Student organizers submitted a testimony to Governor John Kitzhaber asking the governor to do just one thing with his potential deal with Nike — make it better.
During a news conference on Dec. 10, Kitzhaber called legislators to a special session that would change Oregon law to allow Nike to undergo a major employment expansion.
“The company is growing rapidly, they have to expand somewhere, and they have to do it soon and the fact is they are being heavily courted by other states and other locations,” Kitzhaber said during a press conference.
Kitzhaber plans to hold a special session on Dec. 14 that would hopefully allow any governor in Oregon to enter an agreement with any company planning an investment that would result in at least 500 jobs and $150 million in capital investment over five years. The benefit for businesses would be that the state’s corporate tax structure would be locked during a set period of time.
“Essentially what we’re proposing is simply providing business with certainty that when they make a major investment on job creation and in capital expenditures, the current method of business income taxation can be relied on for a negotiated period of time,” Kitzhaber said. “This is an important tool for Oregon because we don’t have the resources, or the magnitude of resources of a state like California or New York to try and woo new compaines. This gives us something else, and I would argue something better: a predictable investment climate.”
Despite potential benefits for Oregonians, members from the University of Oregon Student Labor Action Project drove to Salem to voice their opinions. Jeremy Hedlund, co-founder of UO SLAP, gathered students and generated a testimony that would better the proposal.
“Our concerns were, it wasn’t necessarily that we were opposed to the bill because it is hard to argue against jobs, but we wanted to ensure that the jobs went to local students. We also wanted to ensure that these jobs were living wage jobs,” Hedlund said. “We don’t want a company to offer 500 minimum wage jobs, because that wouldn’t really help things.”
Four SLAP members presented their testimony, but nearly a dozen students worked over Google Docs to generate the work needed to complete a presentation in time for the special session after a tip came from a friend two days before the session.
“Many Oregon graduates are unemployed or underemployed. They cannot find a job with a living wage after they graduate and it is hurting the people of this state,” the testimony read. “We want the beneficiaries of these exemptions to hire Oregonians. We want hiring priorities for graduates of Oregon’s higher education system and for there to be enforceable quotas set. We suggest that companies increase it’s new hire rate for graduates of institutions of higher education based in Oregon, keeping money in Oregon as we build the state’s economy.”
“I hope that this proposal becomes a better one,” Hedlund said.