The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-11-13
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (12,270 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Labor and Workforce Development Committee met on Thursday, November 13, 2025, with roll call recording the body present. The committee approved minutes from meetings spanning August 14 through September 25, 2025, by unanimous consent. The bulk of the session focused on a draft wage theft ordinance, with discussion of definitions of wage theft, procurement standards, contractor accountability, misclassification, fringe benefit fraud, and enforcement mechanisms involving the Bureau of Labor and Industries. Testimony addressed use of the Portland Maps system for tracking contractors on permitted projects, extending accountability to entities receiving city grants or loans such as through Prosper Portland, and possible reporting or review mechanisms rather than sunset provisions. Additional public testimony described wage theft experiences in construction, healthcare staffing and contract negotiations, and predictive scheduling violations affecting city and other public-sector workers. Speakers also raised concerns about intimidation of workers reporting wage theft and the connection between wage theft enforcement and broader economic development goals. The committee discussed plans for a site visit related to wage theft concerns scheduled for December 5, and noted that votes, where they occurred, are recorded in the vote ledger. The meeting adjourned following public comment.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
0 Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I am a councilor Loretta Smith, the chair of the labor and workforce development committee, and I'm calling this committee to order. It is Thursday, November 13th at 12 p.m. Diana, will you please call the roll?
1 Good afternoon. Green here. Dunphy. Here. Canal here. Novick here. Smith, here.
2 Craig from council operations, will you please read the statement of conduct?
3 Welcome to the meeting of the labor and workforce development committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at ww. Gov council agenda. Labor and workforce development committee. Or by calling 311. Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In-person testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise, your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying, state your name for the record. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
4 Thank you. Today, the committee will approve the minutes from the August 14th through September 25th, 2025. Labor and workforce development committee meeting and discuss a proposed ordinance on wage theft. We're going to hear public testimony on labor and workforce development issues. And the first item. The first item, the August 14th through 2025 and September 25th. Labor and workforce development meeting clerk, could you please read the first item?
5 Item 1st August 14th, 2025 to September 25th, 2025. Labor and workforce development committee minutes.
6 Thank you. The first item is to approve the minutes for the labor and workforce development committee meetings that occurred August 14th through 2025. These minutes are available online as part of the meeting agenda. Meetings are approved by unanimous consent. Without objection, the minutes are did we call the.
7 So long as you all agree that they are approved, we can go forward.
8 Okay. Do we have any? Perfect. Without objection, the minutes are approved. Diana, could you please read the next item?
9 Item number two, open discussion on wage theft.
10 Today we are continuing a conversation about wage theft and how this problem impacts workers across labor sectors. We heard from the labor advocates in the construction, trades, caregiving and hospitality sectors. Previously. The purpose of today's meeting is to continue learning about the problem and begin taking action on drafting legislation to impact positive change and to ensure workers are compensated fairly for the vital work that they do in our communities. We have invited testimony from lauren bullion of the ironworkers 29. And doctor aileen duda, scientist and epidemiologist and social worker. Could you please join us and state your name for the record up at the dais? And, diana, I want to go back. Do we have any public?
11 Item? Number three is going to be public testimony, and we do have people signed up for that.
12 Okay. How many people do we have signed up?
13 Currently we have seven people signed up.
14 Okay. Excellent. Good morning. Is someone else supposed to be up there?
15 Lauren I thought this was supposed to be chair.
16 Okay. Thank you. Please come up. I don't have you on on our list.
17 Go first because I've already lost.
18 You. I.
19 Could you could you please state your name for the record?
20 For the record, my name is travis simmons with the western states regional council of carpenters. First off, I'd like to express sincere gratitude in moving this forward is really impressive, and we do appreciate the council moving swiftly and decisively on wage theft. As you continue this work, I want to emphasize the critical piece that remains unsolved. We all know where the construction sites are. Wage theft thrives in the shadows. When contractors, subcontractors and labor brokers operate without transparency is when we can't find them. That's when the damage is being done to our workforce. Excuse me. The good news that Portland already has a vehicle to to solve this is already in place. It's called Portland maps. It's the system they use for tracking permits. I think it would be the perfect place for these individuals as they register on projects for that information to live. We're not going to reinvent the wheel. The wheel has already been made. We're just going to use it by integrating contractor identification and permitting tools. Where we have we would give agencies, inspectors and workers the ability to see who's responsible for what work before the problem arises, not after. We are grateful for your leadership on wage theft, and we ask that we take the next logical step is to actually implement this process and shine a light on the wage theft that's happening currently in Portland. Thank you.
21 Could you explain to me a little bit more about Portland, mass. Because I look at Portland maps as an opportunity to go in and look and see who owns a property. And when they bought it, what it's permitted for, what area, what zoning and that kind of thing. So you think that this is appropriate to to put on Portland maps?
22 That's the exact same tool we use every day is to find out, you know, where we are in the permitting process. Has the permit been pulled?
23 Okay.
24 And I'm sure other labor trades use the same information. And then if we have the ability to know who is supposed to be on that project, we could let you know when we find the people that aren't supposed to be on that project. They're performing work for cash pay required kickbacks. I mean, it's already there.
25 Because it does tell you all the different projects that are going on in a in a different neighborhood. When you when you click on the Portland maps and you put a specific address in.
26 And it's gps enabled. So as you pull up to a site, you may not know.
27 Okay.
28 You just click on the the deal and you can find out all the information okay?
29 Okay. Thank you for that. Thank you for that suggestion. We'll talk about that a little bit later. Lauren, please introduce yourself.
