Are you interested in turning your union into a powerful political force?  You should be.  Important worker rights and standards are under attack and can be lost with the stroke of a pen in Washington D.C. and Olympia.  Union members must pool their resources, and strive to ensure friends of working people are elected to public office in those two cities -- and every county and town in this state.

Find out how your union organization can succeed in "Developing Powerful Political Programs and Membership Activism" at the Washington State Labor Council's 2001 Political Action Conference scheduled for Friday and Saturday, Nov. 16-17 at the IAM District 751 Hall, 9125 15th Place S. in Seattle.

Local union officers, staff and rank-and-file activists are all invited -- and encouraged -- to participate in this important two-day conference exploring strategies to develop more effective political programs within organized labor.  The facilitators will be Murray Fishel, a nationally known political consultant with Grassroots Political Campaigns; Dave Gregory, AFL-CIO Regional Political Director; Diane McDaniel, WSLC Political Director; Karen Keiser, WSLC Communications Director (and State Representative); and D. Nolan Groves™, WSLC Publications Director and Webmaster.

Sessions will begin at 10 a.m. each day, with registration starting at 9 a.m. on Friday.  The cost, which includes materials and lunch on both days, is $40 per person.  To register, download and print the registration form (in Microsoft Word), fill it out and mail it to the WSLC with your registration fee.  If you would like a registration form faxed or mailed to you, call 206-281-8901.

The U.S. House of Representatives is very close to voting on whether to grant President Bush the Fast Track trade negotiating authority twice previously denied to President Clinton.  But this time, the White House has used the terrorism crisis as a reason to pass this measure aggressively opposed by organized labor, the environmental community and the American public, according to polls.

UPDATE: The House of Representatives and other congressional offices announced Wednesday they would close for five days for a "sweep" testing for anthrax spores.  So, although the story below says a vote could happen as soon as Friday, next week would be the soonest it could be voted upon.

Fast Track allows the president to negotiate trade agreements that Congress can approve or reject but cannot amend.  The AFL-CIO is asking all union members to call their congressional representatives to urge their opposition to H.R. 3005.  Click here for more information.

In today's New York Times story, "Labor leaders say trade bill threatens bipartisanship" by Steven Greenhouse, Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey said the Fast Track bill could come up for a floor vote as soon as Friday.  Here is that story:

WASHINGTON — Union leaders warned today that Congressional bipartisanship, already strained, could fall apart if the Bush administration and House Republican leaders pressed ahead with a trade promotion bill vigorously opposed by labor.

The labor leaders asserted that the administration was unfairly seizing on the crisis created by the Sept. 11 attacks to rally support for trade legislation that labor has repeatedly opposed in recent years.

Representative Dick Armey, the House majority leader, said today that the trade bill might come up for a House vote as early as Friday. Mr. Armey, Republican of Texas, voiced confidence that the House would approve the bill, which is intended to make it easier for the president to negotiate trade deals, but labor leaders predicted that they could defeat the legislation.

"They'd be making a big mistake if they push now on this because of what that would do to the bipartisan spirit," said the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s president, John J. Sweeney. "We will have to move as aggressively as we have in the past to oppose this."

The Bush administration has made the trade bill a top economic priority, saying that it is needed to lift the nation's sagging economy. But union leaders warn that the bill could speed the exodus of American jobs to low-wage countries overseas.

The legislation would make it easier for the president to negotiate trade deals, putting them on a "fast track," because it would bar Congress from amending such deals and require a straight yes or no vote. Many foreign trade ministers say it is hard to negotiate agreements with the United States knowing that Congress can revise them.

Union leaders have vowed to mount a campaign to stop the bill unless it requires the president to negotiate labor and environmental protections into trade agreements.

Many business leaders insist that labor will never support a trade promotion bill and will forever put forward new reasons to oppose it.

