WSLC 2007 Legislative Report

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Working Family Tax Credit:
Tax breaks for low-wage working families
Collective Bargaining rights at WSU:
Academic Employees win the right to a union.
Domestic Partnership Right Expanded
More than 160 new rights for domestic partners
President's column:
Worker Protection is Paramount
Whistleblowers Gain Protections:
Scientific Integrity now counts
Green Jobs:
25,000 green jobs in the works

This is an abbreviated version of the 2008 WSLC Legislative Report. Members of affiliated unions can request a free printed copy, which includes in-depth reports on health care, high speed internet accessibility, prescription privacy, underground economy and much more.

It came down to the wire but on the last day of the legislative session, with just hours to spare, injured workers won the right to keep receiving time-loss and medical aid benefits during an appeal process.

This bill, HB 3139, took a long and circuitous journey before final passage. But the most important consequence is that workers will no longer be starved into submission, or forced to settle their claims for far less than they would have been entitled. They will be able to heal, eat and pay bills if their self-insured employer appeals the decision by the Department of Labor and Industries after they have granted those benefits.

The underlying law that HB 3139 fixed was blatantly discriminatory. To stop payment of benefits simply because the employer disagrees with, and appeals, the Department’s decision, didn’t make sense. Benefits should always be triggered by the facts of the case as determined by a competent authority, not by the whimsy or desire of the parties.

With the exception of the way the overpayment fund is funded, the bill is a well-reasoned and well-balanced piece of legislation. The result of this law will be that thousands of workers a year will receive the benefits to which they were entitled; delays in the appeal process will be significantly reduced (there will no longer be a monetary incentive

for employers to drag out the appeals process); and employers who have well documented and legitimate appeals will more likely than not win a stay of benefits through an expedited hearing at the Board.

We believe the overpayment fund will prove to be unnecessary over time but nonetheless, we feel that it should have been funded by the self-insured employers as part of a bad debt fund. Washington State’s workers’ compensation system is one of the lowest-cost systems in the country and the only state where workers pay into the system. The cost savings for the privilege to be self-insured is enormous. This privilege came with the agreement that workers who worked for these companies would not have to pay any of the premiums. The whole idea was that companies that self-insure would cover any bad debts that they incurred.

Senator Ed Murray’s amendment, which regrettably nine other democratic senators signed on to, required workers to pay for this overpayment fund. This is not right. It is evidence of how little many legislators understand about how the workers’ compensation system functions. When workers are forced to pick up the cost of debts for the likes of a multinational corporation such as Boeing, then something is wrong. A company that enjoys billions in profits and the privilege and responsibilities of self-insurance should not force workers to pay their debts.

To make matters worse, labor had taken the unprecedented move to support an amendment put forward by the Department of Labor and Industries that would split the cost of the overpayment fund between self-insured employers and their workers. This amendment was rejected out of hand. As a result, we reluctantly asked our friends to accept the Murray amendment so that the injustice faced by thousands of injured workers at the hands of self-insured employers would end.

We want to especially thank the efforts of Governor Gregoire, Senators Brown and Kohl-Welles, Speaker Chopp, Majority Leader Kessler and Representatives Conway and Green for their commitment to and understanding of the need to fix the underlying unfairness in the system that HB 3139 corrects.

It pays to be union in both wages and benefits

It pays to be union. According to the US Department of Labor union members earn, on average 25 percent more than their non-union counterparts. This is across the board in all unionized industries, but when you look at just the service industry, unionized workers make a whopping 56 percent more than other, non-union workers.

Women and minorities benefit as well. Union women earn about 30 percent more even though the gender gap in pay still shows up. African American unionized workers also earn about 30 percent more and Latino union workers jump up to 45 percent more than non-union workers.

And union benefits can’t be beat. When it comes to health care government statistics show that 78 percent of union workers in the private sector had jobs with employer-provided health insurance, compared with only 49 percent of nonunion workers.

