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The Washington State
Labor Council's
pretty-much-weekly report on the 2006 session
FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2006 (PDF version)
Fair Share deserves a fair voteS
omewhere in the Tassel-Toed Corporate Lobbyists’ Handbook, there must be a chapter entitled, "The Assignment of Motives."In that chapter, young aspiring corporate lobbyists learn that the best way to divert attention from the goal of legislation they oppose is to devise a cynical, or even conspiratorial, alternative motive. For extra credit, imply that legislators are being manipulated or fooled by the bill’s supporters. Recommended phrase: "What’s really happening here…" (Class, in unison: "What’s real-ly hap-pen-ing here…")
Witness the committee hearings Thursday on SB 6356 and HB 2517, the Fair Share Health Care bills. They would require companies with more than 5,000 employees to spend at least 9% of their payroll on employee health care, or pay a fee to the state making up the difference, which would go toward providing health care for people who can’t afford it.
Supporters, including the Washington State Labor Council, say this is about setting a new standard that stops the "race to the bottom" on health benefits. This is about preventing giant profitable corporations from deliberately shifting their labor costs onto taxpayers. Washington taxpayers are buying health care for many employees of large corporations, not because the companies can't afford it, but because they don't want to pay for it. Adding insult to injury, we aren’t even allowed to know exactly how many workers and for which specific companies (shhh… it’s a trade secret).
Three-by-three on Thursday, panels of corporate lobbyists opposed to Fair Share marched to the front table, tassels-a-flappin’, to testify about -- what, class? -- "What’s real-ly hap-pen-ing here." Their answers ranged from standard-cynical (this is pure politics), to hopelessly simplistic (unions hate Wal-Mart), to thoughtlessly ideological (tax-lovin’ government growers), to conspiratorial (unions want more dues).
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he truth is, they’re right. Fair Share supporters do have other motives in addition to the good-public-policy, right-thing-to-do arguments described above. And if the corporate shills testifying at the front table had turned around, they would have seen more than 200 of them.That’s how many working people took the day off, traveling to Olympia from around the state, to support the Fair Share bills at these hearings. Many of them wore yellow United Food and Commercial Workers T-shirts. They were grocery and retail workers at unionized stores like Safeway, Albertsons, QFC, Fred Meyer and PCC. People who make decent wages, and get affordable health care coverage for themselves and their families.
They came to Olympia because they know their jobs, their living standards and their families are at risk.
For decades, because the industry has been almost completely unionized on the West Coast, people who work at grocery stores have led middle-class lives. Most can afford to own a home, keep their families healthy, and maybe even save enough to help send their kids to college. In fact, one day, they could even afford to... (gasp)... stop working.
Because all of the stores provided these wages and benefits, they competed on a level playing field. They competed based on the quality of their products and services. They still managed to sell stuff at prices that consumers could afford, and they still made plenty of profit at the same time.
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hen, along came Sam Walton.He decided to undercut his retail competition by dramatically cutting labor costs. He developed a business model of selling products cheaper by paying his employees less, providing fewer benefits, and aggressively opposing unionization. Federal law guarantees a worker’s right to choose to join union free from intimidation, harassment or coercion by their employer. But Sam knew that's one of those wink-wink laws that are... subject to interpretation. You know, like those laws that say you can't hire a bunch of undocumented workers to clean your store at night and lock the doors so they can't get out.
His strategy worked. His chain of stores grew exponentially, and soon his market share was such that he could use his purchasing power to ruthlessly squeeze discounts from his suppliers. (Imagine if the U.S. government weren't expressly forbidden by Congress from utilizing this simple free-market principle in the purchase of prescription drugs!)
So Sam was able to keep his prices low and make himself super-duper-rich, winning the admiration of a nation that prides itself on such pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps success stories. His heirs, of course, simply had to pull themselves out of his wife's birth canal. And they plan to extend that good fortune into perpetuity "death tax"-free for the Paris Waltons of the future.
Oh, this business model has its complications. There are costs like class-action settlements in wage-and-hour and discrimination lawsuits, expensive we're-not-so-bad public-relations campaigns, legal bills for fighting against the cities and towns that don't want you in their neighborhoods, etc. The latest headache is having to parachute company spin-doctors into 31 states, including Washington, where legislatures are considering Fair Share Health Care legislation like the law passed this month in Maryland.
