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Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO
a weekly report on the 2003 session

Previous editions:  Jan. 10 (A Question of Priorities)

FRIDAY, JANUARY 17
"IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID!"

That Clinton-Gore campaign slogan of 1992 summarizes why the original George Bush ended up a one-termer.  And while it is the fondest hope of many that history repeats itself next year, it seems this slogan needs to be reintroduced right now in Olympia.

As we described in last week's edition, corporate executives and business lobbyists have watched their influence over the public policy debate explode in this state. It began with the hand-wringing assembly of the Washington Competitiveness Council to try to figure out why Boeing moved its headquarters (even though Boeing itself said the move had nothing to do with the business environment in Washington). And it continues this year with the Price of Government exercise, for which corporations were the only stakeholders invited to help decide what our government's priorities should be.

But now, these champions of corporate competitiveness (read: deregulation) sense blood in the water because the economy is mired in recession.  Ironically, the same conservatives who decry social programs for allegedly absolving people of personal responsibility and creating dependency on government now themselves demand that government DO SOMETHING to help them.

Their case is based on an entirely false assumption that the recession, and thus the state's $2.4 billion revenue shortfall and high unemployment, are somehow connected to a mythical anti-business climate. Their answer: repeal or weaken prevailing wage, repeal ergonomics standards, cut unemployment and injured worker benefits, create significant barriers to government regulation, freeze or lower the minimum wage, and the list goes on.

These "competagogues" point at economic problems with one hand and their anti-worker solutions with the other, but never offer specific evidence connecting the two.

Oh sure, they are armed with studies from the Washington Roundtable, the Washington Policy Center, the Washington Research Council and other corporate-funded public policy organizations. In a circular morass of anti-government and pro-privatization ideology, these groups refer to each others' studies and spawn even more groups (comprised by each other!) with new names like Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy. Thus they create an illusion of consensus, and the next thing you know, their statistics are cited and their arguments recited as fact in the commercial media.

With few exceptions, their solutions have these common denominators: lower wages, fewer benefits, more privatization, reduced business taxes and regulation and, of course, weaker unions.

That's what they call "competitive."  We call it... Idaho.

A nice place to visit, but...

Think about it. Idaho has a $5.15 minimum wage (frozen for more than five years now), a "tip credit" allowing wages as low as $3.35 an hour, no prevailing wage law, restrictive unemployment insurance eligibility requirements, jobless benefits calculated using yearlong (not quarterly) average wages and a privatized workers' compensation system. And the icing on the cake for competagogues, it's a Right-to-Work (For Less) state that has successfully discouraged union membership to a mere 8.7% of the workforce, compared to about 20% in Washington.

With great laws like that, it's a wonder there are any businesses outside the State of Idaho!  

Without getting into the critical standard-of-living and quality-of-life issues raised by these policies, let's just consider the state's fiscal health.  With nary a Democrat in sight to blame, Idaho has a $200 million revenue shortfall projected for its $2 billion annual budget. You math majors will notice the remarkably similar revenue-shortfall-to-overall-budget ratio as Washington's $2.4 billion shortfall for a $24 billion budget.

(Idaho also has a Republican governor who this year has proposed a general sales tax increase to avoid draconian cuts in state services. But we won't get into that this week.)

The point is: "It's the Economy, Stupid!"  The reason Washington state has high unemployment and a revenue shortfall is the national recession.  If we have higher unemployment than other states, it's because we have had the unfortunate luck of an economy based on the high-tech, forest products and airplane manufacturing industries.  For reasons clear to everyone, those sectors have been hit disproportionately hard by this national recession.

As President Bush cynically remarked when he blamed the recession, the 9-11 attacks and the subsequent ubiquitous war on terrorism for breaking his promise not to raid the Social Security Trust Fund, "Lucky us, we hit the trifecta!"

Given these facts, it's a wonder we're doing as well as we are in Washington.  In fact, it is testament to the truth that Washington has a very competitive business climate.

