WSLC Legislative Update -- February 3, 2003

ACTION ALERT

We've just learned that SB 5161, the ergonomics repeal bill, is scheduled for Senate floor action on Wednesday. Please call the Legislative Hotline: 1-800-562-6000 and tell your Senator to Vote NO on SB 5161. "Leggo Our Ergo and leave this important workplace safety rule as it is."

These calls are of particular importance to those of you who live in the districts of the following Senators: Mark Doumit (D-19th), Jim Hargrove (D-24th), Mary Margaret Haugen (D-10th), Rosemary McAuliffe (D-1st), and Marilyn Rasmussen (D-2nd).

In 1998, the experts were saying Washington’s economy had never been stronger or more stable, having diversified into high-tech and other industries enough that the cyclical fortunes of Boeing no longer held sway. Unemployment and inflation were low, and businesses were thriving. State revenues generated a huge budget surplus.

The Washington State Labor Council’s agenda in Olympia that year—to raise the state minimum wage, among other things—fell under the theme “Now is the Time.” As in, now is the time to ensure the working poor don’t get left behind.

Five years later, everything has turned upside down. A national recession has generated high unemployment and our state faces a major revenue shortfall. And now, it’s business groups’ turn to proclaim “Now is the Time.” As in, now is the time to leave the working poor behind.

Within Olympia's insular confines, where state government deserves credit or blame for everything that happens, some lawmakers point to the recession's damage and proclaim it to be evidence of an anti-business environment in Washington. And they say they know how to fix that for us.

Last week’s solution was to compensate people with less money when they can no longer provide for their families because of a work-related injury or illness. This week, the solution will be to allow employers to pay Washington’s lowest-paid workers even less money.

The Senate Commerce and Trade (But Not Labor) Committee heard bills last week requested by the Department of Labor & Industries and the business community. These bills cut workers’ compensation benefits and are opposed by the Washington State Labor Council.

SB 5323 would cut benefits for workers in families with more than one child, would ignore the value of employer pension and health care contributions as part of the injured worker's compensation package, and would classify many agriculture and construction workers as seasonal or intermittent workers. SB 5271 would exclude many victims of work-related hearing loss from receiving permanent partial disability awards.

While the WSLC opposes these bills, we are encouraged that new L&I Director Paul Trause says they should be considered a “starting-off point” and that he still seeks legislation that will be acceptable to labor and business.

Such a compromise may prove difficult given what business groups appear to consider “acceptable.” L&I’s benefit-cutting strategy was outflanked last week by the business-backed SB 5378, which would fundamentally change how injured worker benefits are calculated, cutting them even more dramatically than L&I would.

Interestingly, unlike the L&I bills, business-backed SB 5378 contains a so-called “emergency clause” that, if passed, would make it immune from an initiative challenge similar to last year’s gutting of unemployment insurance reforms by the building industry. The apparent lesson learned: If it’s unpopular or complicated, it must be an emergency!

This week, corporate lobbyists will proclaim now is also the time to end our state’s minimum wage law as established by Initiative 688. By a two-to-one margin—surpassing all of Tim Eyman’s subsequent tax-cutting “mandates”—voters decided in 1998 to take the politics out of the minimum wage and grant annual increases that adjust for inflation.

Now, the politics are back as “competagogues” say times have changed and we can’t afford to give raises to our state’s lowest-paid workers. They even suggest that voters wouldn’t approve the minimum-wage initiative today because we all recognize that Washington isn’t competitive enough. (Didn’t you get that memo?)

On Wednesday at 8 a.m., there will be a joint minimum wage work session of the House Commerce & Labor and the Senate Anything-But-Labor committees. The Economic Opportunity Institute will present its new study of our indexed minimum wage and its economic impact. The study says the law is working as intended; it is significantly raising incomes among the working poor and having no measurable impact in terms of inflation or job loss. But you can also expect economists to be on hand Wednesday who will blame our minimum wage law for high unemployment in this state.

On Thursday at 8 a.m., the Senate We-Don’t-Need-No-Stinking-Labor Committee will hear SB 5283 which would create a new sub-minimum “training wage”—80% of the regular minimum wage—for 16- and 17-year-olds and for everybody else in their first 120 days of employment. This ill-advised bill would create a strong economic incentive to replace older workers, many of whom are trying to support families, with teenagers. Plus, it would invite employers to churn through hires every 120 days to make sure they have plenty of “trainees."

Also scheduled to be heard: SB 5013 to freeze our state minimum wage from further increases until the compassionate conservatives in Washington D.C. raise the federal minimum wage (still mired at $5.15 an hour); a bill restricting the minimum wage from inflationary adjustments unless the state unemployment rate is less than the national unemployment rate; and a bill allowing employers to deduct from the minimum wage "the reasonable cost" of employer-provided board, lodging or employer facilities. And, oh yeah, that bill also has a 90-day 75% "training" minimum wage.

The WSLC will aggressively defend our state’s popular minimum wage law from these attacks.

And again, we will try to convince the business community to stop blaming government for our economic problems. ("Those damn government regulators didn't protect Corporate America from the accounting evildoers!") Instead, let’s work together to make Washington an even better place to do business, without making it a worse place to live and work.

HB 1214, the bill to save money by consolidating state prescription drug purchasing, is expected to see floor action in the House this week, perhaps on Friday. A celebration is tentatively planned that involves a one-layer cake. When the bill passes the Senate and is signed by the governor, cakes with second and third layers will be consumed.

As the measure moves along, it is essential that it retain the language allowing the uninsured, underinsured and private plans to join in the state’s buying consortium. That way more people can share in, and increase, the savings.

On behalf of the many seniors and working families who lack or can’t afford prescription drugs they desperately need—in the words of a famous French compassionate conservative—we ask legislators to “let them eat cake!”

Last week, an effort was made during consideration of the 2001-2003 supplemental budget to pass an amendment in the Senate that provides funding for the home-care workers contract recently negotiated with the state. The amendment failed on a 23-26 vote with all Republicans except Sen. Shirley Winsley (R-Fircrest) voting “no,” and all Democrats except Sens. Tim Sheldon (“D”-Potlatch) and Ken Jacobsen (D-Seattle) voting "yes."

The issue is far from decided though, as legislators will again consider during negotiations for the biennial budget later this session whether to fund the contract.

The governor has proposed legislation to allow Tax Increment Financing Districts in this state. TIFs are a tool the government uses to encourage development in communities where it might not otherwise happen by establishing districts that redirect newly generated property and sales tax revenues from local government and keep it in the district. In other words, you get a tax break to create a new business there.

TIFs have proliferated nationwide over the last decade, sometimes with beneficial results. Other times they have led to significant gentrification, lower tax bases for school districts, and “retail raiding” where stores simply close and move into a TIF to gain a competitive advantage.

The WSLC is pressing for public disclosure and accountability. We believe there should be public hearings before TIF districts are created, annual reporting of revenue and expenditures, disclosure language so people know what kind of jobs are being created, and “clawback” language that will enable communities to get their tax money back if businesses don’t live up to basic standards of the agreement.

TUESDAY—Senate Health Care at 1:30 p.m. will hear SB 5419 expanding the restriction on mandatory overtime for health care workers to include state agencies.

WEDNESDAY—House Higher Education at 1:30 p.m. will hear HB 1079 allowing in-state tuition for immigrants who graduate high school in state and have resided here for three years; and Senate Highway and Transportation at 3:30 p.m. will hear SB 5537 to require a Sound Transit revote and SB 5538 to change its board composition (the WSLC is opposed to both bills).