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State Sen. Chris Edwards, D-Eugene, thinks reform on abusive work schedules will keep until the 2017 legislative session.
(Michael Lloyd)
Exhausted by the battle over paid sick leave, Senate Democrats are championing a bill that will prevent the city of Portland and other local governments from ending abusive work-schedule requirements before the summer of 2017.
The tobacco giants and the National Rifle Association have long employed preemption to assert their supremacy in the political arena. Why not the Oregon Legislature?
Energized by local victories on paid sick leave - now on the books in three states and 18 cities - and the minimum wage, labor and family-wage advocates are gearing up to end scheduling routines that turn low-income parents into the Walking Dead.
With erratic shifts, unpredictable hours, on-call demands, and last-minute schedule changes, retailers create chaos in the lives of employees who need to arrange child care or work a second job.
Jason Nance, who toils in the food-service industry in Lane County, says he is routinely made to feel, "'If you can't deal with it, you can leave. Everyone is replaceable.' I'm very frustrated by it, but the years have shown me that for people who make a comfortable living, it's not a high priority."
Last August, The New York Times highlighted the stress inflicted on Jannette Navarro, a 22-year-old Starbucks barista in San Diego ("Working Anything But 9 to 5"). Navarro, a single mother, rarely had more than three days notice on her shifts, and the fluctuating hours wrought havoc on personal relationships and plans to secure a college degree.
Starbucks was suitably embarrassed. Within 24 hours, the coffee conglomerate announced it would limit "clopening" - in which baristas are told to shut an outlet down at 11 p.m., then re-open at dawn - and add "stability and consistency" to its scheduling practices.
Senate Bill 968 would prevent any Oregon city or county from addressing the issue with similar urgency. The bill preempts their authority to "mandate work schedule requirements until adjournment of (the) 2017 regular session."
The bill emerged from the "negotiations" that require businesses to provid paid sick leave, Sen. Chris Edwards, D-Eugene concedes. When that issue was not addressed in the 2013 session, Portland and Eugene passed their own ordinances, victories that put the business lobby on the defensive in the quest for what Edwards calls a "statewide solution.
"There's a lot of validity to the viewpoint that if Portland wants to do something, Klamath Falls shouldn't be holding them back," Edwards says. But he adds, "Labor advocates aren't willing to let go of things that have been tried at the local level. That complicates writing statewide legislation."
Because we can't have that, the Legislature is telling cities to chill on abusive scheduling practices until the real lawmakers take a stab at the problem in 2017. "A two-year time-out," Edwards says.
You thought the final moments of NBA games ran long. "All these workers will just have to wait," said Andrea Paluso, the executive director at Family Forward Oregon.
Preemption has long been a favorite tactic of tobacco companies and the NRA, which find state legislatures far more pliable than city councils. In recent years, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a bulldog for corporate interests, has encouraged preemption as the means to cut off debate on sick leave and the minimum wage.
In Oregon, cities and counties are preempted from tinkering with, among other things, cigarette taxes, rent control, inclusionary zoning, real-estate transfer taxes, studded tires, gun restrictions, beer and wine taxes, the minimum wage, marijuana taxes, and the private use of pesticides.
As former Rep. Jim Edmunson, D-Eugene, reminds me, preemption was on side of the angels back in 1993 when Lon Mabon and the Oregon Citizens' Alliance were promoting local efforts to allow discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
"I wrote a bill that said cities couldn't do that," Edmunson said. "We preempted laws that limited the rights of Oregonians. When the state steps in and stops governments from creating laws with that give Oregonians more expansive rights, that's a different question."
Portland City Commissioner Steve Novick believes it's the question of the hour, not a question for the 2017 Legislative session.
"If we hadn't passed paid sick leave at the local level, they wouldn't be considering it at the state level," Novick notes. "There are times when you have to sacrifice one thing to get to another. I understand that. But I don't see why we have to have this conversation. Why do low-wage workers have to choose between having paid sick leave or humane scheduling practices?"
-- Steve Duin
sduin@oregonian.com
503-221-8597; @SteveDuin