made a forceful case to legislators that it’s time to fund BOLI properly, and BOLI funding was also a top priority for organized labor. HB 5015 provides funding for 70 new positions, including more wage and civil-rights investigators. It includes a one-time diversion of funds from a payroll-tax-supported injured workers benefit fund that is flush with funds. That money will allow BOLI to cut through case backlogs in wage theft and other labor law violation cases. The new funding will also enable BOLI to hire more investigators and modernize case management systems. In the Senate, properly funding labor law enforcement was apparently a partisan issue: It passed 18-11 on strict party lines, with only Democrats in support. In the House, it passed 39-12 with four Republicans joining the Democrats: Lucetta Elmer, Bobby Levy, Kevin Mannix, and Greg Smith. Labor lobbyists credit state senators Kate Lieber and Mark Meek for helping pass the bill. 
• Penalties for public employers that break labor law Under Oregon law, public employers like counties and school districts have some basic obligations to the unions that represent their workers. For example they need to update employee lists, and if they deduct union dues from employee paychecks, they need to pass those onto the union. But some public employers weren’t doing that, and faced no penalty. HB 2944 authorizes the Oregon Employment Relations Board to levy fines of $1,000 to $10,000 for repeat offenders. It passed the House 33-24 and the Senate 16-11, on strict party lines in both chambers, with only Democrats in support.
• Get serious about age discrimination It’s illegal under state and federal law for an employer to discriminate against anyone over 18 on the basis of their age. But some employers have been asking applicants their date of birth or when they graduated from high school — before a job offer. HB 3187 — backed by the Oregon AFL-CIO, SEIU Local 503, and other labor organizations — makes that illegal. It passed the House 42-16 and the Senate 20-9, with 11 Republican legislators joining Democrats: state representatives Christine Drazan, Darcey Edwards, Cyrus Javadi, Bobby Levy, Kevin Mannix, Greg Smith, Kim Wallan, Boomer Wright, and senators Daniel Bonham, Todd Nash, and Suzanne Weber.

Unions on both sides

• FAIR ENERGY ACT In the last four years, Oregon electric rates have risen as much as 49% to 56% and natural gas rates are up 39%. Oregon’s investor-owned utilities are publicly regulated, and they successfully made the case for those increases to regulators based on increases in their underlying costs. But ratepayers are feeling the pinch. HB 3179 says the utilities can only raise rates once every three years, and can’t do so during the winter months from Nov. 1 to March 31, when usage is highest. PGE took a neutral stance on the bill. SEIU Local 503 supported it. The Northwest Gas Association and unions whose members work for the utilities opposed it. Contract lobbyist Chris Carpenter, testifying on behalf of IBEW Local 125, IBEW Local 659, UA Local 290 and Ironworkers Local 29, said HB 3179 would discourage investments in utility safety, maintenance, capacity, and a skilled workforce. Opponents also said Oregon would be the first state in the nation with legislation like this, and warned that it will lead to less frequent but much higher rate increases. It passed 35-8 in the House and 20-9 in the Senate. Only Republicans voted against it, but senate Republicans Fred Girod and Mike McLane voted for it.

The big fail: transportation

Road maintenance in Oregon is funded mostly by a gas tax. The tax doesn’t rise with inflation, but costs do. Meanwhile public transit districts haven’t recovered financially from COVID-era drops in ridership. All session long, Democratic leaders said that a top priority for 2025 was working on a fix for those transportation funding problems, and HB 2025 was to be the vehicle for the fix. But details of how they proposed to do that weren’t worked out and made public until early June. With just weeks left in the session, opponents mobilized to kill it. The proposal was to raise the gas tax by 10 cents a gallon and in the future index it to inflation. HB 2025 would also have increased the payroll tax that funds transit, raised license and registration fees, and added a vehicle transfer tax of 2% on new vehicle sales and 1% on used vehicles. Reacting to that, car dealers contributed $185,000 within a week to fund a campaign to refer it to voters. But Democrats didn’t have the votes to pass it anyway. Mark Meek, most notably, said he wouldn’t support it, meaning Democrats would no longer have the supermajority they needed to pass it. After the session ended, Oregon Republicans put out a statement taking credit for killing the bill. But Labor lobbyists say responsibility for the failure rests with the Democratic leadership as well. The failure of the transportation funding bill will mean hundreds of layoffs at the Oregon Department of Transportation and local road maintenance departments like the Portland Bureau of Transportation. It will also lead to reductions in transit service and layoffs of transit workers all over the state. In the Portland area, TriMet said it will have to cut bus service up to 25% over the coming years and light rail by up to 10% — if lawmakers don’t bring some version of the bill back. There’s some talk that Governor Tina Kotek may call lawmakers back with a special session devoted to fixing the transportation funding shortfall.