30 Chair Smith vice chair Green and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. For the record, my name is lauren bowling, and I'm here on behalf of the ironworkers local 29. As I alluded to, wage theft and construction is complicated and unfortunately all too common. And we commend you for taking action on this issue. I think we would just like to note that things like prevailing wage project, labor agreements, and enforcement on the front end of bidding will help to level the playing field and also reduce the amount of issues and the cost to the city on the back end to actually go and enforce that. I just wanted to talk a little bit about what we see as business agents in the field when we're talking about misclassification and wage theft in construction, as it's a little different than the restaurant industry or other industries where it's a little bit more transparent. A big one for us is misclassification, where there are poorly defined occupational definitions, and there's a prevailing rate for each craft set. Typically what we see is for ironwork, we'll have someone on the nonunion side or a bad actor classify them as a laborer, and that's a $20 an hour plus difference. An hour overtime pay as well is a big one. Prevailing wage requires daily overtime, and we see bad actors shift from a 410 schedule to a58 and then don't pay for the overtime on those hours as they should be. Apprenticeship status and ratios are another big one that we see a lot of cheating on. You know, if they're working out of ratio, they are no longer in the training standard for that program, and the contractor is not allowed to pay them a reduced rate at apprentice scale. They're and the final one that we see a lot is annualization. And this is pretty complicated, but it's really just looking at how benefits are counted for hours worked. We see someone who's working nonunion, for example. Some of those hours will be prevailing wage. Some of those hours will be non prevailing wage on the certified payroll. They will have the same gross amounts, but the hourly benefit will be different. And what we typically see is a 5 to 10 hour hour difference whether they are not actually paid. So that adds up over time. We understand that this resolution is still under construction, but we just have a few recommendations. I think having a very expansive definition on all manners of wage abuse and wage theft, especially including prevailing wage and pay equity. We also hope to see the final resolution include some language around fringe benefit fraud and theft, as this is typically where very savvy contractors will cheat. And I think as well, just allowing the city to remove bad actors from projects and recoup any incentives or benefits that they may have received, would go a long way to ensuring that we have a more level playing field and some let's just make sure that we tighten up procurement, save save money for the city on enforcement, and ensure that we have a level playing field for all contractors to access this work. Thank you.
31 Thank you, thank you for those comments. Question. When a apprentice goes from apprenticeship to a journeyman, they know when they've they've crossed over into the appropriate hours, correct?
32 Yes. I mean, typically you have to file progress reports. You will go before the jtwc and get your wage reapproval rate for our program. It's every six months or 800 hours of of hours worked. Our contractors also typically ask for a certain percentage of apprentice for a job. I'd be very surprised if a registered apprentice did not know what rate they were at, as they're looking for those.
33 So if they're on a job and they cross over during the middle of that job, is it the responsibility of the owner of the contract to make sure that the that the fringe benefits and everything changes at that point, or is that the responsibility of the employer, the employee.
34 The employer?
35 Okay. And do you suggest that we on on our contracts, like for example, let's just this is just let's say bull run because it's a big contract. So we usually have an owner's rep and some other folks on there. Do you suggest that we have a specific person that's going to be identified to look at these kinds of, of issues as it relates to these big, big contracts? Because I can imagine that's where they would lie. A lot of those, intentionally or not intentionally.
36 I don't think we typically have very many issues with apprentices being rerated and their hours being credited in the wrong manner. I think it's more when folks are working them out of ratio, or when they're working them in a scope that's different from ours. For example, if you have a registered ironworker apprentice doing carpenter hours, they should be paid the full scale for that because they are not working with on our training program. And that's when you are allowed under the law to pay them at that reduced apprentice rate.
37 Okay.
38 So it has to be trained within the scope of our apprenticeship, you know, and vice versa. If the carpenter is working at ironwork, they would be paid the full prevailing rate for that as they are not a registered apprentice. Okay.
39 Excellent. Thank you so much. And doctor s I, I apologize that I haven't figured out how to pronounce your name.
40 That's okay. It's doctor aileen duldulao. I'm with the justice for tita maria campaign and the care for caregivers campaign with migraine Portland. Thank you so much for having me back and for really grateful that you're advancing this work. And I'm here to specifically address the wage theft that's happening in the caregiving industry. And I had a chance to quickly review the ordinance. And again, really thankful that you're beginning to address this work and really advance this work. I think it would be really great to really call out what's happening in the caregiving industry, because it is really slightly different than what we see what's happening in other industries, specifically what we're seeing happening in residential care facilities, adult foster care homes, and then smaller, especially smaller care facilities and care homes. What we're seeing is that a lot of the facilities where we're seeing wage theft happening and what we're seeing with what happened with maria is that a lot of these facilities are owned by small businesses, especially family owned businesses, and this is actually a national, a national trend. And we're actually starting up a national campaign because this is a national issue. Wage theft in the caregiving industry, particularly amongst migrant caregivers. And that we're seeing that this is a trend amongst small businesses and also especially intimate settings, people working within homes where abuse tends to be really rampant. The more the intimate setting people working in people's homes, the more likely that abuse is happening. And so what I wanted to see, wanted to suggest is maybe adding businesses that receive grants or loans through entities such as prosper Portland, maybe really trying to expand the accountability. So so I understand that right now. It's really designed ordinance is really designed to cover folks that are receiving contracts. And maybe these are bigger contracts or subcontracts, but also really trying to expand this to small businesses that may receive loans or grants and things like that, to really expand the the accountability as far as we can, as far as we can go, so that they're also aware that the city of Portland is also holding them accountable to wage theft laws as well.
41 A pretty progressive idea.
42 Yeah, I think so. But, you know, just making sure that, you know, you're receiving money from the city of Portland. And so you're also accountable to to these laws. And it's a justice issue, right? That that, you know, you also need to treat your workers well as as well. Yeah.
43 Exactly.
44 Yeah.
45 Do we have any questions. Committee. Of our panelists. And we'll be discussing the councilor Green.
46 Yeah. Thank you for coming today. I haven't I'm still trying to get the the full language on my, my desk here. But my understanding is this is just applying to city procurement. Is that your understanding or just within the scope of.
47 The transparency ordinance?
48 Yeah.
49 I met what we've seen in other jurisdictions is any permit pulled I mean, there's a threshold. I meant we're not looking at the single family home that's being, you know, having a kitchen remodeled. But, you know, when you start moving into any type of commercial work because they have to go through the permitting process, it's the perfect place to figure out where it's at. A lot of times we see, you know, just like the doctor said, we see there are a lot of projects that are tied to state and city funds that don't trigger prevailing wage. There may be $70 million in funds, but it doesn't trigger prevailing wage. But we are still giving away a public resource.
50 I appreciate that. Yeah I think as I'm sitting through this. Information and thinking about crafting good policy up here, my mind is going to be thinking about how can we limit wage theft across all sectors within the jurisdiction that we have in the city of Portland, and we have broad sort of regulatory powers in the city of Portland. And so just want to telegraph the kind of questions that are bubbling up in my mind. So if you have any ideas that maybe in or could be in this legislation, as we talk through this discussion, I'm interested in those ideas.
