By Oregon Business & Industry,
June 4, 2025 — Oregon Business & Industry is deeply disappointed – and profoundly concerned – about the Legislature’s decision to advance SB 916, which will award up to six months of unemployment insurance benefits to workers who choose to go on strike. Oregon’s unemployment insurance system was designed to support people who lose work involuntarily. Using taxes paid by employers for this purpose to, instead, subsidize voluntary work stoppages will harm Oregon’s businesses and further erode the state’s appeal for business investment.
That’s why businesses – small and large, unionized and not – along with trade associations, public employers, local governments, school boards and superintendents, and so many other employers and economic development professionals across the state have opposed SB 916.
And if harming the state’s employers weren’t damaging enough, SB 916 also would compromise many public services, including K-12 schools. As The Oregonian editorial board recently observed, SB 916 “carries significant financial risks for school districts which, like other public employers, must reimburse the unemployment fund for every dollar that goes to striking workers.” That’s money that could be going to the classroom.
Oregon needs a thriving private sector to provide jobs and support public services. Oregon’s steady decline in national business climate rankings – including an assessment by CNBC that it is the nation’s third least business friendly state – should be a wake-up call for elected officials. Yet by advancing SB 916, which is unlike any other law in the nation, the Legislature has signaled, once again, that the private sector really doesn’t matter. We urge the Senate to not concur in the amended version of the bill and put a stop to SB 916.
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