Some Great News For Workers In Oregon

This come from the Northwest Workers' Justice Project, one of the best organizations available to help working people in Oregon:

The 35-day short Oregon legislative session wrapped up earlier this month – and despite the whirlwind nature of the short session, it was a good year for workers.

First and most important to our clients, farmworker overtime passed! This means, starting in January 2023, agriculture workers will start to earn overtime after 55 hours of work. Two years later, the threshold drops to 48 hours, and then finally in 2027 these workers will earn time and a half after 40 hours, ending the racist exclusion of agriculture workers from overtime protections. Thanks to all of you who submitted testimony, sat through hearings and contacted your legislators. Though the timeline is not what we hoped for, we are finally on our way to pay equality for those who plant, pick, harvest, tend and otherwise work to keep our world fed.

You may also have heard about the humanitarian crisis in illegal marijuana farming and distribution in Oregon. NWJP successfully advocated for the legislature to allocate $6 million to community-based groups to respond to the crisis.

The clean-up bill for the Workplace Fairness Act also passed. This bill brings the statute in line with the intent of this ground-breaking 2019 act by clarifying that employers cannot insist that workers request confidentiality agreements as a condition of settlement-which employers had been doing to avoid daylight on their misdeeds. It also adds a $5,000 penalty when employers violate sections of this law.

Two important workers' compensation bills passed. One is the modernization bill, which expands retaliation protections, updates language around disability and expands the definition of family member. The other is the Injured Worker Protection Bill, which requires insurers to give notice to workers before ending partial wage replacement and limits overpayment recovery to no more than 50% of the money the worker received, among other things.

An important bill to require state agencies to share information around Covid outbreaks also passed. (SB 1585) This is important to all Oregonians who lose loved ones to workplace Covid.

Many other important bills passed this session (Transforming Justice! Universal Representation! See FairShot’s press release for more on these two amazing and important wins.)

All in all, this felt like a great short session for Oregon workers. Thanks to everyone who made these things happen, especially to the workers who testified, wrote letters and showed up!

Thank You!

Northwest Workers' Justice Project

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