By Heather Fossity & Amy Angel Barran Liebman Oregon Law Firm The Oregon Workplace Fairness Act (“SB 726”), currently awaiting signature from the Governor’s Office, involves several significant changes aimed to address workplace discrimination and harassment. These changes will require most Oregon employers to adjust policies and practices moving forward. […]

Stimson Lumber Company Press Release, Stimson Lumber Company announced that it will permanently curtail operations at its Forest Grove sawmill by 40%, resulting in the loss of over 60 competitive-wage jobs with full benefit packages. The mill, built as a state-of-the-art operation designed to keep the company competitive in a […]

By Oregon Employment Department, Oregon’s minimum wage increases on July 1, 2019, but the raises won’t be the same across the state. The minimum wage increases to $12.50 per hour inside the Portland urban growth boundary, $11.00 per hour in nonurban counties, and $11.25 in other areas of the state. […]

By NFIB, America’s small businesses are continuing their hiring spree, with a net addition of 0.32 workers per firm, according to NFIB’s monthly jobs report, released recently. However, 25 percent of all owners cited the difficulty of finding qualified workers as their Single Most Important Business Problem, matching the record […]

By Cascade Policy Institute, According to the state’s Global Warming Commission, Oregon has already met its goal of reducing per-capita carbon dioxide emissions to levels that are 20% below 1990 emissions by the year 2020. In fact, we met the goal four years ago. Are state legislators celebrating this achievement? […]

By Oregon NFIB, It’s now Day 137 of the 160-day Oregon Legislative Session. The end is in sight, but we still have some tough battles ahead of us. In brief: Cap and Trade Bill Still Clinging to Life: The cap-and-trade bill (HB 2020) is still alive, but major questions about […]

Wall Street Journal Editorial, California’s regulatory regime is enough to give anyone the jitters, so good news that the state signed off on a new rule admitting that coffee won’t kill you. Roasted coffee beans contain a chemical called acrylamide, which is also found in roughly 40% of calories Americans […]

By Charlotte Hodde & Amy Angel Barran Liebman Oregon Law Firm The Governor has signed into law two new employment laws protecting working mothers. The first requires reasonable accommodations for pregnancy and childbirth and the second expands on existing requirements to provide breaks for nursing mothers to express breast milk. […]

U.S. Chamber of Commerce U.S. Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President and Chief Policy Officer Neil Bradley issued the following statement after the House of Representatives passed H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act of 2019. The Chamber issued a key vote in support of passage of the bill. […]

Timothy A. Duy Director, Oregon Economic Forum Department of Economics, University of Oregon The Oregon Measure of Economic Activity fell to 0.41 in April, down from an upwardly-revised 0.74 in March. Highlights of this month’s report include: – The moving average measure, which smooths out the volatility, slid to 0.55, […]