By NIGEL JAQUISS/Oregon Journalism Project
As a longtime Salem lobbyist, Mike Selvaggio often appears in front of legislative committees.
But even Selvaggio acknowledged his appearance Feb. 10 in front of the House Rules Committee was unusual.
“This is probably my most counterintuitive testimony,” Sevalggio told the committee.
Selvaggio, the political director for United Food & Commercial Workers Local 555, Oregon’s largest private-sector union, asked lawmakers to repeal a ballot measure his union persuaded state voters to pass in 2024.
The backstory of the ballot measure is equally unusual. In the 2023 legislative session, UFCW got into a dispute with then-state Rep. Paul Holvey, D-Eugene, chair of the House Committee on Business and Labor.
UFCW wanted Holvey to advance House Bill 3183, a priority for the union that would have required cannabis companies to sign “labor peace” agreements when obtaining or renewing their state licenses. The bill would have made it much easier for UFCW or other labor groups to unionize the cannabis workforce.
Holvey, a former carpenters union representative, was then the longest-serving House Democrat and a staunch labor supporter. Nonetheless, he sidelined UFCW’s bill because of advice from Legislative counsel that it ran afoul of federal law.
UFCW reacted with fury to Holvey’s decision and launched a recall against him. The union spent more than $300,000 on the recall, collecting enough signatures and then running a campaign against him, but it failed overwhelmingly, 90% to 10%.
UFCW wasn’t finished. In 2024, the union spent another nearly $2.9 million to put on the ballot and pass Measure 119, which achieved what Holvey denied UFCW one year earlier — a law making it easier to unionize cannabis workers.
As Selvaggio acknowledged Feb. 10, that victory proved short-lived. He told lawmakers that subsequent conflicting federal court decisions in California and Oregon convinced UFCW that a challenge to Measure 119, now law, could go to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has generally been unfriendly to organized labor under Trump appointees.
Selvaggio said the issue “could be weaponized against working people,” and so he asked the House Rules Committee on Feb. 10 to support repealing Measure 119 via House Bill 4162.
In an interview with the Oregon Journalism Project, Selvaggio says he does not have second thoughts about trying unsuccessfully to remove Holvey, an elected official, then passing a law that did what Holvey would not, and then deciding the union didn’t want the law after all.
In any case, he says Local 555’s members are more politically engaged than ever.
“We haven’t heard any regrets coming out of our shop,” Selvaggio says. “Members see us fighting for them. We don’t always win, but they know we are going to fight for them 100% of the time.”
There was only one piece of submitted testimony on the repeal bill. That came from Duke Shepard of Oregon Business & Industry, which supports the repeal. Shepard’s testimony was brief, just four words: “Paul Holvey was right.”
For Holvey, who retired in 2025 after 21 years in the Legislature, UFCW’s about-face feels like justice. But he’s still plenty steamed at a former ally for going after him.
“Measure 119 should be repealed and the dangerous language removed from statute; not just because it is a bad concept, but as reiterated by federal court, it is preempted by federal law and violates constitutional rights,” Holvey told OJP.
“It is unfortunate that the UFCW 555 leadership and lobbyist team wasted millions of union and taxpayer dollars on this ill-advised effort. From my viewpoint, that team should have to pay that money back, and maybe go to jail. My ‘I told you so’ won’t restore what was lost, and there doesn’t seem to be any accountability for their unethical pursuit.”
House Bill 4162 passed out of committee Feb. 12.
Nigel Jaquiss can be reached at [email protected]. The Oregon Journalism Project is a nonprofit news initiative whose goal is to inform, engage, and empower Oregonians.