51 Yeah. I think it would be. You know, we also have some additional language for responsible contractor language that like if the city of Portland were to grant, you know, like a tax relief for x amount of years, if they find out that they are stealing or not paying workers, you know, the city could recoup that money from the contractor developer. And, you know, little stuff like that. I would more than I'd be more than. Glad to share it with you.
52 I hope that you do email that to me. Thanks.
53 I think as well, councilor Green, for the ironworkers, we really view responsible contractor language as an equity issue. There are very savvy and sophisticated larger contractors who know how to cheat the system, and it makes it hard for minority owned, women owned and small businesses to get their foot in the door as they just can't compete on that when they're, you know, being defrauded 10 to $20 an hour on the backs of workers.
54 And lauren. So once that wage theft is found out, as we're trying to to figure out the policies on this, would you be insisting that the city would be responsible for making the employee whole?
55 Typically this would go through the bureau of labor and industry, okay. And that's how we have done it. I mean, predominantly, it'll be a business agent. We'll go through a certified payroll and a job. You know, there's a discrepancy report that to bully. And then, you know, an award will be made and a contract will, you know, x amount of money to the workers based on whatever they did or did not pay.
56 So it would be good for us to pull together like a work group and have a session on language to put in here, just like the language that you suggested, and to maybe have someone from boli also included if they do have someone in in their government relations team that could work with us on this, is that something that you would be amenable to?
57 Yeah.
58 Perfect. Perfect. I know we had talked before and I, I know that my my staff is listening and I talked about this for the last month or so, but you all gave me an invitation before to go to some work sites. And I am still very much interested in accompanying you to a worksite where you feel like there's some wage theft going on.
59 I do believe we have one set up with councilor Kanal for December 5th.
60 Okay, I would like to tag along with you. Councilor. But I would. I asked my staff about this because it's one thing to talk about it here, but to see it live in technicolor. And so some of this is and I'm sure we're going to get it, that it was unintentional.
61 Could you repeat that.
62 That the wage theft is unintentional?
63 I think there is at times there is human error. And that's that's not what we're trying to. I mean, we're all people. We understand at times there could be human error. And that's why, you know, in the transparency ordinance, you know, that we we originally brought forward the first time, there's no offense because we do know people are human and we make mistakes. We get in a rush. Didn't you know dot that I but what we see on construction, I'd say 99.9 is intentional.
64 Okay. And so I have a note here that even when after because boli is so short staffed and by the time they get a chance to go out and investigate, they've moved on to another project. And it's hard to to really, really nail down someone on this. So I'm just.
65 And I'll give you a quick example. In construction, it's really nomadic right now. Portland's slow. Boise, idaho is booming. Nevada is booming. A lot of those workers have now transitioned to those areas. So it's really especially when it takes, you know, 2 to 3 years to recoup any money, right. They write it off as a loss and move on. You know, they you know, they got to chase that money and make the money was there. So it's they're really nomadic life and it is hard to track the individuals.
66 So what I'm trying to figure out, and I know we're going to have to bring our city attorney's in on this, is to figure out what we can do from an enforcement standpoint. Lauren.
67 I think if again, if I may, counselor, having very strong procurement standards upfront will help to reduce this on the back end. And to this point, you know, obviously human error occurs. But what we see in the industry is there are consistent offenders who have built a business on this, and they're very good at it.
68 And they probably know the timelines that that there is a backlog. Correct.
69 And I would just note that boley did get significantly more funding from this last session. So there should be ramping up enforcement and follow through.
70 Thank you. Thank you for telling me that.
71 But with that being said, if no other cases came forward from this day forward, it still take fully five years to dig out of the hole they're in.
72 That is not good.
73 They had a 200% increase in wage theft cases over the last three years. So cully is they do their best, but they are still underfunded.
74 And you think of the 200% increase that they're mainly coming from the construction industry.
75 I don't exactly where it's all coming from, but I mean, a vast number I know are coming from construction.
76 Okay. I'm going to ask you all to stay up here for just a second, and I think we're going to go to our our second item if we don't have any other questions. Councilor Novick. I see you here.
77 Yes. I wanted to ask you a question about one of the proposals in the draft ordinance that chair Smith gave us this morning. Just want to get I was going to ask chair Smith this question, but I just want to get your take on this. One of the proposals is that in evaluating bids and proposals for city contracts, the city should give preference to contractors who demonstrate a commitment to fair labor practices, including but not limited to. And the second item is written policies and procedures to prevent wage theft. And I was wondering if you thought that that would be valuable to look, to look to see if a contractor has written policies and procedures to prevent wage theft? Or would you take the cynical attitude that, well, obviously every business is going to say that they don't conduct wage theft. So even if they have a policy saying we don't steal wages, that doesn't really reduce the chance that they that they don't.
78 If you're asking me, I'm more the cynical approach. I was just at a contractor's office this morning in Salem to discuss this, and I've talked to this contractor before about what's happening on this job. I found an individual worker that was being charged kickbacks to be on a prevailing wage job. His entire fringe benefit package, roughly $20 plus $15 an hour for the privilege to work on the site. They know what's going on, and they're all going to say whatever it takes. I mean, I agree with lauren. There are some very sophisticated people out there, and then there are the ones that aren't as sophisticated and are fairly easy to catch.
79 So does that mean you you wouldn't put much stock in the fact that they've got written policies saying we don't steal wages?
80 No, I wouldn't put much stock in there. It's already illegal in the state.
81 Okay. Thank you.
82 Councilor Kanal. Thank you. Councilor Novick.
83 Thank you. I was actually going to ask a question about this section as well. And so I'll start with just a piece on this. I think it's fair to say that we need to view this as a bare minimum, and that there's probably things that could be in there once. In addition to that, that floor. So I would personally prefer keeping it in there as if someone doesn't have that policy. It's probably almost a a statement in and of itself. But my question was going to be and I think it's still relevant here, are there other factors that should be evaluated through this. This is the section b at the top of the second page here. Are there other. Other ways of determining or that you'd like the city to determine if a contractor has a demonstrated commitment to fair labor practices as it relates to wage theft? Could we add a fourth bullet point and what would it save?
