GOP, farmers blast OR House Bill 2548
By Terry Murry on Friday, March 14th, 2025 in Columbia Basin News Eastern/Southeast Oregon News More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
SALEM – Farmers and Republican members of the Oregon House of Representatives met the media today to condemn House Bill 2548. The bill is described by its sponsors as establishing the Agricultural Workforce Labor Standards Board. Its opponents call it a “sweeping, one-size-fits-all mandate that would transfer critical decisions about staffing, wages, benefits, and training to an unelected, unaccountable bureaucratic body and disregards the significant protections already in place for farm workers.”
The bill has had a public hearing before the House Labor and Workplace Standards Committee. Rep. Bobby Levy (R-Echo) is a legislator and a farmer, and she sees a bleak future if the bill becomes law.
“From 2017 to 2022, we’ve lost 2,000 family farms in Oregon and every year our farms lose money,” she said. “If House Bill 2548 passes, I will be forced to navigate a bureaucratic and legal maze, where every decision could lead to litigation, penalties, or financial disaster.”
Oregon dairy farmers also oppose the legislation.
House Bill 2548 isn’t about farmers and farm workers,” Oregon Dairy Farmers Association Executive Director Tami Kerr said. “It’s about government overreach, political posturing, and division.”
Fruit growers joined in the opposition.
“We support health and safety standards to protect our employees, but we cannot support overregulation that damages us as farmers and our employees,” Columbia Gorge Fruit Growers Chair Lesley Tamura said. “This board would have no oversight. They could create whatever kind of wage and safety standard laws they want and because we simply cannot afford to keep up with those unreasonable standards, we would have no choice but to close up shop and sell to the highest bidder.”
Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis (R-Albany) says she opposes the bill because Oregon already has some of the strongest labor protections in the country.
“We follow strict safety standards, provide fair wages, some offer housing, and comply with a long list of regulations designed to keep workers safe,” she said. If the bill moves out of the Labor and Workplace Standards Committee it will then go to the Joint Committee on Ways and Means.
Photo: Rep. Bobby Levy (R-Echo)
