News for the week of January 26-30, 1998If you have news related to the labor movement in Washington state that you would like to share via WSLC Reports Today, we encourage you to submit it by e-mail, by fax (206-285-5805) or by phone (206-281-8901)
News for the week of January 26-30, 1998Friday, 1/30/98 — Minimum
wage increase gets a hearing and an initiative number
Thursday, 1/29/98 — Trumka to lead march to reclaim Frontier hotel
in Las Vegas
Wednesday, 1/28/98 — AFL-CIO
polls members, public; drafts Working Families Agenda for 1998
Tuesday, 1/27/98 — Supreme
Court lets temp worker decision stand against Microsoft
Monday, 1/26/98 — Charlie King to perform benefit concerts in
Everett and Seattle
News from previous weeks:
January 19-23, 1998 — January 12-16, 1998 — January 5-9, 1998 — December 15-19, 1997
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Minimum wage increase gets a hearing and an initiative number
On Wednesday, Feb. 4 at 1:30 p.m., the Washington State Senate Commerce and Labor Committee will hold a hearing on SB 6577, a bill to raise the state minimum wage in two steps to $6.50 an hour and then index that wage to the rate of inflation. Union members and community activists are encouraged to attend and show their support for raising the minimum wage.
But just in case the Republican-controlled Legislature doesn't pass SB 6577, language for the initiative to accomplish the same increase was approved by the Secretary of State this week. The Paycheck Protection Act will be Initiative 688.
Petition printing will commence next week. Contributions to the initiative campaign and petition requests can be sent to the Paycheck Protection Coalition, P.O. Box 19207, Seattle, WA, 98109.
Trumka to lead march to reclaim Frontier hotel in Las Vegas
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard L. Trumka will help lead an expected 8,000 workers and their families down the Las Vegas Strip to the doors of the Frontier hotel Saturday, Jan 31, marking the end of the longest strike in recent history.
For six years, four months and 10 days, the Frontier's 550 employees struck, without one worker crossing the picket line. Last fall the hotel was sold to Phillip Ruffin, an investor who quickly agreed to contracts with the workers. The sale becomes final at 12:01 a.m. Sunday.
The strike by five unions, including the Hotel and Restaurant Employees, was an early symbol of the newfound momentum of unions in the 1990s. Frontier workers walked off the job when the hotel eliminated worker pension plans, slashed wages, cut health benefits and gutted job security protections. When strikers return to the New Frontier Hotel, they will have won improvements in each area.
"We're not just celebrating the a win at Frontier, we're pointing to what can be the future of working families in cities around the country," Trumka said. "The Frontier shows that when workers and communities fight together, the fight is easier and the wins are bigger."
In Las Vegas, the community rallied with the workers. A local businessman made daily food deliveries to strikers every day of the walkout. Elected leaders, including the governor, backed the workers. The walkout is part of a bigger picture in Las Vegas where unions helped build a middle class of service workers and where employees in construction, health care and other industries have begun large, multi-union campaigns to spread better living standards.
AFL-CIO polls members, public; drafts Working Families Agenda for 1998
After conducting in-depth national polling to assess the mood and views of working families — both union and non-union — the national AFL-CIO this week has outlined a legislative agenda for 1998 that "reflects American working families' needs, values and expectations," said President John Sweeney.
The polling has confirmed that "some of the benefits of the booming economy are finally beginning to end up in family pocketbooks and that overall, Americans are more positive about the economic situation than in the past several years," said Sweeney. "But we're also hearing that too many families are being left behind. Too many have neither time nor money and their still struggling to pay their bills and worrying about wages and savings rising too slowly while their debts are rising too fast."
The following is an outline of the AFL-CIO's Working Families Agenda for 1998:
1. Make health care affordable and increase health care quality. Despite decreasing unemployment, the number of uninsured Americans is increasing. The AFL-CIO supports incremental measures to improve coverage like last year's child health initiative and the new proposal that certain retirees under 65 be allowed to enroll in Medicare by paying the full cost themselves. But unless steps are taken to shore up employment-based coverage, such incremental gains will be far outweighed by the continued erosion of workplace health benefits. The AFL-CIO will support a measure being drafted by Sen. Kennedy that would require large and medium-sized employers — those with 50 or more workers, for instance — to pay at least 75 percent of the family health premium for all workers. It will also support meaures in Congress and state legislatures to make basic consumer health care rights like physician choice and complete disclosure of health care options a matter of law.