84 So I think a lot of a lot of it can be handled with a quick google search. I mean, the lawsuits are out there. The, you know, whether it be boli, osha, workman's comp, a lot of the information is already out there. I mean, I think it is good, but I think it's going to take a minute for the city to develop that. Everybody's going to say they're doing it right. You know, I think the city is going to develop their own, you know, hey, every time these contractors are on my site or on one of our projects, bad stuff happens, you know, and that's sort of what this is designed to do is sort of it works hand in hand with senate bill 426. Now there's a vehicle to get people paid quicker with senate bill 426. But this is going to allow the city to start realizing who's actually working in the city, who's responsible for this wage theft. And, you know, there's no silver bullet.
85 I think, as well, just to get back to it again, like having strong procurement standards to reduce the amount of issues on the back end. And one other thing I would propose is just having a training agent pre-qualification to bid. If there are any sort of apprentice requirements or goals on a project, we see a lot of the time it's, you know, it takes some time to become a registered training agent. There are both union and nonunion programs, but when you are bidding on a project that has an apprentice goal and you're not even able to legally have an apprentice, how can you win that work? I think that's something we'd like to see addressed in the long term.
86 I'd agree with that.
87 Thank you. Councilor Kanal doctor, I have a question for you. And I don't know if you had a chance to look at the the actual resolution ordinance, and there's a piece in there that allocates funding to community based organizations to conduct the outreach, to do the education, and particularly for the area in in healthcare that you're talking about. Do you think that that will be specifically helpful for the folks that you're working with?
88 I think it definitely would be. I mean, I think that it's actually work that we've already taken on doing and we're not getting paid to do it. So it's really, really critical work, especially for migrant workers who are not aware of their rights. And, you know, in the example of teacher maria, she didn't know that wage theft was actually happening to her. And so doing that really critical work, doing that, you know, translating it into different languages and going, going actually in two different workplaces and letting people know, creating different outreach materials to let people know what their rights are as workers and letting them know what the minimum wage is, has been really critical. So yes, you would be probably funding work that's already happening and that people are doing for free. It's definitely work that we're already doing. So I think that I saw that part. I really thought that that would be a very critical piece. So thank you. Yes.
89 Thank you. Do we have any other questions? Committee. Craig. It looks like we can we can move on to the next diana to the next agenda item.
90 Sure. Item number three presentation and discussion on proposed wage theft ordinance.
91 And lawn. Did you see that? Did you see the actual exhibit?
92 This is my first time seeing it in this form, but.
93 Do we have folks on zoom right now or are they going to testify? In person?
94 I have a combination of both in-person and zoom testimony for the next item. Okay.
95 And so just so that people who are listening at home and some people may not know exactly what wage theft is, but wage theft means any violation of oregon's wage and hour laws that include, but not limited to, failure to pay minimum wage or agreed upon wage, failure to pay overtime compensation, illegal deductions from wages, misclassification, misclassification of employees as independent contractors, and appropriate journeyman status, and withholding or misappropriation of tips. And what I was trying to do with this piece was to to say basically that all city contracts shall include provisions requiring contractors and subcontractors to maintain accurate and detailed records of hours worked, wages paid, and any deductions made from wages. These records shall be made available to the city and to the workers upon request, subject to all the applicable privacy laws. But I believe that in evaluating the bids and proposals for city contracts, to contractors who demonstrate a commitment to fair labor practices, including, but not limited to, a history of compliance with the wage and hour laws, written policies and procedures to prevent wage theft, training programs for employees and supervisors on wage and hour compliance, and lastly, specific project focus. The requirements of this section shall be applied with particular emphasis to city contracts related to labor contracts led by the city. And as we talked before, the bull run watershed project, our transportation projects, and our homelessness initiatives. So creating those, those, those partnerships, when people know that they get in the habit that that we're here and that we're partnering with the community organizations to reach out and educate folks on what their rights are, that's going to be something that's going to be very important and critical. So I don't know if you've had a chance to look at that lawn to see how we may add some things to beef it up. This is just this is not a ceiling. This is we're at the floor right now. And so I just wanted to throw it out there as a draft so that we could identify other, other things that we can put into this just as a baseline. I want to do it before the end of the year, because we only have one more labor committee hearing left. So I wanted to make sure that we had a chance to work over on it over the next two months. Do you have any ideas or are you?
96 I think again, a more expansive definition that's covering all forms of wage abuses and theft. And specifically when we're talking about projects like bull run prevailing wage, is that that is a prevailing wage project. I think, again, an inclusion of fringe benefit fraud and theft. That's very typical in the construction industry. And then again, some provisions that give the city teeth, as trappist alluded to, to recoup some of those funds or to have some ability to remove bad actors from projects. Okay.
97 Thank you. Thank you all so much for for being willing to be a part of this whole cohort, of making sure that folks are not losing their wages, intentionally or unintentionally. But this is this is important. And it also tells me that when you have we have an increase of 200% of of the claims that there is a serious problem out there. And we need to figure out some ways in which we can kind of mitigate that. Diana, could we go to our next agenda item, councilor Green, before we go?
98 So this is so we're on agenda item three. So did you want to talk with the committee about your ordinance draft?
99 Yeah I mean no one put their hand up. So I.
100 I got I got my hand up okay. Go ahead I appreciate the style of bringing in a draft concept for public discussion. I think that's extremely critical for our new form of legislation. And having folks from labor and other broadly defined sectors of work who have thought about wage theft and this is like, this is absolutely great. I have some questions for you. But for anyone on the committee, frankly. So it seems to me from what I'm hearing, that what we really need is to think critically about the enforcement aspect of it, because part of it is transparency. It's earlier today and the different committee, we heard a quote from justice brandeis who talked about the importance of sunshine in curing the evils of the world. And that's part of it. That's you talked about Portland maps, but you got to know how to get there and what to look for and what to click around for. And so there's a certain amount of difficulty in doing that. So I think if we're going to pass something like this, it might be useful to direct the city to publish from that same database that Portland maps is serving a very easy and detailed report about some of the indicators of, of, you know, risks, I guess, of wage theft and just make it very easy to, to sort of execute on. But the other part is and I don't know, I mean, we're going to have conversations with the city attorney at some point. But but what policing powers does the city of Portland have to enforce broader laws for wage theft? I understand that it's it's a bully complaint driven enforcement system, but I don't know that we're preemptive from also taking action to enforce wage theft laws. And that's just I'm asking the question because I actually don't know the answer to you. But I think if we can act in that space, that would be pretty urgent. And I guess my my question. So I'm just saying a lot without questions yet.
