Attack of the prevailing wage

Published 4:00 am Thursday, March 3, 2011

It should be obvious: Now is not the time to make Oregon less attractive to business. But here we go again with another attack of the prevailing wage on Oregon’s enterprise zones.

Enterprise zones are set up by a community to bring business in. There are 59 zones in Oregon, according to the state. A business locating or expanding in an enterprise zone gets an incentive. The business gets a total exemption from property taxes normally assessed on new a plant and equipment for at least three years and up to five years.

Two years ago, the Oregon House passed a bill to make Oregon enterprise zones less attractive to business. The proposal was that if private companies build in enterprise zones with projected costs of $5 million or more, they would have to pay prevailing wages during construction. Prevailing wages are inflated wages applied to government projects.

So when Oregon had nearly the highest unemployment in the country, legislators thought it would somehow be better to make it harder for businesses to succeed.

Fortunately, the bill was snuffed out in the Senate.

Two years later, Oregon is still struggling. There’s the $3.5 billion budget shortfall. Unemployment rates in Central Oregon have still been in the teens.

And now there is a new bill, House Bill 2586, to make Oregon enterprise zones less attractive to businesses. This bill would consider the exemption from property taxes as money of a public agency and therefore possibly kicking in requirements for paying the prevailing wage.

This bill doesn’t improve Oregon’s economic picture. It doesn’t get people more jobs. What it does is discourage businesses from expanding or locating in Oregon.

Redmond is celebrating a new manufacturer, LMH Industries, that just started production Tuesday in its enterprise zone. The company makes cables and cable connectors and may employ as many as 40 people by next May.

Oregon needs more news like that, not less. As much as we understand the desire to have people paid more, mandating better pay does not bring jobs to Oregon.