2. Strengthen Social Security and expand pension coverage. Because of declining participation in and availability of private pension plans, Social Security has increasingly become the foundation of retirement security for Americans. It simply must be strengthened so all future generations know it will be there for them. In 1998, the AFL-CIO will work with employers, retiree organizations, policy advocates, and the Social Security Administration on educating and involving working Americans and retirees in a discussion of how to accomplish this. And in 1999, it will be prepared to support specific legislation with a national campaign. In addition, the AFL-CIO will support a variety of initiatives to protect pensions and make them more portable.
3. On wages: Ensure equal pay for women, raise the minimum wage and fight for fair wages and benefits for part-time workers. In 1998, the AFL-CIO will support grassroots education and action work that builds support for equal pay for women, including co-sponsoring nationwide Equal Pay Day actions on April 3, supporting state initiatives to strengthen equal pay statutes, and persuading Congress to increase penalties for employers that violate equal pay laws. The AFL-CIO will also work to make the minimum wage a genuine minimum income. And it will also work to secure fair wages and benefits for the 30 percent of the workforce that is in some form of non-standard work arrangement — the largest group being part-timers.
4. Restore workers' right to organize unions and improve their lives. This point can easily be considered the key to all the others because through unions, working families do better economically, have better health care and pension coverage, and have equal rights and a real voice on the job. But corporations have effectively stripped workers of their ability to bargain for a fair share of the results of their productivity by systematically opposing unions. In 1998, the AFL-CIO will lead a nationwide education and accountability campaign that explains what unions mean to workers, as well as the extent of corporate interference in workers' free choice to join together and improve their lives.
Supreme Court lets temp worker decision stand against Microsoft
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to consider an important appeals court decision that temporary workers at Microsoft who performed the same work as "regular" employees should have received the same benefits, including the company's lucrative stock purchase plan.
The high court's inaction has reaffirmed "the proposition that you really are what you are, not what you're called," said Seattle attorney David Slobaugh, who helped represent the plaintiffs. Chris Cameron, a law professor at Southwestern University in Los Angeles said the case has huge implications because "this is Microsoft, a symbol of the new American economy... It symbolizes not only the future of American business, but perhaps also the future of how American business is going to manage its workers."
"This is a very important precedent for the growing contingent workforce in this country," said Robby Stern, a lobbyist for the WSLC who is also an attorney. "I think there wasn't an overwhelming amount of public sympathy for these workers because, even without those benefits, they were at the higher end of the wage scale. But regardless, the company should not be able to simply call a worker something else to avoid paying benefits. This is a crucial decision for all temporary workers and a wake-up call for employers who are exploiting this workforce simply to cut labor costs."
A U.S. Court of Appeals decision last July found that Microsoft's agreements with employees acknowledging that they are not "employees" and don't get certain benefits are irrelevant. The Redmond-based software giant had some of its workers sign agreements that they were "independent contractors," and therefore not eligible for certain rights and benefits. But in fact, these workers did the same work on the same schedule as regular employees. The only difference is that they were denied overtime pay and certain benefits. The court has now ruled that not only are these workers due their overtime pay, they deserve the same benefits (like stock options) that other employees received.
The eventual settlement, affecting at least 1,000 workers, could be relatively small if the company is only forced to pay the dollar value of the 15 percent discount on stock it offers employees, or it could be monstrous if the court assumes these misclassified workers would have purchased all the stock available and held those shares until today. Every dollar the plaintiffs would have invested back in 1988 would be worth about $45 today.
Charlie King to perform benefit concerts in Everett and Seattle
Union members (and everyone else) are encouraged to bring their families to see Charlie King, a voice for our times, as he performs two benefits concerts this week in Everett and Seattle to benefit some very worthy causes.
First, he will appear at the Everett Labor Temple, 2812 Lombard, at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 28. Tickets at the door are $7, and may be purchased in advance for $5 by calling 425-259-7922. The concert will benefit Operation Shortfall, the labor council sponsored fund to assist food banks throughout Snohomish County.
Friday night, Jan. 30 at 7 p.m. he will again appear at the Seattle Labor Temple, 2800 1st Ave., along with the Seattle Labor Chorus. Tickets are $12 at the door and $10 in advance (available at the King County Labor Agency in the Labor Temple, Left Bank Books at 92 Pike St., and Red & Black Books, 432 15th Ave. East.) This concert will benefit the Nonviolent Action Community of Cascadia and the King County Labor Agency.
If you have a news item regarding unions in Washington state that you would like to have posted on WSLC OnLine, please e-mail or fax a news release to (206) 285-5805.
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