WSLC Legislative Update -- January 27, 2004

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02.09.2004

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The Washington State Labor Council's
pretty-much-weekly report on the 2004 session

Special update (1-29): House OKs home-care bill; Senate passes weak R&D bill
Special update (2-4): Charter schools bill resurrected; tell legislators to kill it (again)

TUESDAY, JANUARY 27 (PDF version)
We pay for Wal-Mart greed – always

Taxpayers, businesses shouldn't subsidize
big companies that don't offer health care

In this important election year, one subject tops poll after poll as Americans' biggest domestic concern: health care. Business owners and corporate CEOs share those concerns as several years of double-digit health premium increases have cut into profits. Their employees have sacrificed wage increases and in many cases those higher costs are passed on to the workers.

Not only are health care costs a huge drag on the U.S. economy, they are responsible for major labor unrest that may be on its way this spring to Washington state. Safeway and other grocery stores' efforts to cut health benefits -- ostensibly to compete with Wal-Mart, which doesn't offer "associates" affordable health care -- has led to a strike/lockout in Southern California that's now in its fourth month. The contract for Safeway and other Puget Sound-area grocers expires in May. Combined with contracts for nurses and other health care workers who find their own health benefits being cut, more than 30,000 area workers will soon be making very difficult decisions about the sacrifices their families can afford to bear.

So, what's causing this health care crisis? Analyses consistently cite skyrocketing prescription drug prices and the socialized costs of the uninsured as driving up health insurance rates. Last year, the state legislature took a first step toward addressing the former problem but little or nothing has been done about the uninsured, even as their ranks continue to swell to more than 750,000 in this state.

The uninsured get health care, but it happens in emergency rooms and community clinics -- often for problems that could have been avoided if they had access to preventative care. The facilities forced to provide that care are not compensated so they pass on the costs to the people who can pay.

All politicians talk about this issue, and will even more as election season heats up. But what can be done right now?

Find out at an important hearing in the House Health Care Committee on Wednesday night at 6 p.m.

That panel will consider HB 2785, the Health Care for Washington's Workers bill. The bill is based on a simple principle: If you work, you should get health care. It's also based on a principle that should transcend partisan ideology in Olympia: It's not right that taxpayers and employers who provide health care must subsidize the large corporations that don't.

Right now, we as taxpayers are financing health care through the Basic Health Plan for more than 400 Washington workers who work for Wal-Mart, one of the most profitable companies in the world -- even as that company "competes" more and more of the responsible employers right out of business. Wal-Mart is the poster child for this abuse of the system, but there are other big corporations doing the same thing.

HB 2785 would require large businesses that don’t offer affordable health care to pay a fee-per-employee to help fund the BHP. It also would provide small businesses with premium assistance and other ways to help them afford health benefits for their employees.

Other important health care bills requested by the Insurance Commissioner will also be heard Wednesday. HB 2797 would give workers on Trade Act assistance, including many laid-off Boeing, timber and other workers, a choice between maintaining health benefits through COBRA and the more affordable BHP. HB 2798 would help stabilize the health insurance market in a way that's so complicated, if WSLC Legislative Update attempts to explain it, our head may explode.

We must work together on workers' comp

In an earlier update, we described the commitment that the governor made when WSLC President Rick Bender agreed to be part of a business-labor panel considering changes to our state's workers' compensation system. Locke said he won't sign any legislation on the issue in 2004 unless business and labor both agree to it. That way the panel's important work won't be undermined by either side's legislative agenda during negotiations. (See unemployment insurance "reform.")

For that reason, the Washington State Labor Council has refrained from pushing bills this session that articulate changes we believe are necessary for injured workers.

Business interests have refrained as well, apparently limiting themselves to pushing only as many bills as can be CRAMMED INTO AN ENTIRE WEEK'S WORTH OF HEARINGS. Sen. Jim Honeyford's (R-Sunnyside) Commerce and Trade (But Not Labor) Committee devoted hearings to these bills last week but ran out of time, so more will be heard at 8 a.m. on Wednesday.

We, too, lack the time/space to cover them all, but here are a few:

SB 6392 would allow the Department of Labor and Industries, in the interest of speeding claims decisions, to contract out "some or all" claims management to private businesses. Why not just take all the money we'd spend hiring for-profit claims adjusters and rehire some of the laid-off L&I personnel to reduce caseloads?