Union workers also are more likely to have retirement and short-term disability benefits. As the accompanying chart illustrates, 81 percent of union workers participate in pension plans versus 47 percent of nonunion workers. Sixty-seven percent of union workers participate in defined-benefit pension plans, compared with 15 percent of nonunion workers.

Union membership clearly pays in both wages and benefits. Organize, organize, organize.

Working Family Tax Credit: Tax breaks for low-wage families to help balance unfair system

Three hundred fifty thousand low-wage working families in Washington State will benefit from passage of SB 6809, the Working Families Tax Credit. This is a significant piece of legislation that will make the difference between keeping the lights on, putting food on the table or getting the kids new clothes that might not have been afforded otherwise. It is the most significant change in the state’s regressive tax system in 30 years.

The tax credit will be available for all WA families who earn less than $40,000 per year and are eligible for the Federal Earned Income Tax credit (EITC). This represents 1 out of every 8 taxpayers in Washington State; 1 out of every 5 in Spokane County; and 1 out of every 4 in Yakima County.

Eligible families must apply for the benefit and at the start of the program it will equal 5 percent of the value of the EITC refund check. The average check would be about $167 the first year according to the number of families receiving the EITC now. The refund will increase to 10 percent as of 2012.

The bill was widely supported by legislators who could see the direct benefit to their constituents, but it did run into a bit of trouble in the House Finance Committee chaired by Representative Ross Hunter. There an amendment was attached that would have required the credit be proactively appropriated each budget cycle and that a new bill authorizing the credit would have to be passed each year. This was highly unusual as there is no other legislation that requires such

a rigorous test, certainly no corporate tax credit requires any such scrupulous re-appropriation process.

Fortunately wiser minds prevailed and a compromise was struck that places the legislation into statute but requires both the Appropriations and Ways and Means Committees to proactively appropriate the credit each budget cycle. This solution seems more logical especially if this same trigger is applied on all future tax credits: it forces the legislature to sit down each budget cycle, line up their spending priorities with their taxing/revenue priorities and weigh and balance the relative merits.

Passage of the Working Families Credit is significant. It is the first progressive change in our overall tax structure in decades. Twenty-six other states have already implemented similar legislation and it has been proven to put money directly into the hands of the working families who need it most. Washington is, however, the first state without a state income tax to pass a Working Family Tax Credit.

Statistics show that workers in Washington who are eligible for the EITC pay 17% of their incomes on sales and use taxes whereas the richest in Washington pay, on average, five times less than this. This legislation is a start in fixing this unfair imbalance and provides a bit of a break for low-wage working families.

Many thanks to the prime sponsors of the bills Senator Craig Pridemore and Representative Tami Green as well as to the leadership of Majority Leader Lisa Brown and Speaker Frank Chopp.

With the passage of HB 2963, 1,700 Academic Student Employees (ASEs) at Washington State University will have the right to be represented by a union and the ability to bargain a contract with their employer for the first time in the history of the institution.

After the law takes effect, the Academic Student Employee Coordinating Committee/United Auto Workers (ASECC/UAW) will be able to file a petition with the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) to get certified so that WSU would be obligated to bargain with the Union. A majority of ASEs at WSU have signed up to be represented by ASECC/UAW.

Senator Chris Marr captured the reason why this bill was so important when he spoke on the floor relating his previous experience as a regent at WSU: "I have sat across the table from these students, who have told me about the sacrifices [they have made] in terms of child care, health care coverage, and the amount we’re able provide them to subsist. These are people with kids, raising families."

Graduate and some undergraduate ASEs work as teaching assistants, research assistants, graders among other things and more. They are the ones who do much of the actual teaching, grading and administrative functions of the University. The work these student employees do enables faculty to have the time to write, attend conferences and attract grants.

WSU now joins the ranks of all the other major universities on the West when students sat-in at the University of Washington and won the same right."

When WSU opposed the original version of the bill, Senator Kohl-Welles worked to bring together the UAW, the WSLC, and President Elson Floyd of Washington State University. The result was an amendment offered by the UAW that helped clarify the intent of the bill and helped to make the University more comfortable with the legislation. Ultimately, President Floyd, who was raised in a union family, supported the legislation in testimony before the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee.

Despite the usual opposition from conservative, anti-labor Republicans on the floors of both houses, the final bill passed with strong votes; 63-30 in the House and 34-15 in the Senate.

"This is great news for us," said Mary Jo Klinker, a teaching assistant in the Women Studies Program at WSU and member of the ASECC/UAW Organizing Committee. "It’s very important for Academic Student Employees (ASEs) to have collective bargaining so we can negotiate on equal footing with the university about our employment issues. A strong majority of teaching and research assistants have already signed on to support our union – so the next step is to get certified and start bargaining."

Many thanks go to the tireless work and support of Senator Kohl-Welles and Representative Steve Conway, the prime sponsor of the House bill, and to the ASEs who came from WSU and UW to lobby and testify in support of the bill.

HVAC-R TECHS

From meaningful certification

back to task force folly

Consumer protection bills are usually a no-brainer in a Democrat-controlled legislature but this session’s attempt to pass the HVAC-R bill ( SB 5831), which ensured that the technicians installing heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems were properly trained and certified, proved to be much more difficult than it should have.

Proponents of the bill included the majority of the HVAC-R industry in Washington representing 1500 employers and over 95,000 employees, with Sheet Metal Workers Local 66 taking the lead on the issue. Designed to save lives and build public trust in the system, the bill was all about safety. HVAC technicians work with toxic refrigerants and ventilation, which are inherently dangerous to both the workers and the public. Between 1996 and 2006 there were 37,496 worker compensation claims in the HVAC-R industry which, according to the Department of Labor & Industries, cost the state more than $186 million dollars. Proper training and certification could have mitigated at least some of these circumstances.

The bill was all about creating a single, statewide standard for the technicians. Thirty-six states already regulate this industry and this bill recognized HVAC-R training programs in both state technical schools and state approved training programs just like other trade certification programs. It was well thought-out and crafted to ensure the program would work.

Unfortunately, the Senate gutted the bill’s original language and introduced a task force amendment. The opposition in the Senate was led by Democratic Senator Jim Kastama. Even after personal appeals by Rick Bender, John Thompson, Dave Johnson and Cody Arledge, Senator Kastama continued to lead the opposition hand in hand with Republican Senators King and Holmquist.

In committee, under the leadership of Rep. Conway, the House fixed the bill and then it was passed on the House floor with bi-partisan support. Speaker Chopp was instrumental in making this happen.

Senator Kastama continued to work against the bill as it went back to the Senate and, despite more labor appeals, the final legislation was diminished to simply forming a task force. The problem is that in 2005 a similar task force was convened and part of their recommendation was to certify HVAC-R workers. The new task force will report its findings and recommendations to the Legislature by Dec. 1, 2008.

In 2007 Governor Gregoire signed the domestic partnership bill granting gay and lesbian couples the right to visit their partners in the hospital, inherit property without making a will and make funeral arrangements. These and other basic rights were championed by a coalition of gay lawmakers in the House and Senate.

"Imagine for a moment your spouse was in the hospital and dying and you could not go into the room and hold her hand," Senator Ed Murray, D-Seattle, the bill’s lead sponsor told the Seattle Times last year. "This bill will do the work of justice and end that hurt."

Legislators saw it as an important first step in providing protections for same-sex couples and their families. The bill also recognized senior citizens who haven’t married and can’t afford to do so for various reasons.

Now those rights have been expanded to help registered domestic partners achieve financial security and equal treatment in a broader context with the passage of HB 2437. The new law, which takes effect 90 days after the legislative session, grants 160 new rights in ten major areas where domestic partners are not treated the same as married couples. More than 3,500 couples are registered as domestic partners and they are living in every legislative district in the state.

There are now nine U.S. states that recognize gay and lesbian spousal rights in some form: Connecticut, Oregon, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Maine, California, Washington and Hawaii. Only Massachusetts has legalized full gay marriage.

