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Oregon/Washington

Oregon Legislative session 2011 a mixed bag for labor

Oregon lawmakers wrapped up the 2011 Legislative session June 30. If there was anything memorable in it for working people, it was that lawmakers finally cut corporate tax breaks down to size … except when they were giving out new ones. It was also the year that the Oregon Legislature gave state agencies a new aspirational goal: Lay off managers, not just front-line state employees. In a state with 9.6 percent unemployment, the closest lawmakers got to passing a jobs bill was a pilot project that will employ some workers on energy efficiency retrofits of public schools, or maybe the new law removing procedural roadblocks to pipelines and other “linear” construction projects.

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Green Jobs

Apollo Alliance merges into BlueGreen

Two labor-environmental coalitions have merged as of July 1. The Apollo Alliance, launched in 2003 as a coalition of environmental, labor, business and community leaders, is now a project of the BlueGreen Alliance.