WSLC Legislative Update -- April 18, 2005

WSLC Legislative Tracker™

The award-winning website of the Washington State Labor Council includes the WSLC Legislative Tracker™. Check it out at www.wslc.org/legis/tracker.htm. That's where you'll find up-to-the-moment-we-get-to-it status reports on many key working families bills before the 2005 legislature.

Senate Democrats faced down a flurry of Republican procedural attacks, business-climate-is-falling hyperbole -- and hunger -- to pass EHB 2255, regarding Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits, on a 25-20 party-line vote Friday. On behalf of all people who lose their jobs through no fault of their own, the Washington State Labor Council thanks the State Senators who voted for this important bill. (See last week's Update for a detailed bill description.)

Special thanks go to the leaders who ushered this measure through, including Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown (D-Spokane), Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle) and Sen. Mark Doumit (D-Longview), and to Sen. Phil Rockefeller (D-Bainbridge Island), who offered an especially eloquent defense of the bill during floor debate.

Sponsored by Rep. Steve Conway (D-Tacoma) and strongly supported by House Speaker Frank Chopp (D-Seattle), EHB 2255 is backed by labor, The Boeing Company, and ultimately by some agricultural and food processing interests. The latter were swayed by the late inclusion of UI tax savings targeted to industries hardest hit by the state drought. And yet despite this broad support, Republican senators stuck to their 2003 script that, although this bill won't cost businesses or the UI Trust Fund a penny, it is a devastating setback for the state's business climate.

The GOP attempted a number of procedural challenges to block the bill, including one that took more than an hour to rule upon, delaying the normal lunch hour. By the time a final passage vote occurred, a few Republicans saw the writing on the wall and had already skipped out to lunch anyway.

Among the other motions offered by GOP senators was a gem from Sen. Jim Honeyford (R-Sunnyside), who asked that the bill's title be changed to the "Boeing Fix Bill." Lt. Gov. Brad Owen, who was presiding over the proceedings, asked Honeyford to clarify whether or not he was kidding (he wasn't), and a party-line vote ensued to reject the motion.

But the gold medal in the 2005 Hyperbolympics™ goes to Rep. John Ahern, who was quoted in Sunday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer as saying this about EHB 2255: "Listen to that giant sucking sound of business going across the border to Idaho, Oregon or Montana. This is not just a nail in the coffin of business. This is taking a sledgehammer and pounding a railroad spike into that coffin."

With this medal-winning effort, Rep. Ahern drives a spike into the coffin of "we suck" business-climate rhetoric, which is now so universally exaggerated from his side of the aisle that it has become virtually devoid of meaning.

EHB 2255 moves back to the House of Representatives for concurrence, possibly as soon as today, and then to Gov. Christine Gregoire for signature. We hope this emergency measure is expedited to grant some relief to unemployed workers as quickly as possible.

In hearings earlier this session regarding the workers' compensation Retrospective Rating Program, business lobbying group after business lobbying group testified about the value of the program. It's not hard to see why. Their member businesses get hundreds of millions of dollars in Retro payments every year, and the lobbying groups themselves net millions in fees above and beyond the cost of administering the program. That's one valuable program, all right.

Bills limiting those fees or restricting how they are spent died this session after being labeled "partisan political payback." Disturbingly, because the Retro campaign largess goes almost exclusively to one party, the ensuing partisan stench has somehow rendered off limits any real discussion of Retro fees and their use.

But those bills' failures and all this talk of politics have clouded fundamental questions -- like whether the program even works in reducing injuries and saving the system money. We know it works for the lobbyists. But we can't just take the word of those with a huge financial stake in growing this program, can we?

That's why there is an effort in the budget negotiations happening before adjournment this week to include a proviso for a study of the Retro program. This deserves support from legislators of both parties who have agreed to improve government accountability through various audits. The Retro program should not be exempted from similar scrutiny.