Representative Pedersen sponsored the bill in the House and Sen. Murray was the Senate sponsor. Leadership was very supportive (Speaker Chopp in the House and Majority Leader Brown in the Senate). There was even some bi-partisan support in both the House and Senate.

"Lesbian and gay families deserve equal rights, not more rights, equal rights," said Senator Murray in a statement on the day the Governor signed the bill. "Just a couple of years ago, financial, legal and discrimination protections for same-sex couples was a contentious issue. That has changed. We saw a broad willingness to move forward this year, and with the governor’s signature today, Washington takes another significant step forward," Murray said.

The sausage factory is not a place everyone can stomach. In fact only an intrepid soul can go back day after day to watch the grinding, stuffing and reshaping that finally emerges as a finished product. So goes the congressional and legislative sessions.

Each year we enter into a session with an agenda to help and protect working families. It is crucial at this time that we do fight for families; no one else is protecting their interests as the economic squeeze gets tighter and tighter. We go in with plans; sometimes we have to fight to get worker protections in place; sometimes we have to compromise. But our mission is always the same: to ensure that working families emerge as a force in each legislative session.

We had hoped, this year, to introduce a strong piece of legislation that would protect not only the ability of workers to organize, but that would keep employees safe from retaliation if they refused to go along with the prescribed political or religious policies of an employer. The Worker Privacy Act is still on our agenda, but we want to ensure that this legislation will withstand any legal challenge. We held off this year to wait for a decision before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on a case that might have an impact on our legislation. As we monitor the decision, we will strengthen our proposal to make sure it holds up in any court of law.

Worker protection at the state level is essential because the Federal Government has virtually abandoned working families in America. The National Labor Relations Board has become a joke to organized Labor. Only two of the 5 positions on the NLRB, which are mandated by law, are filled and most of the decisions handed down by the Board are steadfastly pro-business and against labor.

Statistics tell us that more than half of all workers say they would join a union if they had the opportunity, yet less than 8 percent of private sector workers are in unions. Corporations have been allowed to run rampant in their fight against employees joining unions. They hire consultants to harass workers, stage private interviews and hold mandatory meetings where they show hours of antiunion videos to coerce and intimidate employees to give up their hopes of unionization. Laws are not being enforced and there are no consequences for the corporations that punish or even fire union organizers and supporters by threatening wage cutbacks or plant closures.

Nationally, we are fighting for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which will grant workers the choice to form unions as long as the majority of employees sign cards designating a particular union. The bill has already been approved in the U.S. House of Representatives, but it couldn’t get enough votes to break a filibuster in the Senate. This is why it is crucial for working America to vote for those candidates who support the constitutional right of workers to organize to form a union. Both Democratic Presidential candidates have voted for and endorsed EFCA, while John McCain voted against the bill. With a new Congress, and a Democrat in the White House, it will be a new dawn for organized labor.

Here in Washington we are bucking the national trend of declining unionization. We have built our base and have jumped from 5th to 4th in the nation in union density. We have elected a majority of Democrats to our State Legislature and we are able to make gains for working families. But we still need to concentrate on organizing the private sector of our workforce. We need to pass both the Worker Privacy Act here in our state and the Employee Free Choice Act nationally.

The left-coast Washington prevailed in winning protection for state workers while the Washington on the other side of the country continues to trample on the integrity of federal workers. State legislators passed ESSB 6776 expanding whistleblower protection to cover the suppression of scientific opinions or the alteration of technical findings.

The bill, championed by WFSE/AFSCME is a powerful new tool to ensure there is no retaliation for state workers who express scientific opinions that might be at odds with the official agency line.

Testifying for the passage of the bill was former Ecology, Fish and Wildlife employee, Drea Traeumer who told senators Jan. 29 she quit her job rather than fudge the science on a clean-up plan for the Spokane River she said she knew was flawed.

"I couldn’t do this," she said. "I felt I would be deceiving the public. I quit to protect my scientific integrity. I didn’t have any options."

Local 443 Ecology member Pete Kmet told the House State Government and Tribal Affairs Committee Jan. 30 that he knows of employees denied promotions or who faced other retaliation for expressing scientific opinions at odds with the official agency line.

