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One of the most hotly debated bills in Salem this session, Senate Bill 916, would require employers to pay unemployment benefits to striking workers after one week.
The bill has particularly strong implications for public education—and arrives as school districts across the state face budget deficits. That’s because private employers’ payroll taxes fund Oregon’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, which could be expanded to cushion the bill’s impact. But public employers, including the vast majority of school districts and community colleges, don’t pay into this trust and would shoulder the full cost of unemployment benefits if their workers strike.
“If teachers were to get unemployment benefits, the district would reimburse the state for each dollar of benefit paid to staff,” Portland Public Schools spokeswoman Sydney Kelly says.
As SB 916 has made its way through hearings before the Senate Committee on Labor and Business in recent weeks, some of the most intense testimony has centered on the costs the bill carries for school districts.
The Oregon Education Association, the statewide teachers’ union, is in favor of the bill. Since 2000, OEA says there have been just eight teacher strikes across the state—evidence that the bill would have “a negligible impact” on Oregon’s unemployment system.
The Oregon School Boards Association, by contrast, says the bill would damage districts financially. OSBA says a one month teacher strike at Portland Public Schools, calculated using 2025 unemployment benefit rates, would have cost the district $8.7 million for licensed employees under the requirements of SB 916. (For context, the district faces a $40 million budget deficit this year.)
A spokesperson for Sen. Kathleen Taylor (D-Portland), one of the bill’s chief sponsors, says she has no comment on the financial impacts of her legislation. But here’s what she’s hearing from each side:
WHAT TEACHERS SAY: The Oregon Education Association says the bill would relieve teachers of financial burden and encourage districts to negotiate fairly. Strikes are a last resort, the union says, and SB 916 does not aim to “normalize” them.
“Strikes only occur when all other avenues to address critical challenges in schools have been exhausted,” Cynthia Branger Muñoz, an OEA public affairs consultant, said at a Feb. 6 hearing.
Kathleen Kuftin, a former teacher and member of OEA’s retired educators’ union, wrote in testimony that when her district’s teachers almost went on strike, they were “terrified” of going without income and health benefits indefinitely.
“This fear is the foremost barrier to workers’ claiming their full voice in achieving fair wages and necessary improvements to our working conditions,” she wrote.
Typically, OEA members who actively participate in legal, sanctioned strikes receive $120 a day from the OEA Relief Fund. The union also supports emergency grants of up to $300, reimburses personal loan interest up to $500, and ensures continuation of health care insurance.
OEA adds that the rarity of strikes over the past 25 years (less than 0.5% of all negotiated contracts) means districts would barely have to deal with increased financial obligations.
“Because school districts budget for teacher salaries as part of their annual financial planning, the provision of UI benefits during a strike would not represent any additional financial burden unless substitute workers were hired to replace striking staff,” Muñoz said.
WHAT DISTRICTS SAY: The Oregon School Boards Association says the bill would incentivize strikes and pull money from school districts that could otherwise go to students.
Lori Sattenspiel, who testified in opposition on behalf of OSBA on Feb. 11, says that while there have been relatively few strikes in Oregon schools, the frequency has increased over the past couple of years. “We have concerns about [how] this may encourage longer strikes, which is not only costly to employers but to the families who are impacted by this, and the students,” she says.
Apart from the daunting PPS strike numbers, Sattenspiel contends that unemployment benefits would cost a medium-sized school district $262,000 for one day, and another $7,000 a day for classified employees. OSBA lobbyist Stacy Michaelson tells WW that strikes could also be complicated by discussions about back pay and makeup days. She calls for “stronger backstops” to ensure no one earns more than 100% of their salary.
In New York and New Jersey, the only two states where workers are entitled to unemployment during strikes, teachers are prohibited from striking. Michaelson adds, “We believe that SB 916 could lead to more harm to students and more cost to taxpayers.”