This is the only state in the entire nation where workers pay a share of workers' compensation premiums. The only one. More than any other state, workers have a vested interest in making sure the system works for them, and not just for corporate special interests with influence in Olympia.

A simple study of the Retro program is not too much for a stakeholder to ask, is it? Or has this program become so politically insulated by the campaign money it generates that we aren't even allowed to look at it?

Speaking of things worth studying, the legislature is very close to approving an important labor-supported study of offshore outsourcing.

Legislation prohibiting or restricting state agencies from entering into such contracts has been introduced in Washington and 31 other states. But those bills have died here as legislators debate the extent of the problem, and whether it even is a problem.

Business lobbyists continue to argue that offshore outsourcing of state services is a good thing. If you can save money and do things cheaper overseas, they say do it.

Organized labor finds abhorrent the idea that taxpayers' money is creating jobs overseas when they could be creating good jobs right here in Washington state, or at least in the United States. We support a ban on such offshoring, but it doesn't look like legislators are prepared to go there.

So, again, let's answer a few basic questions: To what extent are state contracts being "offshored?" Are we really saving money by doing so? Would there be an economic benefit to keeping those contracts here in Washington? And even if we want to create restrictions on this practice, are we limited by free-trade agreements?

A task force would seek to answer these questions under the House-approved EHCR 4405, sponsored by Rep. Zack Hudgins (D-Tukwila); and SCR 8407, sponsored by Sen. Paull Shin (D-Edmonds), now before the Senate. These resolutions are not subject to the cutoff deadlines, and therefore are eligible for passage right up to the closing gavel.

We urge the Senate to take up this important issue before adjournment and, if necessary, for the House to concur. This is an issue of great concern to many working people, especially engineers, technical and computer workers who have watched their jobs disappear from Washington.

The final bill taken up by the State Senate before last Friday's 5 p.m. cutoff deadline was one sought for years by Brother Joe Murphy, the senior WSLC Vice President who we lost last year when his airplane went down in Alaska. And Joe would be proud to know it finally passed, on a 30-16 vote, and is headed to the governor's desk to become law.

HB 1557 adds an outside lineman to the State Electrical Board, which advises the Department of Labor and Industries on establishing and enforcing standards for electrical and telecommunications installation.

Although there are electricians who serve on the board, none are outside linemen. Board membership is currently nine to four in favor of management, so adding an outside lineman not only brings unique expertise and perspective to the table, it would be a small step toward balancing board membership a bit more.

Lacking the controversy of, say, stem-cell research or gay rights, you'd think the State Senate would have wrapped up floor action pretty quickly with HB 1577. You'd be wrong. Sen. Jim Honeyford (R-Sunnyside) was in no hurry to get home Friday night, so he introduced no fewer than 43 floor amendments to the bill, most attempting to add another management member to the board.

The WSLC thanks the State Senate who voted for HB 1577 for their support -- and their patience. Bob Guenther, President of the Thurston-Lewis Counties Labor Council, also deserves thanks for effectively educating legislators on this issue on behalf of IBEW 77.

The WSLC is pleased there has been support this session for fixing a technical error that occurred with the passage of the Family Care Act three years ago. That measure guarantees that workers have the right to use their sick leave or other paid leave to care for certain ailing family members, if necessary. It passed in 2002 with broad bipartisan support, 96-0 in the House and 38-10 in the Senate (then-Sen. Dino "I-Can-Take-Or-Leave-Politics" Rossi was one of the 10 who refused to take this labor-voting-record gimmie.)

But a problem arose when certain workers -- including fire fighters covered under LEOFF 1 -- were being denied this leave because instead of offering "sick leave," their employers offered "short-term disability leave."

Sponsored by Sen. Harriet Spanel (D-Bellingham), SB 5850 eliminates the ability of employers to bar workers from the right to family care in such a way, provided their disability leave policy is not a purchased insurance product and provided they don't have an additional sick leave benefit.

The bill has now passed the Senate and House, but requires concurrence in the Senate. We look forward to that happening.