101 But that's a good question. That's something that we can ask the city attorney's office about.
102 But also under. Section it's under wage theft contract requirements. Section c there's a list of specific project focuses. And I'm just curious why why provide a limited limited list of limited focus when I really kind of think we should be thinking about all the potential areas where we might have something to say about wage theft. Curious if you have specifically?
103 Yeah, those were just an an example of the types of projects that we're going to be looking at, but we're not limited to. It will not be limited to. And we'll make sure that we put a, a note of a little bit more variety of, of ways in which we can look into this from city contracts, you know, with a eight point what, $7 billion operating budget and more than half of that is, is contracted out? I think that this this list is going to be pretty extensive.
104 I might offer a suggestion. Is moving that focus out of the exhibit itself into the language of the ordinance to provide that clarity of here's why. We're here's what we're focusing on, because here are what we think are the biggest risks, because I worry that if it's in the exhibit that is the policy framework, then it will suggest that we only focus on these things.
105 Okay.
106 Okay, I may be wrong on that, but that's that's kind of my my first blush at that, because I think it would extend the spirit.
107 Very experienced. I look at it.
108 So that's all right. I try to be constructive here. And then I think the spirit of this should apply to things like grants as well in my in my read of this. And so that would sort of get to doctor dudley's concerns as well. So I really think this is a great first step. And I look forward to continuing to iterate on this.
109 Well, someone and I think it was lauren who said something about folks who get money from prosper Portland. Who did? Did someone say that.
110 I did, yes.
111 Yeah.
112 Thank you. Yeah.
113 Thank you doctor. That who get money from prosper Portland that we need to to have a mechanism in which we look at those contractors as well. I think that that would be a part of the extensive look that you're talking about. In addition to there's so many different ways that we can that we can look at this. I, I went to Portland maps and. I wish I could put it up on the screen. And I'm just trying to figure out where it would go. So do you see where it says assessor's permitting and zoning. So we would how would we label that councilor Green if people wanted to get some information about wage theft?
114 Well, I think what I'm saying is, is this map interface is serving a different purpose than specifically what you what travis is trying to describe. But this comes from a database, right? Or a series of databases. And so one could argue that if we gave the city direction and the resources to do the work, they could take the same underlying information and generate reports that could then give you a flashlight in that warehouse that's dark on places where to look. Because like when I think about this data gathering problem, it's like, how do I know specifically where I mean, you know, because you're you're in the field. But for those of us in the city and councilors who want to do oversight, we don't know. And maybe some community members would also like to help in this effort. And so I think the underlying data there could just be extracted in some sort of spreadsheet.
115 Right.
116 Or dashboard. That's kind of what I was thinking.
117 And so I'm looking. Yeah. And I'm looking at under all the permitting and land use where you go in and, and look at all of this stuff. If there would be a place that we could actually have a link to the information that you're talking about. So it is it is very interesting and exciting, and I'm sure that folks in the permitting office will be able to give us a little bit better clue of how we could integrate this. Hold on just a second. Let's see if we have any other questions. Councilor Novick.
118 Yeah. Madam chair, I one, in terms of the discussions that we should have as we go along, I think obviously we'd want to have the procurement folks in front of us to talk about what steady state procurement law parameters we have to work within and how they think these proposals and interact with that. You heard me express some skepticism about written policies and procedures to prevent wage theft. One of the things that, as far as a history of compliance with wage and hour laws, we're envisioning just that the city would like do a google search and find out what people, what contractors history are. The something I thought was really interesting is the idea of training programs for employees and supervisors in wage and hour compliance, because if there is such training and employees get that, then that would you would think that would tend to prevent wage theft because they know their employees would know what their rights are. But I'd be curious what the procurement people would think about their ability, what resources would take them to, like, evaluate such training programs to see if they're effective. Okay, as concerns similar to councilor Green's about the particular emphasis language. And obviously, one question is if we're going to allocate funding to community based organizations, where's the money going to come from?
119 Well, when I when I looked at that and I appreciate my staff for paying attention before when when you all were here, when you talked about working with community based programs and I was thinking about where where will those dollars come from when we have to put different like a 0.25% on top of projects that come here to to pay for that, because we are in a deficit right now. But that's where it would make sense to me to come from. The contractors, I don't know, go ahead.
120 In other areas, they've associated fines and penalties with repeat offenders and it becomes a self-funding program.
121 But the initial.
122 That actually that leads into another thing that I was going to suggest is, yeah, I mean, could we put something in the contract saying that if you engage in wage theft, you have to pay penalties to the city as well as which maybe could be shared with, with worker? I don't know, but that's what you're talking about. There's penalties that actually are assessed by the jurisdiction.
123 Well the worker has a vehicle to be made whole as a to be made whole as of January 1st. But find some penalties would go to the city.
124 Okay.
125 Thank you.
126 Thank you. Councilor Novick. Councilor Dunphy.
127 Yeah. I'm sort of building off of what councilor Green was talking about. You know, the biggest number of dollars that go out the door are through contracts for building things, digging in the dirt, doing what, you know, the hard work. But we also do an enormous amount of money through, like, the arts office. A lot of our different granting through the neighborhood associations, some of these different things where millions of dollars are going out. And I think that if there is any level of public dollar or public interest in an ongoing way that is funding the work or, or even just. Facilitating the work, you know, we do some space grants, for example, but maybe we put language into those contracts where, you know, I've talked about how great the Sellwood community house is doing.
128 Right?
129 But if they are underpaying their staff or something, maybe we have a, a, you know, language in our agreements with them around limiting our, you know, making sure that we are that those workers are getting paid the what they are due. And also to be really intentional about limiting future contracting with those entities, even on the. Yeah, even if it's a if it's a, you know, ballet troupe who is not paying their ballerinas like we should if we're paying for that, if we have an ongoing financial interest in their success, then we should have an interest in the workers success, too, and make sure those dollars are getting spent. Right.
130 Well, I think that that would have to cover every contract that we do, that we contract out dollars. But that could be let's, let's, let's try to look at where the the bulk. Let's start with the bulk first, where the bulk of the problem are coming from, because I'd like to actually talk to boli to see where are those new 200% coming from, so that we can make sure that we, we, we deal with the big things that we know, like transportation, construction projects and those kinds of things deal with those first, because then you're going to get into what I don't want to do is, is is begin to micromanage our community based organizations and how they're able to because they don't have to do prevailing wage. And so to go in, there's a there's another mechanism that we can do what you are talking about that doesn't come under wage theft. It comes in how they're.
