Northwest Workers' Justice Project - dedicated to improving enforcement of the workplace and organizing rights

Northwest Workers' Justice Project's 2007 Legislative Proposals

artwork by Emmy Lou Packard

After consulting with VOZ, PCUN, labor unions and advocates for low wage workers, NWJP developed a package of bills to improve the legal protections and working conditions of low wage workers in Oregon. The bills are currently pending in the legislature as HB 3391 - HB 3398. You can view a summary of all of the bills or download the text of each bill individually.

The bills would:

regulate day labor employers and create a day laborers' bill of rights,
re-regulate temp agencies by eliminating a key exemption, require that employers pay temps equal pay for equal work, make an employer who contracts out work knowing that the subcontractor will not receive enough money to be able to follow the law jointly liable with the subcontractor,
place labor recruiters on construction sites under the same requirements as farm labor contractors,
improve safety of worker transportation in agriculture,
make it easier for workers to force employers to respect their rights through access to the courts,
make unemployment compensation more easily available to contingent workers by eliminating provisions that make farm workers and part time workers ineligible,
keep temp workers from being tied to a temp agency by the unemployment system, and
allow contingent workers to upgrade their skills while receiving unemployment compensation.

Although hearings were held on all but one of the bills, the Legislature will not have the opportunity to vote on them this year, due to the compressed time schedule as the legislature moves to annual sessions, and the caution of Democratic leaders this year.

A key reason for introducing this package is that the bill package will serve, and is serving, as a means of drawing together disparate elements of the progressive community around issues affecting low wage immigrant and contingent workers. The package serves as a way to inform the public and policy makers about the disintegration of middle class work opportunities caused by contingent work practices, and to mobilize groups such as mainstream unions, progressive religious organizations, advocacy organizations and immigrant rights groups to stand with worker organizations such as PCUN and VOZ in advocating for improvements in the working conditions of contingent workers.

Most importantly, this legislative campaign offers opportunities to engage contingent workers, themselves, in advocacy roles that will develop leadership capacities and organizational abilities for future work on behalf of low wage workers.