State lines may be invisible, but for contractors looking to work in both Washington and Oregon the border might as well be a towering wall.

Despite the number of residents who pass between the two states daily on their way to work, Oregon and Washington do not have license reciprocity agreements for a number of trades, including plumbing and electrical work.

“It’s the exact same work, just a different side of the road,” Walla Walla Electric President and CEO Charlie Barron said.

His Washington-based company’s offices sit just five miles from the Oregon border, but if an employee wants to work on the other side of the state line they must start from scratch on working the number of hours necessary to become a licensed electrician in Oregon. As a result, Barron said he has four employees who live in Umatilla County but can’t perform electrical work there.

“They pay taxes there, they live there, they support the communities they live in but they can’t work there,” he said.

The company as a whole is licensed to work in Oregon and Washington, with about half of their employees licensed to work in both states and most of the rest just licensed to work in Washington. Barron said he feels it’s worth it for Walla Walla Electric to pay to maintain licensure in both states because there is a demand for that type of work in Eastern Oregon. However, the fact that many of his employees can only work in Washington limits the number of Oregon projects they can bid on.

The company is working on Pendleton’s two new schools and has bid on other major Oregon projects including Blue Mountain Community College’s new bond construction. But many other contractors in Washington, including Walla Walla and the Tri-Cities, end up deciding it’s not worth it to get licensed in both states, leaving Umatilla County with few bidders on some major projects.

Not everyone feels their business is suffering because of a lack of license reciprocity. David Bothum of Bothum Construction in Hermiston said his company has enough work on the Oregon side of the state line to keep them busy, and he would rather use local subcontractors for electrical work and plumbing anyway.

However, a lack of license reciprocity for certified trades between Oregon and Washington was one of the top challenges that more than 400 Umatilla County employers named in a recent workforce needs survey commissioned by the county and BMCC. The study recommended that the county make lobbying for license reciprocity one of its top workforce development priorities in the coming years.

Last week Hermiston Chamber of Commerce Director Debbie Pedro testified before the House Special Committee on Small Business Growth, urging the state to look at reciprocity agreements with Washington and Idaho to help “ease a large workforce demand” issue in rural Oregon.

“I think this is really important, especially for the border cities,” she said.

Oregon doesn’t have any reciprocity agreements with other states for general contractors. The state does have agreements with Idaho and Montana for journeyman plumbers, and with Arkansas, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Utah and Wyoming for journeyman electricians. That helps plumbers or electricians who move to one of those states, but doesn’t benefit companies in border cities like Milton-Freewater that want to pursue work on both sides of the state line.

Rick Rock, owner of Rock Electric in Hermiston, said even his Oregon-based company can’t bid on some Oregon projects due to licensing rules. He has nine electricians working for him who are licensed in Oregon and Washington, but on larger projects he hires temporary workers from the electricians’ union. The problem is that the region’s union hall is located in Kennewick, so many of the available electricians are only licensed to work in Washington.

“Some jobs I can’t bid on because I can’t man them,” he said.

Rock Electric is currently working on the new Holiday Inn Express being built in downtown Hermiston. Rock said he feels it is worth being licensed to work in both states, since the Tri-Cities is growing and there is always work to be found up there. But some people don’t like the idea of trying to having to pass another licensing test for another state or meeting lengthy requirements.

“It keeps a lot of people from doing it because once they’ve been out of school and away from the books a while, tests can be a problem,” Rock said.

He said changing the rules to allow people to become licensed in both states through a single process would be “a major turning point for the industry.”

Tom O’Brien of O’Brien Construction Company based his business out of Hermiston for 35 years before moving it to Kennewick about seven years ago after they began working on major industrial projects there. He said it was important to be licensed in both states, despite the hassle, because there wasn’t always enough work on one side of the state line. Some years 80 percent of his company’s work is in Oregon, and sometimes 80 percent happens in Washington.

He said licensing reciprocity agreements between the two states would bring down the cost of projects, in part through a more competitive bidding environment for subcontractors.

“It is what it is,” he said of the need for two separate licenses. “There’s nothing I can do about it. But it sure isn’t good for business.”

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Contact Jade McDowell at jmcdowell@eastoregonian.com or 541-564-4536.