131 Also could also like our security services or I think I believe I remember hearing something about our laundry services at one point being some question about making sure all the workers are being paid and our janitorial as well. I mean, just putting language into contracts generally to say that the city cares about fiscal stewardship and ensuring that those dollars are being spent. Well, I think that there's a lot of opportunities for us to put our fingers in the pie.
132 And as we are looking to at this moment, we are looking at all of our contracts. Mayor wilson is trying to adhere to all the di language that he has put forward to make sure, and that is a huge undertaking. In addition to this, this is this is another example of how we can really get into the details. And what we're trying to do is, and I hope people are listening to this, we're trying to make sure in this committee that folks who do business with the city get money from the city, that they're treated with dignity and respect, and that we have the appropriate compliance to make sure in training and education, to make sure that people are are getting what they say they're getting and that we're getting a value for what we are spending the public dollar for. I think we're at 1254, miss diana, do we have any other questions? Let's see. Councilor Kanal.
133 Thank you, madam chair. Thank you all again for for being here. I just a couple quick things. I agree on the particular emphasis part. Let me start by saying I understand this is narrow and I like it narrow. I agree with all the we should also do other, you know, broaden it. I would love to see what doctor lao mentioned in terms of focusing on not only this in the long term, but also what's happening where the city has no immediate financial interest but is occurring within city limits. For me, I, I mentioned last time, as someone who has suffered from wage theft myself, that was entirely a private company that had no connection to any government that I'm aware of or received any government funding. But I do think that the way to sort of make that first step is to broaden it, to also say anytime we're giving money any, any time. So that's procurement, that's janitorial services, that's grants. You know, I think there's there's a conversation around PCEF too. Right? So in terms of the ordinance, I think you're the piece about specific project focus seems to be covered in number seven, section one, part seven. And the only thing that I'd add is I would, instead of defining it as a sunset clause, that the last piece, I would suggest having a report back that allows for council to. That allows for council to to review it and see. But it may be and often good good code. Excuse me is successful because of the code or the underlying purpose is achieved as long as the code continues to exist. So I think we I would love to see a review rather than a the idea that if it's achieved, we would take back the code. And then as it relates to the the text of the the exhibit itself, other than the point about specific project focus, I broadly speaking, I'm supportive of it. I think obviously there's going to be attorney and clerk review, and so I'll look forward to reading their comments as well. But I appreciate the work that's gone into this from you and your office. And I think it's it's a good starting point. Absolutely. And I think we've had this conversation between yesterday, earlier today, we'll probably have it later today. The fact that something doesn't do everything doesn't mean we should do nothing. And I think we've applied. We need to apply that to every, every possible conversation that we're having here and say, you know, it's on. I don't want to be throwing stones from the outside. I think it's my responsibility or any of us as responsibility to come back and say, once we've passed this, could we add a section, you know, 70 to this? And and if so, what does that look like? I do think that to be internally consistent, I think it makes sense to have that first step cover if we're giving money. But I, I'm not going to go into the deep private sector unattached part at this moment. So that's that's my thoughts at this moment. I appreciate the work. Thank you for mentioning boley. I also would love to see the in the ordinance that we advocate at the state level. We instruct the office of government relations to advocate at the state level to fund boley sufficient to do its job, because that's something that often we are limited by the state's funding priorities. And we as opposed to having to go through each time we do a legislative agenda process, putting it in a binding ordinance. So this is always something that the city does. Seems like a good idea for me because we need a strong system and funding for it at boley in order to to achieve our goals with this one.
134 They were just talking about that, that the funding was increased this last session. Yeah. So I think that that's important and we are going to stay on. And so what you know it's it's not necessarily quantity. Over quality. I think we want to produce quality ordinances out of this committee. And ordinances that are meaningful and that make sense. And and that's that save people money. And it it also is a good thing because I'm really concerned. I'm looking forward to December 5th because I'm really concerned that people are openly doing this and, and, and solving for how to go around the rules. That's that's very troubling to me. And I think that really bringing some attention to it, we get a lot of attention for housing and homelessness, but I think that there are other issues that that we can really highlight and show the community that these are other issues that are going on that you may not even know about. So I appreciate it. Let's see, councilor Green.
135 Yeah, I just, you know, echo that it's not only a good start, but a strong start. I mean, we had this we had this meeting where we heard about this, and then your team ran and said, hey, let's let's start building something. So I just really admire that. I actually really appreciate what you said, councilor Kanal about saying, let's not try to make this thing do everything, but let's make sure it's internally consistent. I'm going to support that. I think one piece I do want to respond to on the sort of the, the broader contract question of like, anytime we give the money, even if it's not prevailing wage. And I do think it's, you know, we don't it's hazardous to think about going into the books of every single entity in this city. It's not we don't have the resources for that. But we could we could support a reporting mechanism. They can always report to bully, but they can also report to us. And so if we find that we get some credible allegations of wage theft, then we know that we can take some discretion in our contracting going forward and have some sort of method of enforcement. That might be an interesting thing to think about. Still thinking through that myself.
136 Well, think about this too. The other piece is remember that we can ask the city administrator to do reports and report back to us as not just to to our committee, but to to the whole council.
137 Yeah. And I just think that if we if we can gather that data, it empowers those workers, even if they're not, you know, even if they're not in the trades, which tends to have a little bit more of an organized labor perspective. Anyway, we want to think about all of our workers in this community. Last thing, I don't think it's right necessarily for this policy, but it could be is, you know, I had to take an uber the other day because my bike had a flat tire in the middle of the wilderness on my way to work, and the guy was telling me that he suffered wage theft when he went to go pick up someone at the airport, got it $10 less than he was expecting, and he has no recourse. And so I'm thinking.
138 Is that through the software of uber? Because they they know how much they're going to get for each.
139 He appealed it. And then they just said, sorry, this is our policy. He has no power. Basically the thing is, is those drivers have no power. We've heard from the drivers unions before. And so I know that we have powers of regulation over our franchisees, and that's a franchise situation. So I think that your office maybe has been thinking a little bit on this stuff, and I just wanted to uplift that conversation as well.
140 I actually, if I may actually. Yes, councilor Green actually, and we have I think there's drivers who've been in touch with that would like to have a chance to talk to this committee about wage theft that they're experiencing.