This bill has been a long time coming for workers in environmental agencies. Two years ago a survey of climate scientists from the other side of the coast shocked the country saying that their findings were being tailored to reflect political goals rather than scientific fact when it came to global warming science.

In that survey 58 percent of all respondents said they personally experienced interference with climate science research in the past five years. That number increased to 78 percent among scientists whose work frequently touches upon sensitive terms from a variety of communications. 46 percent perceived or personally experienced changes or edits to documents during review processes that changed the meaning of scientific findings.

After 34 years Labor gets a seat at Forest Practice Board

With the passage of HB 2893, a 34 year snub has ended. Finally a worker who works in the woods and the wood products industry will have a seat on the state’s Forest Practices Board.

Those workers who get their hands dirty and literally work on the ground floor, know better than anyone else what it means to harvest safely from both an environmental and worker health and safety point of view. It is high time that this perspective is represented and is reflected in the decisions of the Forest Practice Board.

The labor member will be selected by the Governor from a list of three names submitted by the Washington State Labor Council. The Council has woods products labor coalition that represents all three forest products unions in the state of Washington.

The members on this committee have over 200 years of collective experience in the industry. We are grateful that the Governor signed this bill, finally recognizing the need for input from the hard-working men and women in the industry.

Many thanks go to Representative Kevin Van De Wege and his assistant Carl, Representative Brian Blake and Senator Jim Hargrove for their support of this legislation.

Washington stepped out in front once again this time with the passage of the Climate Action and Green Jobs bill. The good news is that the Legislature set the goal of establishing 25,000 green economy jobs by the year 2020. The passage of this legislation makes Washington the first in the nation to begin a state-wide effort to train the workforce to participate in and benefit from the change-over to a clean-energy environment.

The bill was put together by a broad-based coalition including labor, business, conservation groups, academia, government, faith and civic communities. The idea is to provide a mechanism for private investment to help the state implement actions to reduce global warming, limit fossil fuel consumption and increase the availability of green jobs.

The hope is to triple the number of green jobs by 2020. A workforce training grant program will be funded in 2009 to help colleges and technical programs across the state create programs to train the green workforce and establish apprenticeship opportunities.

Washington State Labor Council President Rick Bender said, "Clearly, taking action to limit global warming pollution, while training the work force of the new energy economy, helps to secure our energy future. It positions Washington at the forefront of a tangible move toward sustainable energy independence."

Many view the new green job revolution as a solution to the loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs and the eroding of the middle class. These jobs will begin to appear in every sector from green building to organic farming, solar installation and sustainable marketing. It is important for labor to get a foothold in the door of this emerging industry to ensure that good family wages and benefits are a part of the larger picture.

"Washington can and must do its part to reduce our contribution to global climate change," said Governor Gregoire. "While the federal government drags it feet addressing the global climate challenge, our state will continue to lead in partnership with the Legislature and our business and environmental partners. We choose action – and clearly defined results."

The state Department of Ecology will design a carbon cap and trade proposal, require annual emissions reporting and help in designing the green jobs program.

"We laid out an ambitious set of emissions reduction goals last year with Senate Bill 6001, and we’re taking key steps this year to begin meeting those goals," said Sen. Craig Pridemore, prime sponsor of the Senate bill.

"It’s a work in progress and will continue to be each and every year, but it’s an extremely worthy one. I’m pleased at the level of commitment that the Legislature has shown to explore the full range of options in doing Washington’s part to reduce climate change."

"We are leading into the sustainable age, and this legislation will get us to a better future for our kids and grandkids," said Rep. Hans Dunshee, prime sponsor of the House bill. "It is our duty to them."

The bill had the steadfast leadership of Gregoire, Senators. Craig Pridemore, Phil Rockefeller, and Representatives Hans Dunshee, and Dave Upthegrove.

There are many, many more stories included in the print version of the WSLC's 2008 Legislative Report on issues like health care, prescription privacy, and much much more. Union members may request a free copy.