March 18, 2025
What happened: On March 17, OBI Executive Vice President and Counsel Paloma Sparks submitted testimony in opposition to HB 3838, which would establish an unelected Home and Community-Based Service Workforce Standards Board. A public hearing on the bill in the House Committee on Labor and Workplace Standards ended before Paloma had an opportunity to testify directly.
What the board would do: Appointed by the governor, the 13-member board would set wages for employees of home and community-based service providers. It would establish working conditions, including schedules and hours. It would dictate benefits, including health care and retirement benefits. It also would have the authority to subpoena the records of employers for investigative purposes.
Problems with the bill: In addition to problems identified by others who testified in opposition, the bill would, as Paloma wrote, “empower an unelected board with little oversight or accountability to make new laws. It would undermine the authority of the Department of Human Services, Oregon Occupational Safety and Health division of DCBS and the Bureau of Labor and Industries. Most alarming, this board would be able to enact new laws where only the Legislature has been given that authority.” The bill also would increase costs for service providers, which are supported by public funds and cannot simply raise prices.
Competitiveness killer: Oregon is a difficult state in which to do business already thanks, in part, to excessive regulations and frequent overreach by regulatory agencies, as Paloma noted. In its most recent Freedom in the 50 States report, the nonpartisan CATO Institute ranked Oregon’s regulatory environment only 46th nationally, a dim assessment echoed by small business owners surveyed in early 2023 by OBI. More than 70% of small businesses told OBI that state agencies seem more interested in finding wrongdoing than in helping businesses comply with regulations. HB 3838 would render Oregon’s regulatory environment even more stifling by creating a brand, new board. So deep-rooted and pervasive are the problems with Oregon’s regulatory environment that modernizing them is the central focus of OBI’s Oregon Competitiveness Agenda.
Anti-business sentiment: One of the three overarching problems described by the Oregon Competitiveness Agenda is a political culture that undervalues the state’s private sector. During the March 17 public hearing on HB 3838, one member of the House Committee on Labor and Workplace Standards demonstrated that problem by directing a blanket condemnation (click video to the right to watch) in the form of a prepared question at individuals testifying in opposition to the bill:
Rep. Travis Nelson, D-Portland: “Oregon needs 65,000 more care workers by 2030 in order to meet the growing demand for elder and disability care. How can you expect to recruit and retain enough workers when the industry continues to offer low pay, no benefits and unsafe working conditions?”
Condemning an entire industry in this fashion is a bad way to encourage further business investment by members of that sector – or any other.
Why it matters: Further burdening businesses with unnecessary rules and unaccountable, unelected boards will further erode the state’s sinking competitiveness. According to CNBC’s most recent America’s Top States for Business ranking, Oregon is the third least business-friendly state in the nation. Legislation by HB 3838 is why. Yet Oregon needs continued business investment to provide jobs and the tax revenue needed to support public services. Harming businesses unnecessarily, as HB 3838 would, is simply bad for Oregon.
Learn more: Read Paloma’s testimony here and OBI’s Oregon Competitiveness Agenda here. Visit the Oregon Economic Competitiveness website here, where you can download an updated version of OBI’s Oregon Competitiveness Book.