As the gavel fell on the 2025 Oregon legislative session, we saw several victories for working Oregonians — wins that reflect years of advocacy and organizing by workers and advocates committed to building an economy rooted in equity and dignity. Unfortunately, we also saw many missed opportunities and setbacks.

What follows is our recap of the 2025 session. It is not meant as a full accounting of every bill, but instead as a review of the bills that we worked on, supported, or tracked closely. We begin with the more positive developments, working our way down to the outright setbacks for working families.

Victories for working Oregonians

One of the most important achievements was the passage of a bill that expands unemployment insurance eligibility to workers on strike. This bill is the first in the country to apply to both public sector and private sector workers on strike. The expansion helps restore some balance at the bargaining table, as it reduces the risk of financial ruin for workers standing up for fair wages and safe working conditions. 

Another good outcome of the 2025 session is the long-overdue infusion of funds into the Bureau of Labor and Industries. The added funds will give BOLI greater capacity to investigate and enforce violations of Oregon’s wage, hour, and civil rights laws in the workplace.

And there is more. Lawmakers also passed legislation to protect older workers from age discrimination, an important step toward a more inclusive economy where people of all ages can thrive and contribute without fear of bias or exclusion. A multi-year effort to strengthen wage theft protections for construction workers was also successful.

Taken together, these bills approved during the 2025 legislative session advanced key protections and needed resources to ensure the well-being of Oregon workers.

Progress without ultimate victory: workforce standards boards

Too many workers in Oregon, especially those harvesting our food and caring for Oregonians young and old, face low wages, unpredictable schedules, and poor working conditions. This session, legislators considered creating workforce standards boards to provide a structural solution to these inadequacies. Workforce standards boards are public bodies that bring workers and employers together to set wages and working conditions for an entire industry.

The creation of a workforce standards board for Oregon’s long-term care industry fell short in the final days of the session, but the tremendous advocacy of care workers and our partners at SEIU 503 got this legislation closer than ever before.

A workforce standards board for farmworkers also got close, but in the final weeks of session, lawmakers opted instead to require a study on the experiences of farmworkers This study will provide crucial information about what farmworkers face in the fields and will provide a clearer case for why Oregon must create a workforce standards board for this workforce.

Although not calling for a full-blown workforce standards board, a bill that would have expanded rights and protections while guaranteeing minimum sick days and pay for Lyft and Uber drivers also fell short. The bill, however, helped increase awareness around the lack of benefits and low pay that many Oregon rideshare drivers experience.  

Holding the line: few new tax breaks for the wealthy

In a session where corporate lobbyists pushed hard for new giveaways, OCPP countered these efforts by informing legislators about the impact on the state budget of providing new tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy, which helped lawmakers push back against pressure from special interests. This was a critical win for tax fairness and fiscal responsibility.

Time and again, data shows that corporate tax breaks fail to deliver on promises of jobs or growth, and instead siphon resources away from schools, healthcare, and infrastructure. While the expansion of Oregon’s film and video tax credit and the expansion of state support for a baseball stadium in Portland were mistakes, other egregious handouts were not signed into law.

Missed opportunities to improve the well-being of families

The Oregon Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is one of the most effective tools we have to reduce poverty and support low-paid workers. Lawmakers renewed the credit without any of the expansions or policy changes that advocates were calling for. At a time when families are facing rising costs from tariffs, cuts to federal programs that help families meet their basic needs, and an uncertain economic future, this was a missed opportunity to invest directly in working families and children. Lawmakers could have helped a quarter million working families with rising costs, but they chose not to.

Lawmakers also failed to take an important step to address hunger in our state. The legislation known as Food for All Oregonians, which would have extended access to nutrition assistance to Oregonians excluded from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program because of their immigration status, failed to make it to a floor vote. The legislature even refused to accept a pared-down bill that would have provided nutrition assistance to young children.  

Clear setbacks: where lawmakers made things worse for working Oregonians

Unfortunately, working Oregonians also suffered several setbacks in the 2025 legislative session. Lawmakers reduced funding for rent assistance, a necessary program that keeps families stably housed. Tens of millions of dollars were cut from the state agency that supports early education, leaving many families without the support they need during their children’s most formative years.

Another step backward that may not have gotten a lot of attention is the fact that lawmakers gutted an essential resource that directly helps families file complicated federal and state income taxes: the Tax Infrastructure Grant program. At a time when a broad coalition was calling on lawmakers to increase funding, they instead chose to slash it by 50 percent. This means thousands of families will face reduced access to tax assistance sites around the state and may not be able to get help filing their taxes and claiming their EITC or Oregon Kids Credit. There will be more poverty and economic insecurity in communities across the state due to this shortsighted cut.

While this legislative session was a mixed bag, we take comfort in the clear wins achieved by dedicated advocates and lawmakers, and hope that some of the progress made in 2025 will translate to clear victories in the future.