Oregon Labor Law Conference December update: Registration is now full. Please visit the OLLC website and sign up to receive email notifications for 2027’s registration. The Labor Center is pleased to announce our co-sponsorship to the 2026 Oregon Labor Law Conference. The Oregon Labor Law Conference, launched more than twenty years ago by former IBEW…
In 2022, the Oregon state legislature passed HB 4002 which mandates overtime pay for farmworkers. In this policy brief, LERC Research Associate Mary Follo assesses the primary research cited by Oregon growers in opposition to the legislation. She finds a number of methodological problems with this research that cast doubt on their conclusions….
This report documents how home-based child care providers and their families pay the price for both poor wages and working conditions in the rest of the economy, and for our stingy public child care programs. Families can’t afford the true cost of care and our severely underfunded public child care programs are too small and weak to make up the difference….
LERC announces the release of a new report: “A State of Immigrants: A New Look at the Immigrant Experience in Oregon.” The book was edited by LERC Director, Bob Bussel and produced by LERC Staff, with contributions from scholars across the state….
The American Rescue Plan was signed into law on March 11th and will send close to $6 billion to cities, counties, universities, school districts, and state agencies across Oregon. While the Department of Education and the U.S. Treasury are still developing the detailed spending criteria, funds are expected to be dispersed starting in mid-May. This…
Essential Yet Invisible explores how COVID-19 has intensified the risks and complexities of one of Oregon’s fastest growing occupations, homecare work. Workers are often left to independently adjust care routines and adopt additional health and safety measures. These heightened challenges disproportionately impact women—especially women of color….
This report covers the union and nonunion homecare industry and workforce in Oregon, with a particular focus on nonunion private agency homecare work….
This study by the Labor Education and Research Center (LERC) and the Illinois Economic Policy Institute highlights the positive effects of Oregon’s Prevailing Wage Rate law. The research shows that the law does not raise construction project costs, but it does enhance bid competition, increase the number of contracts awarded to local firms, and improve both wages and access to health insurance for workers…
In 2017, Oregon passed the first statewide legislation (SB 828) to regulate unpredictable scheduling practices in retail, food service, and hospitality. This study reveals persistent scheduling instability among these workers, as employers continue to make last-minute changes and circumvent predictability pay requirements….
Nearly one in six of the nation’s workforce is employed in a job with hours that fluctuate from week to week and incomes that vary paycheck to paycheck. People are confronting tremendous uncertainty about the size of their paycheck, and lack the ability to plan their lives, including childcare, further schooling, medical care and other essential life activities. In this report, we call attention to these issues and offer policy solutions to mitigate the impacts of irregular scheduling….