Sneak attack on preschool

Less than a week before the legislature’s mandated adjournment, leaders of the Senate Finance and Revenue Committee introduced an amendment at 10:30 at night to an innocuous tax study bill that was set to be discussed at a hearing the following morning. The amendment to SB 106 would have barred Multnomah County specifically from continuing its tax on high-income earners. Backed by unions and approved by 64% of county voters in 2020, the tax is the funding mechanism for a free preschool program that’s supposed to ramp up to universal access by 2030. Just before midnight, a reporter at Willamette Week blew the whistle on the sneak attack. Within hours, defenders of the program were generating a deluge of calls and emails to lawmakers, and Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson and commissioners Meghan Moyer and Vince Jones-Dixon showed up to testify against the attack at the hearing. Moyer called it a deeply undemocratic amendment that would undermine the will of Multnomah County voters. 

“Universal Preschool attracts a young, skilled workforce and their families to Multnomah County,” Moyer told the committee. “Tax breaks for wealthy individuals do not.”

Committee chair Mark Meek said he wouldn’t be moving forward with the amendment in the 2025 session, and that the amendment was just “to start the conversation” and respond to Governor Tina Kotek, who had lately called for scrapping the tax. 

In a June 26 public statement, Kotek called on the county to amend the tax within the next year, “to reduce the burden on Multnomah County residents.”

Better luck next time

When the session began in January, the Oregon AFL-CIO was looking to support as many as 50 bills. But many of them failed to win support and pass out of the committee they were assigned to. Others passed out of committee but never got a floor vote in their chamber of origin by the deadlines lawmakers set for themselves. Here are some ideas that labor leaders hoped would gain traction:

• BASIC RIGHTS FOR UBER DRIVERS SB 1166 would have set minimum rates for rideshare drivers and required companies like Uber and Lyft to demonstrate just cause for deactivating drivers’ profiles. The Senate Labor Committee passed it without recommendation, and the Senate Rules Committee recommended passage, but it died in the Ways and Means committee.
• SETTING LABOR STANDARDS BY INDUSTRY  What if instead of bargaining employer by employer, pay and benefits could be determined industry by industry? It’s common in European countries for labor, employer, and government representatives to set a standard for wages and benefits that applies to all employers in an industry. At the request of SEIU Local 503, HB 3838 and companion bill SB 1138 would have set something like that up for the long-term nursing care industry in Oregon, but neither got a vote in their respective labor committees.  The farmworker advocacy organization PCUN promoted a similar for agricultural laborers but HB 2544 didn’t get a hearing. 
• GIVE HIGHWAY WORKERS A BRAKE! SB 711 would have directed the Oregon Department of Transportation to set up a mobile speed camera system to send automated tickets when drivers exceed posted speed limits in highway work zones. It was backed by both unions and employer groups, but it never got a vote in the Senate Transportation Committee.
• TRACK SCHOOL SAFETY INCIDENTS Backed by Oregon School Employees Association, HB 3357 would have created a statewide system for educators to report workplace safety incidents, including when school workers are injured by students. It died in the House Education Committee without a vote.
• TRANSIT WORKER RIGHT TO STRIKE Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 tried to win back the right to strike for public mass transit workers, which that had before 2007. But SB 7 died without a hearing in the Senate Labor Committee.