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al-Mart isn't evil. People who work there aren't bad people; they're just struggling to get by like the rest of us. People who shop there aren't bad people either; they're often lower-income folks on tight budgets who have no choice but to shop for the best bargains.But we, as a society, have to recognize that companies like Wal-Mart have a business model that is destructive. And not just for the tens of thousands of grocery workers in Washington, like the ones at Thursday's Fair Share hearings who are being forced to give up their wages, benefits and living standards so their employers can survive. Every person and business owner in this state who does have health care insurance is paying more for it -- by one estimate, 25% more -- because of uninsured people, most of whom have jobs. We pay again, as taxpayers, in the form of public health care for working people. (Hey, conservatives! Do you want government-run health care, or not? Because you're slowly gettin' it -- and paying for it -- while you creepily obsess over Hillary Clinton.)
The Wal-Mart business model of low wages, self- or government-funded health care, and self- or government-funded retirement is now being replicated outside the retail sector. From airlines to hospitals, other industries that don't have the easy "free trade" option of moving or hiring overseas, are getting in the act, too. And it is slowly destroying America's middle class.
We may not be able to force U.S. corporations like Wal-Mart to care, but we can damn sure stop subsidizing their considerable bottom line with our tax dollars. We can force them to pay their Fair Share for health care, just like responsible employers, governments and workers are.
This is not a time to be listening to naysaying, cynical business lobbyists who hate government. Even the ones who say they represent small businesses circled the ideological wagons on Thursday, inexplicably defending Wal-Mart with their paranoid slippery-slope arguments -- the stock-and-trade of Olympia hacks -- that they might be next. Their proposals are to legalize Health Care Lite™ insurance plans that cover fewer procedures, and promote medical savings accounts ("I know! How about, you pay for it!")
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his health-care crisis deserves better. Like no time in modern history, Americans -- who live in the richest nation in the world -- are worried about whether they or their family will be able to get the medical care they need when they need it. Poll after poll lists this at the top of their domestic concerns.We recognize that the Fair Share bill is not a panacea. The coalition of business, labor, religious and community organizations that support it are also seeking funding to restore 10,000 Basic Health Plan slots, more coverage for uninsured children, and premium assistance to small businesses’ employees who are under 200% of the federal poverty level. (SB 2572, the Small Employer Health Insurance Partnership Program, also had a committee hearing Thursday.) And we recognize that this 4-point proposal won't solve the problem.
But inaction is no longer an option. How many elections now have we listened to politicians promise access to more affordable health care and prescription drugs? The Fair Share Health Care Coalition's proposals are a perfect opportunity to do what we can do now -- to do the right thing, the moral thing -- by alleviating the unnecessary, avoidable suffering of thousands of Washington families who can't afford medical care. Meanwhile, we can continue to debate the long-term solution to the health-care crisis.
So, let's vote on it!
Since we got a little carried away there and have run out of space, we'll publish another Legislative Update on Tuesday, January 24 covering several other important working families bills.
WSLC Legislative Conference
is THURSDAY, FEB. 16All union leaders and rank-and-file members are invited to attend the 2006 WSLC Legislative Conference Thursday, Feb. 16 at the Olympia Red Lion Hotel from 8:30 a.m. through lunch, with registration at 7:30 a.m. As always, the night before, Wednesday, Feb. 15, we'll host a Legislative Reception from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the hotel. The registration fee, including materials, lunch and one admission to the reception, is $30. Download a registration form or call 206-281-8901. Please register by Jan. 27 so we can make plans to accommodate every one.
Some hearings next week
MONDAY, Jan. 23—Senate Labor & Commerce (10 a.m.): SB 6434 on on-call workers; SB 6352 on farm labor contractors. House Commerce & Labor (1:30 p.m.): HB 2725 on on-call workers; HB 2623 on farm labor contractors. Senate Ways & Means (1:30 p.m.): several state employee pension bills. House Appropriations (3:30 p.m.): several state employee pension bills. Senate Health Care (3:30 p.m.): Blue Ribbon Comm. on Health Care Cost & Access. House Commerce & Labor (8 p.m.): several important workers' compensation bills.
TUESDAY, Jan. 24—House State Government (10 a.m.): HB 2780 on PAC payroll deduction. House Higher Education (1:30 p.m.): Work session on part-time faculty.
PREVIOUS EDITIONS of the 2006 WSLC Legislative Update:
Jan. 13 -- Doctor's order: Keep two-quarter (UI benefits, election bills, non-discrimination)
Jan. 6 -- 2006 Working Families Agenda (a summary of WSLC legislative priorities)
Copyright © 2006 Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO