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We know that Oregonians are struggling to make ends meet. Of all the tools in our toolbox, the lever that the Oregon Legislature can pull to bend the cost-of-living curve is fundamentally:

 

  • Higher wages, long-term career pathways and workplace protections

  • Strong and well-staffed preventative healthcare - including behavioral health and long-term care

  • Retirement security

  • Social safety programs to make sure Oregonians can continue to get by when they are most struggling

 

In 2025, the legislature has the unique opportunity to hold the line against federal attacks and make life fundamentally better for Oregonians. The Oregon Labor Movement’s priorities meet this moment and will fundamentally touch every Oregonian: whether that’s directly through their job or the services they rely on everyday.

Leveling the playing field for striking workers

Rather than negotiate a fair contract, some employers weaponize the economic instability of workers — especially low-income workers — to force a strike and “starve them out.” Oregon should join several other states in allowing workers to access unemployment insurance after more than one week on strike. This will help level the playing field, discourage economic hardship as a bargaining strategy, and promote good-faith contract negotiations at minimal cost to the UI trust.

Maintaining Oregon as the best place to be a worker

It’s critical we take the opportunity of the 2025 Legislative Session to ensure that Oregon continues to be the most desirable place to work and live. Whether that’s through shoring up discrimination and harassment protections, protecting the right to organize and create meaningful standards, requiring high-road labor standards for state funded or subsidized projects, or supporting and protecting workers in the rise of technology, the Oregon Labor Movement stands ready to lead the fight to make Oregon the most attractive place to live and work in the US.

Workplace Safety and Violence Prevention

Oregon must support the workers that make our communities run: healthcare workers, transit drivers, construction workers, education aids, agricultural workers and so many more. Yet, every year these workers are faced with violence, short staffing, lacking resources, unsafe conditions, extreme heat and more that puts their lives and livelihoods at risk. It also puts at risk our ability to recruit and retain these critical jobs in our economy. The Oregon AFL-CIO stands with our affiliates across industries to support these workers and ultimately fundamentally support the millions of Oregonians that rely on them everyday.

Defending against national attacks to our values as Oregonians

Oregon has the opportunity to ensure that our values of fairness, justice and respect for all workers is squarely cemented in our state laws and practices in the face of potential and future federal attacks. The Oregon AFL-CIO and our affiliates will work to hold the line for workers in Oregon, whether that’s through defending the rights and dignity of immigrant workers and their families or making sure Oregonians can afford and access the full range of healthcare options, and defending robust social safety net benefits Oregonians rely on when they most need it.

OREGON LABOR 2025 LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES 

Workplace Standards 
Improvements

  • Standards Board in Long-Term Care and for Agricultural Workers

  • Ensure That Public Sector Workers Continue to Make a Living Wage

  • Home Healthcare Improvements

  • Hospital and Homehealth Closure Notices

  • Hospital Paycheck Transparency and Readability Fixes

  • Workplace Overpayment Lookback

  • Strengthen Age Discrimination Protections

  • Gig Worker Support and Misclassification Defense

  • Pay Equity Defense

  • Paid Inservice Training for Classified Educators

  • Part-Time Faculty Pay Equity for Community Colleges

  • School Bus Contracting Equity

Retirement Security

  • Calculate Actual Overtime for PERS by Class

  • Freeze the Lookback in Workday

  • PERS Disability Alignment with Workers Comp

  • PERS Healthcare Security for Police and Fire

Preventing & Addressing 
Workplace Violence & Safety

  • United We Heal: Behavioral Healthcare Justice

  • Defend and Expand Safe Staffing Law

  • Healthcare Workplace Violence Definitions

  • School Safety Reporting for Classified Educators

  • Highway Work Zone Speed Cameras

  • Transit Worker Assault Protections

  • Railroad Worker Safety

  • Farmworker Disaster Relief Fund

Supporting Education Workers & Students

  • Job Classification and 3-Tier Schedule Study

  • Special Education Training Standards

  • Update the Funding Model for Current SPED Student Population

  • Public University Foundation Transparency

  • Higher Ed Student Childcare Bill

  • Part-Time Faculty Healthcare to OEBB

  • Community College Governance Improvements

  • Public Education Funding: Cradle to Career Public Education Funding

  • Millionaire's Tax for Education: Create a New Tax Bracket for Married Tax Incomes of 1,000,000, or for Individual Filers 500,000 a Year, and Direct Personal Income Taxes Over That Rate to Be Delivered to Support PreK, K12, and Higher Ed Public Funding

Worker Protections

  • Unemployment Insurance for Striking Workers

  • Artificial Intelligence, Workplace Surveillance and Technology Regulations

  • Paid Family and Medical Leave Fixes

  • Proactive Defense against Federal Attacks

  • Enhanced Enforcement of the Public Employee Collective Bargaining Act

  • Fully Fund the Bureau of Labor and Industries

  • Payment Equity in Workers Comp

  • Right to Strike for Transit Workers

  • Protect Workers from Illegal Cannabis Industry Recruitment Practices

High-Road Labor Standards in 
Public Projects & Incentives

  • MLB Inflation Adjustment

  • Transportation Package Labor Standards

  • K-12 Project Labor Standards

  • Prevailing Wage in Offsite Fabrication

  • Mandatory Prevailing Wage or Written Attestations on State Funded Projects

  • Firefighter Apprentice and Paramedic Training Investments

  • MicroTransit Labor Projections

  • Increase to the Oregon Film Incentive

Supporting all Oregonians 
& Defending Against National Attacks

  • Stable Homes for Oregon Families

  • Maintain Healthcare and Social Safety Networks for Oregonians

  • Immigrants Rights Package

    • Universal Representation: Ensures due process by providing legal representation to immigrants facing deportation or seeking to adjust their status. In its first two years, this successful program will have helped 10,000 Oregonians maintain stability for their families and employers.

    • Home Fund: Provides emergency assistance to immigrant Oregonians to prevent eviction and homelessness through trusted community-based organizations to keep our communities stable and our workforce strong.

    • Indigenous Language Justice: Ensures Indigenous languages speakers can access qualified interpreters. Everyone deserves to understand and be understood, especially in hospitals, courts, schools and public offices.

    • Food for All Oregonians: Allows youth and elderly Oregonians to access food assistance, because no one should go hungry in our state. When all families can put food on the table, our children do better in school, health care costs decrease, and our local businesses thrive.

  • Loan Loss Reserve Program

  • Wildfire and Urban Interface

Worker-Centered Clean Energy

  • Organized Labor Centered in All Clean Energy Planning

  • High Road Clean Technology Manufacturing Incentives

  • Clean Energy Infrastructure, Transmission, and Procurement Improvements

  • Investments in High-Road Public Transit

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Legislative Scorecards

Use the links below to view previous Oregon AFL-CIO Legislative Scorecards where we rank the Oregon Legislature based on how they voted for and supporter Oregon Labor priorities during each session. 

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