There are plenty of corporate think tank studies comparing the business environment of various states and metropolitan areas that rank Washington and the Puget Sound area among the best (see the latest column by WSLC President Rick Bender for details). As it turns out, these tend to be studies conducted by national groups with no vested local interest in having Washington look bad.

There's no evidence that progressive laws designed to protect Washington citizens from injury and exploitation by unscrupulous employers have cost our state any jobs.

For example, competagogues say our minimum wage law is costing jobs and offer the incidental evidence of individual employers who say it's putting them out of business. But Employment Security Department statistics show that employment in minimum wage-paying industries like restaurants, hotels and retail establishments continued to grow in the pre-recession years of 1999-2000, even as the minimum wage jumped from $5.15 to $6.50.  And with the onset of recession in 2001-02 and significantly smaller inflation adjustments in the minimum wage, employment did drop in those industries but at a similar rate as job losses in other sectors. In fact, those industries' job losses were at a far lower rate than in higher-wage sectors like manufacturing.

So let's stop blaming government for our economic problems!  Let's work together to find ways to make Washington an even better place to do business, without making it a worse place to live.

There.  That should be the last we hear about our state not being competitive.  Well, at least until next week's scheduled committee hearings...

Ergonomics repeal hearing Thursday

As has been the case every year since Governor Locke proposed and then implemented it, legislation has been drafted that would repeal Washington state's ergonomics rule. The rule is designed to protect some 50,000 workers who suffer musculoskeletal injuries every year in Washington, costing the state workers’ compensation system some $400 million annually.

In the several years since it saw the light of day, the rule has survived countless assaults and challenges. Surmounted obstacles have included legislative attempts to repeal, study of its implementation readiness by a panel of experts, a two-year enforcement delay granted by the governor to give business more time to prepare for the rule and, most recently, a legal challenge brought by business groups. But with the competagogues sensing recessionary momentum in 2003, business groups are attacking it with renewed zeal.

The Senate Commerce and Trade (But Not Labor) Committee on Thursday, Jan. 23 at 8 a.m. will hear SB 5015, a bill prime-sponsored by Rep. Mike Hewitt (R-Walla Walla) that would repeal the ergonomics rule and ban the Department of Labor and Industries from adopting any similar rules in the future unless the federal government does first. Another bill, SB 5161, has also been introduced by Hewitt that does the same thing. The difference with that one is that a number of Democrats—including Sens. Marilyn Rasmussen (D-Eatonville), Jim Hargrove (D-Hoquiam) and Mary Margaret Haugen (D-Camano Is.)—have joined the usual Republican suspects in co-sponsoring the effort. Need we even mention Sen. Tim Sheldon ("D"-Potlatch) also signed both?

ACTION ALERT:  Once again, we are asking union members who have personal stories to tell of their experience with preventable musculoskeletal injuries to come to Olympia and help defend the rule Thursday morning.  Please contact the WSLC's Randy Loomans at (360) 943-0608 or rloomans@wslc.org if you can testify at the hearing.

Other hearings scheduled next week

Some of the other committee hearings slated for the week of Jan. 20-24 are:

TUESDAY—House Health Care at 10 a.m. will hear HB 1091, creating the prescription drug quality improvement and purchasing board; Senate Government Operations and Elections at 1:30 p.m. will hear various regulatory reform bills; and also at 1:30 p.m. Senate Health and Long-Term Care will have a work session on the nursing shortage.

WEDNESDAY—The House Health Care, Commerce and Labor, and Trade and Economic Development committees will conduct a joint work session at 6 p.m. on the findings of the Health Care Personnel Shortage Task Force.

THURSDAY—The aforementioned Senate Commerce and Trade hearing at 8 a.m. on ergonomics repeal; House Health Care at 10 a.m. will hear HB 1091, creating the prescription drug quality improvement and purchasing board; Senate Health Care at 10 a.m. will hear bills on tort reform; and House Commerce and Labor will conduct a minimum wage work session at 1:30 p.m.

Copyright © 2003  Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO