WSLC Legislative Update -- February 27, 2004

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

March 5 UPDATE -- WSLC opposes Senate promotion of Health Care Lite™
March 4 UPDATE -- Urge legislators to lower state workers' health costs
March 3 UPDATE -- Tell Senators to vote NO on worker blacklisting bill

Next full Update: Monday, March 8 (Friday, March 5 is a bill cutoff date.)
Check the status of labor-related bills on the WSLC Legislative Tracker™.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27 (PDF version)
House Democrats come through
Their budget superior to Senate's, but good home-care news in both

As expected, both houses of the legislature introduced and passed no-new-tax budget proposals this week. The WSLC continues to be alarmed at the growth of business tax incentives that lack sufficient accountability to taxpayers, even as important services go unfunded or under-funded.

But that being said, the House Democrats approved a budget that is vastly superior to those of both the governor and the Senate Republicans. (But to be fair -- which we always are -- legislators had a bit more revenue to work with than Governor Locke did when his proposal was announced.)

Here's a brief summary of the supplemental budget proposals that legislative leaders will now try to reconcile:

HOME-CARE WORKERS: The best budget news is that it appears state home-care workers will finally get their historic first contract approved.

House Speaker Frank Chopp (D-Seattle) announced at the beginning of the session that funding the scaled-back home-care contract was one of his top priorities, which he demonstrated by quickly moving the contract-funding HB 1777 which passed 57-40 way back on Jan. 28. Chopp, a longtime advocate for home-care issues inside and outside of Olympia, followed through by ensuring its full funding was in the final budget approved by all House Democrats this week. Also deserving credit for their leadership on this issue were Reps. Bill Fromhold (D-Vancouver), Steve Conway (D-Tacoma) and Dawn Morrell (D-Puyallup).

The Senate Republicans' budget also included full funding of the contract, although it appears they do not plan to vote on SB 1777 so we can learn specifically who supported it. Senate Ways and Means Chairman Joe Zarelli (R-Ridgefield), Majority Leader Bill Finkbeiner (R-Kirkland) and Floor Leader Luke Esser (R-Bellevue) all deserve thanks for their leadership in funding the contract. The Senate budget also included funding of agency home-care workers' raises which was not fully covered in the House budget. However, there appears to be support among House Democrats for adding this approximately $300,000 item to the final budget; we hope that happens.

STATE EMPLOYEES: It wasn't realistic in this supplemental budget year to seek wage increases for state employees and teachers whose pay was frozen in last year's awful biennial budget. But we did look to lawmakers to mitigate the damage done in terms of health care benefit cuts as best they could with the additional revenue they had to work with.

House Democrats did this admirably. Their budget would lower state employees' average monthly premiums by $14 to $65 a month, while Senate Republicans would raise their average premiums $28 up to $107 a month. Locke's budget pegged average monthly premiums at $100. The WSLC acknowledges Speaker Chopp, Appropriations Chair Helen Sommers (D-Seattle) and Vice Chair Bill Fromhold for their leadership in the House on this issue.

We urge all union members and community supporters to call the Legislative Hotline at 1-800-562-6000 and urge their Senators and Representatives to maintain the House budget's funding of affordable health care benefits for state employees in the final budget. (Take Action right now to send an e-mail to your legislators on this issue.)

AGENCY OUTSOURCING: House Democrats amended their budget to include funding for a comprehensive new study on offshore outsourcing by state agencies. Approved on a voice vote, this is an important and welcome step toward seeking restrictions on the use of taxpayer money to create jobs overseas. It appears that HB 3187, the bill that would have established such restrictions, will have to wait until a future session when more information on the extent of this deplorable practice is available.

HEALTH CARE: House Health Care Chair Eileen Cody (D-Seattle) revived another critical issue by successfully sponsoring an amendment for another important study. This one relates to HB 2785, the Health Care for Washington’s Workers bill, which would have required large employers like Wal-Mart that don't offer affordable health care to pay a fee to the state's Basic Health Plan. Apparently, there wasn't enough support for that bill this session without more information. So this study, now funded in the House budget, would help paint a clearer picture of the extent to which Washington taxpayers and businesses that DO provide good health benefits are subsidizing the employers/competitors that don't.

Apprenticeship utilization gets the high-hat

It was déjà vu all over again in Sen. Jim Honeyford's (R-Sunnyside) Commerce and Trade But Not Labor Committee today. The bill codifying current apprenticeship utilization standards for major public works projects was supposed to get a hearing, but didn't and died.

Back on Feb. 6, the first cutoff day for that committee, building trades representatives were told the Senate version of that bill, sponsored by Sen. Pam Roach (R-Auburn), would get a hearing. Didn't happen.

HB 2439, the version sponsored by Rep. Steve Conway (D-Tacoma) that passed the House on a 54-44 vote, was on today's agenda for a Senate CTBNL hearing. But again, it didn't happen. And because today is the cutoff for House bills in that committee, the bill is dead unless extraordinary (and unexpected) steps are taken to revive it. So, at a time when lawmakers on both sides of the aisle talk about the importance of and need for job training, Sen. Honeyford has once again killed an opportunity to promote the best job-training program there is.

There is some good news on apprenticeship though. HB 3045, known as the Hats 'n' Boots bill, has passed out of Senate Ways and Means Committee and could be voted upon at any time. This bill would order the state Department of Natural Resources to swap some common-trust timber lands near the famous Georgetown-area hat-'n'-boots structure (which was recently been moved) with the South Seattle Community College so the school can expand its facility there into a world-class apprenticeship and manufacturing training center. This WSLC-supported bill passed the House on Feb. 13 on a 95-1 vote. (It was Rep. Richard DeBolt (R-Chehalis) and we don't know why.)

We urge Senate passage of HB 3045.

Farm worker testing revisited... again

In its Rios decision, Washington's Supreme Court ruled that it is both necessary and feasible for the state to begin mandatory medical monitoring of farm workers exposed to toxic pesticides. Last year, stakeholders reached an agreement on how to get moving with this important testing. That labor-grower-legislative agreement was signed by the WSLC, the United Farm Workers, the state Growers League, the state Potato Commission, and Reps. Bill Grant (D-Walla Walla), Steve Conway (D-Tacoma) and Phyllis Gutierrez Kenney (D-Seattle).

This year, the agriculture community is having second thoughts. They pushed SB 6599, which not only violates that agreement, it questions the very validity of testing workers who spray the most poisonous, toxic chemicals on the planet. The bill passed the Republican-controlled Senate and was heard Thursday in the House Commerce and Labor Committee. Rep. Conway, the committee chair, opposed the bill but agreed to pass from committee a "title-only bill" that keeps the issue alive in case legitimate disagreements can be resolved.

The WSLC strongly opposed SB 6599 and expects all parties to live up to last year's agreement. But that said, we recognize that not enough money was put into last year's budget proviso to cover the costs of medical exams and laboratory analysis, so we supported the inclusion of some funds in this year's Senate budget to remedy this. (To be clear, we did not support parts of that Senate budget proviso that implement aspects of SB 6599.)

WSLC Legislative Update updates

Here are a couple updates on issues previously detailed in WSLC Legislative Update or at our award-winning website:

EMPLOYEE REFERENCES: ESHB 2779 is the bill granting employers legal immunity when they give negative job "references" unless the information they give out to other employers is knowingly false or misleading. As we feared, Senate Republicans have responded to requests by business lobbyists to remove important language in that bill protecting "lawful" activities by workers. That language, which protects workers from being blacklisted for things like union activism and taking family leave, was stripped out of the bill today in the Senate Commerce and Trade But Not Labor Committee.

Barring a successful effort by Senate Democrats to restore that language or some acceptable substitute during floor action, we urge all Senators to vote against ESHB 2779. Call 1-800-562-6000 and ask your Senator to vote No!

HOME CARE "INTEREST ARBITRATION:" Last week, we alerted folks to an impending effort in the Senate to hang an unfriendly amendment onto HB 2933, an SEIU-supported bill that unanimously passed the State House making common sense technical changes to improve the bargaining process. The labor-opposed amendment would have eliminated home care workers' right to "interest arbitration." Thanks to your phone calls and e-mails, and thanks to pressure from Senate Democratic leaders and some welcome intervention by Sens. Shirley Winsley (R-Fircrest) and Pam Roach (R-Auburn), that effort was quashed and the bill passed Wednesday on another unanimous vote without the unfriendly amendment.

Get updates on our Update's updates

The WSLC's award-winning website now has a Legislative Tracker page where you can check the current status of these and other bills. Things may have changed since this Update was written. In fact, things may have changed since that last sentence was written. Check out the Tracker at www.wslc.org/legis/tracker.htm.

PREVIOUS EDITIONS of the 2004 WSLC Legislative Update:

Feb. 23 -- Mad kowtow (workers' comp, outsourcing, employee references, home care)
Feb. 13 -- Outsourcing: Let's vote on it! (EFCA, workers' comp, charter schools)
Feb. 6 -- The politics of workers' comp (R&D and TIFs, genetic testing, living wage ordinances)
Jan. 27 -- We pay for Wal-Mart greed -- always (health care, workers' comp, R&D tax breaks)
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)