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83rd OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--2025 Regular Session
Senate Bill 310
Printed pursuant to Senate Interim Rule 213.28 by order of the President of the Senate in conformance with pre-
session filing rules, indicating neither advocacy nor opposition on the part of the President (at the request
of Senate Interim Committee on Education)
SUMMARY
The following summary is not prepared by the sponsors of the measure and is not a part of the body thereof subject
to consideration by the Legislative Assembly. It is an editor’s brief statement of the essential features of the
measure as introduced.The statement includes a measure digest written in compliance with applicable readability
standards.
Digest: Lets one party ask for a fact finder for an education labor dispute. (Flesch Readability
Score: 63.4).
Requires only one party to file a petition for a fact finder if the public employer is a public
educationemployer.
A BILL FOR AN ACT
Relating to labor disputes involving public education employers; amending ORS 243.712.
Be It Enacted by the People of the State of Oregon:
SECTION 1. ORS 243.712 is amended to read:
243.712. (1) If after a 150-calendar-day period of good faith negotiations over the terms of an
agreement or 150 days after certification or recognition of an exclusive representative no agreement
has been signed, either or both of the parties may notify the Employment Relations Board of the
status of negotiations and the need for assignment of a mediator. Any period of time in which the
public employer or labor organization has been found by the Employment Relations Board to have
failed to bargain in good faith shall not be counted as part of the 150-day period. This provision
cannot be invoked by the party found to have failed to bargain in good faith. The parties may agree
to request a mediator before the end of the 150-day period. Upon receipt of such notification or re-
quest, the board shall appoint a mediator and shall notify the parties of the appointment. The
150-day period shall begin when the parties meet for the first bargaining session and each party has
received the other party’s initial proposal or on an alternative date to which the parties agree in
writing.
(2) The board, upon receipt of a notification or request under subsection (1) of this section, shall
render assistance to resolve the labor dispute according to the following schedule:
(a) Mediation shall be provided by the State Conciliation Service as provided by ORS 662.405
to 662.455. Any time after 15 days of mediation, either party may declare an impasse. The mediator
may declare an impasse at any time during the mediation process. Notification of an impasse shall
be filed in writing with the board, and copies of the notification shall be submitted to the parties
on the same day the notification is filed with the board.
(b) Within seven days of the declaration of impasse, each party shall submit to the mediator in
writing the final offer of the party, including a cost summary of the offer. Upon receipt of the final
offers, the mediator shall make public the final offers, including any proposed contract language and
each party’s cost summary dealing with those issues, on which the parties have failed to reach
agreement. Each party’s proposed contract language shall be titled “Final Offer.”
NOTE:Matter in boldfaced type in an amended section is new; matter [italic and bracketed] is existing law to be omitted.
New sections are in boldfaced type.
LC 797 SB310
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(c) Within 30 days after the mediator makes public the parties’ final offers, the parties may
jointly petition the Employment Relations Board to appoint a fact finder, except that only one
party is required to petition the board if the public employer is a school district, an education
service district, a community college district or a public university listed in ORS 352.002. If
the [parties jointly petition] board is petitioned for fact-finding, a fact finder shall be appointed and
the hearing conducted as provided in ORS 243.722.
(d) If an agreement has not been reached 30 days after the mediator makes public the final of-
fers, or if the parties participated in fact-finding, 30 days after the receipt of the fact finder’s report,
the public employer may implement all or part of its final offer, and the public employees have the
right to strike. After a collective bargaining agreement has expired, and prior to agreement on a
successor contract, the status quo with respect to employment relations shall be preserved until
completion of impasse procedures except that no public employer shall be required to increase con-
tributions for insurance premiums unless the expiring collective bargaining agreement provides
otherwise. Merit step and longevity step pay increases shall be part of the status quo unless the
expiring collective bargaining agreement expressly provides otherwise.
(3) Nothing in subsection (1) or (2) of this section shall be construed to prohibit the parties at
any time from voluntarily agreeing to submit any or all of the issues in dispute to final and binding
arbitration. The arbitration shall be scheduled and conducted in accordance with ORS 243.746. The
arbitration shall supersede the dispute resolution procedures set forth in ORS 243.726 and 243.746.
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