Archives

September 23, 2015 - Employer law: Gay marriage & religious rights

By Bullard Law, Portland law firm By Michael G. McClory For good or ill, gay marriage inspires many people. They have strong feelings about it. Sometimes those strong feelings are grounded in religion and sometimes they are not. When the workplace is added to the mix, emotions tend to run […]


September 22, 2015 - Labor Board rule on using staffing firms

by Petrich, Kathleen Miller, Nash, Graham & Dunn LLP NW Law Firm Startups and even established companies have increasingly turned to employee leasing companies, PEOs and staffing firms to supply workers. Some view this practice as a way to minimize potential liability for employment-related claims. The NLRB recently issued a […]


September 21, 2015 - Building car-less bridges

By John Charles Cascade Policy Institute The new bridge over the Willamette River, TriMet’s Tilikum Crossing, opened for business on Saturday. With beautiful weather and parties at every stop of the Orange MAX line, a good time was had by the thousands of sightseers. Unfortunately, now that we’ve returned to […]


September 18, 2015 - National alarm over $15 minimum wage

By NFIB, As large cities across the US from Seattle to Los Angeles to New York City implement or consider $15 per hour minimum wages, business owners are sounding alarms about the consequences. In a piece picked up by USA Today, the Lower Hudson Valley (NY) Journal News reported that […]


September 17, 2015 - Oregon wins $1M in cancer drug case

By Oregon Attorney General, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum today reached a $1.1 million settlement with Insys, the company that manufactures the schedule II opioid drug Subsys, to resolve allegations that the powerful drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat cancer pain was marketed in Oregon […]


September 16, 2015 - Can Mariotta TV ads save Subway?

By Business News Note, In the last 30 days Subway has suffered the death of their co-founder and CEO (2) endured its worst negative publicity in its 50 year history and (3) saw a decline in revenue for the first time in a decade. At the same time their new […]


September 15, 2015 - Car sales rebound to pre-recession levels. An Oregon view.

By Oregon Small Business Association Foundation, Nationally, car sales have hit 17.8 million which is a 10 year high and rebound from the Great Recession drop.   We asked Jose Mesa, a 25 year veteran of car sales and owner of Jose Mesa Wholesale LLC, to provide his local take on […]


September 14, 2015 - Vendor impersonator scam hits business

By Oregon Better Business Bureau A sophisticated new scam is targeting business and personal email addresses. Scammers create email accounts nearly identical to an existing account and use that new account to initiate wire transfers. How the Scam Works: You are working for a business that deals with contractors or […]


September 11, 2015 - Chamber fights “joint employer” rule

U.S. Chamber of Commerce U.S. Chamber of Commerce Senior Vice President of Labor, Immigration, and Employee Benefits Randel K. Johnson issued the following statement regarding the introduction of legislation in Congress to correct the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) “joint employer” decision: “The NLRB’s recent decision in Browning-Ferris has broad […]


September 10, 2015 - Oregon labor market slack & wages

By Josh Lehner Oregon Office of Economic Analysis Blog Traditional analysis and models indicate the economy is essentially at full employment, given the unemployment rate — currently at 5.3% — is in the range of previous estimates of the so-called natural rate, or NAIRU. Historically the Fed, including its models, […]