The 2025 Oregon Legislative Session gets underway next week in Salem. And while the priorities for the farming community vary quite a bit, there will be several key issues discussed; water, regulation and overtime. For Jeff Stone Executive Director for the Oregon Nurseries Association, overtime will be one of, if not the top issues.
“What we’re seeing in Washington and California is a lot of Ag workers are being cut to 40 hours. Because you can’t, as I mentioned before, you can’t raise your price because of time-and-a-half. And so we’re seeing that in Washington and California. And we’re getting workers coming into our state because they want more hours; they want to work,” Stone said. “So that’s an issue that we’re trying to work with in a very bipartisan way to try to resolve.”
He encourages the nursery industry, and everyone in Oregon Ag to keep a close eye on the overtime issue during the session. But the underlying question remains; is there an appetite to do the heavy lifting and address ag overtime properly. Stone thinks so.
“The Ag community was very vocal when the bill was passed, saying there are unintended consequences and some of those consequences is that it’s actually hurting the worker. I think that there’s plenty of really intelligent people; I have talked to both Republicans and Democrats about finding that middle space where we can make it good for growers and also for the workers.”
While Stone is hopeful middle ground can be found, he acknowledged that politics is politics.
The 2025 Oregon legislative session gets underway Tuesday in Salem.
If you have a story idea for the PNW Ag Network, call (509) 547-1618, or e-mail [email protected]