Editorial: 4 Democrats engineer a surprise in the Oregon Senate

The quick passage of

Senate Bill 916

, which allows striking workers to collect unemployment pay, was not a done deal, after all.

Despite our fears

that the Oregon Senate would once again approve SB 916 – senators had already passed an earlier version in March – a

Tuesday vote

to accept changes made by the Oregon House narrowly failed.

The union-backed bill, which now goes to a conference committee of legislators from both chambers, is still very much alive. But Oregonians should be grateful that four Senate Democrats broke ranks with their party and voted with Senate Republicans to tap the brakes on this deeply flawed bill.

In voting “no,” Sens. Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro; Jeff Golden, D-Ashland; Mark Meek, D-Gladstone and Courtney Neron Misslin, D- Wilsonville, are risking blowback from the labor unions that have long powered Democrats’ campaigns. (In the House, Rep. John Lively, D-Springfield, was the only Democratic “no.”) But their vote ensures that the objections repeatedly raised by K-12 schools, cities, counties and others won’t so easily be swept under the rug.

The bill, which allows both public and private employees to collect up to 26 weeks of unemployment pay after two weeks of striking, breaks new ground nationally. Only three other states extend unemployment to striking workers, and none of those give public employees a legally protected right to strike.

While the bill has many, many shortcomings – which readers can

learn more about

from our

earlier editorials

– the risks are particularly high for K-12 school districts. Schools, like other public employers, have to repay the state’s unemployment fund each dollar that is paid out to their workers. Even with amendments, the bill doesn’t adequately address districts’ many concerns.

That potential financial hit weakens school districts’ position in bargaining with unions. Districts have a mission to serve students and keep schools open. They also depend on the state for funding – which almost any school community will say is not nearly adequate. And K-12 districts are hardly the money-grubbing employers that the bill’s backers say are “starving” striking workers into accepting bad contracts. Rather, this bill only further tilts the scales against schools and other public employers that have few ways to pay for expenses beyond cutting services to the public.

The bill now goes to a

conference committee made up of six legislators

– four Democrats and two Republicans. With only a few weeks left in the legislative session, committee members should consider whether they can make the changes needed to genuinely fix this bill. A proposed change, posted on Tuesday afternoon, would limit unemployment to 12 weeks, rather than 26 – hardly a sufficient revision considering the magnitude of the flaws. And there’s no shortage of urgent matters for legislators to focus on – the just-dropped $1 billion-plus transportation package, the lack of a wildfire response funding plan and other crises that should take center stage. The committee should wrestle with the wisdom of forcing through such a massive change that carries such potential for harm.

In the meantime, Oregonians should look up how their own legislators voted on this bill, which they can do so by going to the

bill’s overview page

on Oregon Legislature’s OLIS site.

Those concerned that K-12 schools are underfunded should contact their lawmakers and let them know that they don’t want the state to handcuff school districts by undermining them at the bargaining table or committing their dollars to cover unemployment for those who choose to strike. They should remind lawmakers that negotiations are already governed by a robust set of laws to promote good-faith bargaining and that legislators should serve the public, not their donors.

The list of bad consequences from SB 916 is long, but credit the legislators who voted “no” in the Senate for giving the Legislature the chance to change course.

-The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board