SB 6317 would allow self-insured companies to make their own claims decisions, also creating good family-wage jobs manufacturing rubber stamps that read: "Denied!"

SB 6394 is a "compromise-and-release" bill allowing the negotiation of final settlements to injured workers rather than ongoing benefits. The obvious goal is to reduce costs (read: injured workers' benefits) by dangling a big check in front of an injured worker desperate to pay bills because he or she can't work. That creates obvious concerns about whether these settlements are in their best long-term interest.

SB 6391 tries to apply the well-marketed Priorities of Government budgeting approach to L&I operations, requiring annual assessments of agency priorities and internal efficiency reports. Some lawmakers have no problem mandating more annual reports from underfunded, understaffed state agencies, but when it comes to asking private businesses to report what jobs they create with public subsidies, it's called "burdensome paperwork."

SB 5378, which passed the Senate on party lines last year and died in the House, would impose four-quarter averaging (across-the-board cuts) in the calculation of benefits, similar to what was done with unemployment benefits last year. This would especially cut benefits for workers in the most dangerous occupations: agriculture and construction.

Keep it real on R&D tax break accountability

The House Finance Committee on Friday passed HB 2546, extending research-and-development tax breaks to high-tech businesses, but amended the bill adding real accountability and disclosure language. Now the question is, will that amendment survive a House floor vote?

Floor action could happen at any time on the amended bill, which was approved on a party-line vote in committee. The measure requires companies utilizing the tax break to report employment levels and salary ranges, and for that information to be made public so taxpayers know who gets them and can decide whether they think the public subsidies are worth it.

Rep. Ross Hunter (D-Bellevue), who spent 17 years in management at Microsoft, called the amendment a "reasonable approach" to making sure the R&D breaks work.

But Republicans on the committee called the reporting requirements a Job-Killer™, creating "burdensome paperwork" for companies. They sought to change the bill to make it conform with the Senate version, SB 6239, as amended and passed by the Ways and Means Committee on Thursday. That version would require recipients to fill out a survey that may include information about job creation and wage levels, but that information would not be public. A legislative panel (as opposed to the Department of Revenue) would analyze those surveys and report on the break's effectiveness... IN 2013!

Why would we inject partisan politics into this analysis? And why would we wait a decade to see if we're getting any bang for hundreds of millions of our bucks?

All Republicans on the Senate committee supported this weak excuse for tax break accountability, as did Democratic Sens. Mark Doumit (D-Cathlamet) and Marilyn Rasmussen (D-Eatonville). Though the majority of Democrats on that panel opposed the measure, Republicans have officially stamped this measure as having "bipartisan support."

Back in the House, all Finance Committee Democrats supported the strong accountability amendment offered by chair Rep. Jim McIntire (D-Seattle), but Rep. Jeff Morris (D-Anacortes) expressed "great reluctance." He said he wanted to pass the bill extending the tax break without the amendment, but was urged by high-tech lobbyists to vote for it anyway, just so HB 2546 won't get bottled up in committee.

In other words, those high-tech lobbyists are hoping to nix the accountability amendment during House floor action.

CALL TO ACTION: Please call the Legislative Hotline RIGHT NOW at 1-800-562-6000 (because House floor action could happen at any time). Leave a message for your State Representatives to keep the McIntire accountability language in HB 2546, or refuse to pass it.

See you at Friday's building trades rally!

The Washington State Building and Construction Trades Council has scheduled a "Respect Working Families" labor rally and march from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. this Friday, Jan. 30 near the Capitol Building in Olympia. Participants are urged to visit their legislators afterwards.

Speakers on the tentative agenda include Sen. Patty Murray, Rep. Adam Smith, plus many legislative and labor leaders.

Buses are being chartered from across the state. For more information, contact the BCTC at (360) 357-6778. See you there!

PREVIOUS EDITIONS of the 2004 WSLC Legislative Update:

Jan. 22 -- We're No. 1, which doesn't "suck" (min. wage, R&D tax breaks, apprenticeship)
Jan. 16 -- R&D needs Reporting & Disclosure (plus workers' comp, health care, and home care)