141 Nice. Nice. We may have a whole new committee. Starting January 26th, but I hope whether chairing or not, that I will still be able to sit on the labor and workforce committee, because this is important, and I think that there needs to be some continuity regardless. So thank you. Thank you all so much. Let's see, do I have any other folks who need to wrap up on the committee? So let's go to our our last agenda item.
142 Item number four public comment on labor and workforce development issues. We currently have five people signed up. There were two who were part of your presentation. So they are no longer on there. I'm going to call three at a time and if you are in the room, come forward and if you are online, we'll let you know when to unmute. So first we have hannah winchester, nakia hunter, and santiago juarez.
143 Hi.
144 Hello. Good afternoon, chair Smith, vice chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the time and the opportunity. For the record, my name is hannah winchester, and I work as the political and community organizer for the Oregon federation of nurses and health professionals are often, for short, who represents healthcare workers across Oregon and southwest Washington, including 4800 workers who are employed at kaiser permanente. Many of you likely heard that we at fnp have been bargaining a contract at kaiser since March of this year, including having to make the difficult decision to go on strike earlier in mid-october in an effort to get a contract that we believe protects the future of patient care for our communities. And I'm coming before you today, as I understand that many of your employees, city workers, are offered health insurance through kaiser as an employer offered benefit. And I believe you and the taxpayers of the city deserve to know what we're fighting for and why and where their money is going. While the term staffing crisis has become something unfortunately very common in the health care field with the members of fnp are experiencing at kaiser is above and beyond normal standards for this area. For example, we have over 200 open nursing positions in our region alone when other comparable health care systems in the Portland metro area have a 10th of that number. And I don't need to elaborate on the burden that causes to being able to provide patient care as expected and needed. But know that it is great. There's a clear line of reasoning why there is such a concerning recruitment and retention problem here, and it is large, in part due to uncompetitive wages. In many of our disciplines, we are 20 to 28% and sometimes up to 33% below market average value. In job titles such as surgical techs, who are vital to keeping the lights on and our patients cared for. To compound on that topic, many of our competitors were also be bargaining new contracts in the next two years, which we know will put us even further behind, and the ability to maintain staffing. When this fact was communicated to our employer, kaiser chose to actually create a public facing instagram post that says, and I quote, you're not behind. You're exactly where you need to be. That state of mind is why I come before you today to raise concerns because of our excuse me, because of our staffing challenges and need to continue to provide patient care, kaiser has turned to the use of travelers to fill necessary gaps. In fact, reporting that over $200 million was spent on traveler usage in 2024 alone at kaiser, sunnyside and westside hospitals. While I'm sure these workers are competent, the return on financial investment should appear minimal and the eyes of the city the city of Portland. Unlike our members who are permanent employees, travelers are not going to buy a home here and support funding our city through property taxes, not vote in the elections that shape our city's policy and aren't going to raise their families here. What we are fighting for with these contracts is the promise that kaiser's employers are going to help the city thrive, not just by providing excellent healthcare, but by contributing to local government as well. Our members are honored to serve every single day by being able to care for their patients, including city of Portland employees and maybe even yourselves. Please know we continue in our fight for a contract that supports fiscal responsibility and ultimately, a system that supports the values and the future of city of Portland to come. Thank you for your time.
145 Thank you. Go ahead.
146 Good afternoon, chair and council. My name is nakia hunter, and I'm a representative of the carpenters that build the projects here in the state of Oregon. And I just wanted to put it on the record that if the city is giving the contracts, the land and the incentives, then the people who benefit from those opportunities must meet the standards we set, and the funds generated by those projects should be poured right back into Oregon, into our workers, our communities, and our future. Strong checks and balances aren't a burden. They ensure that public work creates public benefit when contractors follow wage laws, pay workers correctly, and operate with transparency, the economic return stays here. Families thrive here. Skilled workers stay here. Oregon grows stronger because we protect the people who build it. If you profit from Oregon, you should be investing in Oregon through fair labor practices, honest reporting, and full accountability. That is the standard that is expected. That is how we build a state that takes care of its own. A lot of people tell us when we come on the job site that we only represent union workers. I'm here just to put that on the record that I beg to differ. I represent any and all carpenters and skilled trade workers who need a voice, a hand up or a leg in the race. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
147 Thank you for those comments. I can appreciate that, miss senator.
148 Yes.
149 Go ahead sir.
150 My name is tino and I am a just a representative of the working class. I just want to say one, I thank this group of individuals that took your time to talk about wage theft. But as we're sitting here just talking and getting the groundwork going currently, what's happening in our in our city today is that wage theft is a big problem. Just recently, I was reached out by a worker who I filed a claim for two years ago on a prevailing wage project where the contractor stole his entire fringe benefits. Some of the workers on a prevailing wage job were paid cash under the table, all while cheating the system. As I followed up with him, I asked him, what's going on? Just to see his well-being. He said that for the because of the current climate that's going on right now, that he's afraid to speak out. He told me by his words that the owner of the company said, well, I have your address and I know where to send ice. This is what's happening right now and too long in our city. In Portland, contractors have been taking advantage of the lack of accountability. And as all what we've heard here today, that the lack of funding for boli and the response time that we're seeing developers hire general contractors that are known to do this, this is something that's not an accident. We have proof, we have the evidence. We can show. These are contractors that continually use a broken system and take advantage on cheating workers. But as we're sitting here today, I just want to say I was also last week spoken with the worker that went 2 or 3 weeks without receiving his pay and was told that if he doesn't come back, that he he will never see the money he's owed. I want to thank councilor Smith for your comments as we opened up in the beginning. But just to say that as we're here, this is not a union issue. This is a worker issue. This is a family issue. This is a community issue. Labor wage theft and tax fraud is not something that just affects the worker, but it affects families and it affects our communities. Construction is a good way to stimulate our economy by providing jobs that pay, where workers can come live here, support and afford to live here. We all know the cost of living and what it's like to live in our city today and throughout America. And can I wonder how how many of us here can go with money being stolen off our check? And as I just closed with saying this one again, I thank you. But let's take today's conversation and make sure that they turn to concrete actions that look out for the most vulnerable, the working class. Thank you.
