After a failure to move legislation through the 2015 Legislative Session. Oregon minimum wage proponents brought SB 1532 to the legislature during the short session of 2016. It was one of the most contentious bills of the session. The hard-fought bill was introduced as a tiered approach, but the dollar amount for the tiers was left blank. Over the next month, the bill moved though the Senate on a party line vote and then to the House where it moved out of committee to the floor of the House on another party line vote.

On February 18, 2016, demonstrators in favor of the bill chanted outside Governor Brown's office and pounded on the outer walls of the House chamber. It forced deliberations to be stopped and the State Police to barricade lawmakers inside the chamber. After nearly six hours of debate, SB 1532
The tiered approach passed into law carved the state into three zones with different glide paths to reaching close to $15 in at least one of the zones by June 30, 2023

However, a group of first term legislators believe that this glidepath is no longer good enough and instead it needs to be a steep ramp to $17.00 in all three zones. HB 3351 was introduced by Representative Wlnsvey Campos (D-Aloha).

The bill dismantles the zones and jumps everyone in all three zones to $17.00 per hour July 1, 2023. For rural parts of Oregon, this would be a 27% increase.

The bill has not been assigned to a committee but will most likely be sent to the House Business and labor Committee which is the same committee it went to in 2016. The difference between 2016 and 2021, however, is that there are only two committee members that were on that committee in 2016, Committee Chair Representative Paul Holvey (D-Eugene) and Representative Evans (D-Monmouth). In addition, of the other nine members of the committee, only three of them were in the Legislature in 2016; Representatives Post (R-Keizer), Brad Witt (D-Clatskanie), and Brian Clem (D-Salem). With the majority of the committee being new to the minimum wage conversation, it could make for a replay of the battle of 2016.


--Terese Humboldt

Post Date: 2021-03-07 20:55:25

Last Update: 2021-03-08 17:07:26