151 I really appreciate you all's comments. Thank you so much for taking the time this morning.
152 Thank you for having us.
153 Up next we have jesus, sauceda and Ryan sotomayor.
154 All right. Good afternoon. I wasn't supposed to speak today, but it's all good. Thank you for letting us be here today. As you know.
155 Can you say your name for the record?
156 Jesus. Thank you. Okay. As you know, you know, this is a real issue. We've come before all of you before and invited you to come out to our to the job sites and see that this is happening firsthand. So a big thank you to all of you for for taking the time to actually take into consideration that there is a wide range of people that this is happening to. I mean, it's, it's it's ridiculous what's going on out there. As I said last time, I'm a victim of wage theft myself. I've been on on the on staff with the carpenters union for about six years. And for about six years I've been trying to fight, trying to help people out, you know, that have been victims of wage theft. And it just I'm really glad that this committee came together and is taking action. So if there's anything that that we can do to to help you folks out, we're just a phone call or email away and we can make it happen. So thank you all very much.
157 Thank you. Thank you for bringing this forward again and continuing to be a voice, a voice that we need to hear. I want you to.
158 We have we have one more person.
159 Oh, okay. Thank you.
160 Ryan is online. Ryan, you can go forward.
161 Can my staff talk to jesus on his way out and get his information?
162 All right, Ryan, you can unmute yourself.
163 Chair Smith, vice chair, Green and committee members, nice to see you all today. My name is Ryan sotomayor. I'm the business manager and secretary treasurer of labor's local 43. We represent workers in the Portland metro area, the city of Portland, metro and parks and nature, and at the Oregon metro zoo at the port of Portland relay resources, and in the city of silverton and city of mount angel. We appreciate the committee's response to the issue of wage theft, and the forward thinking and problem solving for legislation on this matter. We appreciate chair Smith and all the staff in your office for the work that they're doing on this legislation. Many of our workers face forms of wage theft regularly, particularly in the area of predictive scheduling law. Our local 737 is primarily construction. Local unions who express our solidarity to all of our union siblings in the construction industry, who also face widespread wage theft. If you're not familiar with predictive scheduling law, here are the basics from boley's website. And as an aside, encouraging the fully funding, fully funding bully at the state level would be great advocacy for all workers throughout the state, from our migrant workers to our construction workers, our public sector workers and our workers in the state. All workers in the state who deserve dignity and fair treatment while they're supporting their families. Back to bullies website. If you work for a large employer with 500 employees worldwide or more in the retail, hospitality, hospitality or food services industry, you must follow rules around your scheduling for work. Your employer must give you a schedule in writing at least 14 days in advance. For the first day on schedule, it must be posted and easily visible, and include all work shifts on call shifts, and your employer must pay you according to compensation if they change your schedule without advance notice. One common thing that happens at restaurants at the Oregon metro zoo and we filed multiple grievances around this is late schedules being posted, missing predictability pay on pay stubs. The most common way this happens is it needs the day will dictate staff leaving more than an hour early or late at the direction of management, and members will rarely see the appropriate extra hour of predictability pay on their stub. Members often resort to emailing hr and management every day to remind them to enter the pay, and sometimes this doesn't work, so the burden is on the workers. We've seen recent examples in catering where events were canceled by the client within a week of the event after the schedule was posted, and management is resistant to paying the four hour minimum. As stated in Oregon law, members have again are forced to resort to going to hr over this, and most often it is resolved assuming the the member knows Oregon law well enough to know what they're owed to be paid. At the city of Portland, we also have workers who experience wage theft in different ways. For example, getting seasonal maintenance workers to do a higher classification of work without paying them an upgrade. Also trying to upgrade seasonal maintenance worker for independent overtime work, rather than using the classification that matches that work in the Portland city laborers contract. Another example last year, managers tried to have all workers that are required to maintain a pesticide license to take the pesticide training over the lunch period, a paid and earned rest period. They said everyone could still have lunch while watching it, which should have resulted in paid lunch and overtime exploiting the term for training purposes to avoid upgrading employees and and recreation, some folks are forced to flex or move their schedule rather than being paid overtime. We find examples of withholding pay to a time area on the employer's part or the employee's part, and not upgrading workers while working out of a classification. Again, thank you for your time and consideration.
164 Thank you.
165 And that concludes testimony.
166 Thank you diana, I appreciate it. I want folks to know. That wage theft is a very serious issue. And as I was listening to mr. Sotomayor. He brought up some some issues that I never even thought about. And labeling time as training so you don't have to pay the overtime. I wouldn't have thought about that. Not paying people who who work in restaurants. So it is clear to me and I'll come back to you, councilor Green, that we got a lot of work to do, and I do want to thank all the speakers, the ones that were invited and the ones that took their time to come and talk with us today. There are a lot of there are a lot of attacks that are on our workforce that we see at the federal level. And from bad actors, and we've just seen probably some of the most egregious attacks on workers and their rights and their abilities to keep their jobs. From a, from a federal level that, like I've never, ever seen before. And I know we don't have any we don't have any jurisdiction, but we can't afford to to have that happen on the local level. So this all of this information that you all brought together today, it is so, so helpful. Councilor Green, you want to wrap us up.
167 Thank you for giving me the final word. We'll see if it lasts. I just wanted to kind of raise another, connect another narrative that's going on that's really important in our city right now, which is the question of economic development. The other community that you and I sit on is about economic development. And as a focus of our work, I, I'm really going to be supportive of the development of this policy because I think it's an economic development strategy. And it's because, look, if you steal from workers, they have less money to go out into the economy to spend money that then circulates and does us all a disservice. And so I'm trying to anticipate a couple steps forward for the kind of opposition that might be before this kind of a policy and say, well, you know what? It might scare away investors, or it might scare away the kind of economic development opportunities that we have. And I would just I would just say we can steel ourselves against that argument because it's basic economics that folks at the lower end of the income distribution, the working class, tend to spend more of their income, partly because they get paid less, really, but because, you know, there's just more of us. And so those are dollars that flow through in a way that lifts all these boats. Right. And so if we want to have an engine of growth in our community, that's fair and just and sustainable, this is one of those things that we can do that doesn't cost the city a lot of money. And so that's a very pragmatic approach. It's a little less firebrand than I'm used to. But like, it's still that's the science of it too. And I just wanted to connect that.
168 Thank you. Any other last comments from the committee? Well, thank you all for being here. Thank you for your for your words. And now I will adjourn this meeting of the labor and workforce development committee.