William Morley, chief trade lobbyist for the United States Chamber of Commerce, said many businesses were uncomfortable with the labor protections proposed by unions. Corporations, he said, would prefer that those protections be deleted entirely, but they recognize that some compromise is necessary.

He complained that the United States, which has not had fast-track trade legislation since 1994, was at an economic disadvantage because it has negotiated fewer free trade deals than many of its trading partners.

"We have an economy that's definitely in need of stimulus," Mr. Morley said. "We cannot afford to sit on the sidelines and allow ourselves to be put at a competitive disadvantage."

Last week, in a 26-to-13 vote, the House Ways and Means Committee approved what Republican leaders said was a bipartisan trade bill. Two Democrats voted in favor of the measure, which calls on the president to seek to include labor and environmental protections in any free-trade agreements.

"This bill speaks to environmental and labor issues in good, practical ways," said Representative William J. Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat who supports the bill. "We believe there has to be flexibility in this area. There can't be a sledgehammer approach. But it can't be completely toothless either. These have to be agreements that work, not ones where we insist on having everything our way."

Estimating that 30 House Republicans oppose the bill, Representative Jack Quinn of Buffalo, who heads a coalition of pro-labor Republicans, said the bill did not have enough votes for approval. In sharp contrast, Republican leaders forecast a victory, saying at least 20 centrist Democrats would support it.

Last week, the heads of the labor federations from California, New York, Florida and six other states traveled to Washington to lobby more than 30 members of Congress. At many workplaces, shop stewards are passing around cellphones, urging workers to call their House members to urge them to vote against the bill.

In addition, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. is considering running broadcast spots in more than a dozen Congressional districts, as it did last July, to pressure wavering House members to vote no.

"This bill is the same old fast- track," said Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation. "There is some lip service that says labor protections. But it's all `maybe,' not `shall.' And we know that this president is far less inclined than the previous one to push hard to protect environmental interests and worker rights."

Union strategists see the trade bill as an opportunity to promote minimum worldwide labor standards and to make it harder for American companies to move operations overseas in search of the worst wages, working conditions and environmental standards.

Labor leaders say they would consider supporting fast-track legislation only if it required the president to include two items in any trade agreements: first, a commitment from other countries to enforce their labor and environmental laws and not weaken them further and, second, a commitment to honor the four basic labor rights called for by the International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency. Those standards are the right to form unions and bans on child labor, forced labor and discrimination.

Thea Lee, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s chief international economist, said unions wanted other changes in the bill, among them giving Congress a greater voice in trade talks and scaling back the extensive rights that trade agreements often give to investors.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney released the following statement late Friday regarding the House Ways and Means Committee's "mark-up" of the economic stimulus package:

In every war there are those who engage in profiteering. Today, in the wake of the September 11 attack on America, some in the Congress are using the nation’s tragedy to engage in tax profiteering.  Responsible members of Congress must say “No.”

Having disgracefully blocked an assistance package for airline and aerospace workers who are front line victims of the attack, some Republican members of Congress, with tacit encouragement from President Bush, are pushing a laundry list of corporate tax cuts. To add insult to injury, the list also includes additional tax cuts for the nation’s most wealthy.

These tax cuts have absolutely no economic justification. They do nothing to provide stimulus to the economy, and they could even aggravate the economic slump by worsening the long term budget outlook and driving up interest rates. Working families will pay the price of these tax cuts in the form of higher mortgage interest payments.

The tax cuts introduced by Representative Bill Thomas elevate politics to a new level of cynicism. Euphemistically packaged as the “Economic Security and Recovery Act of 2001,” they aim to exploit the nation’s desire to stand together to push through an agenda that predates the nation’s crisis and would do nothing to solve it. 

His proposal does nothing to create jobs or provide meaningful economic security for working families. Instead it strips the budget of monies needed to finance enhanced and extended unemployment insurance benefits, assistance to cover COBRA health insurance premiums, retraining for laid-off workers, revenue sharing with state governments to avoid service cutbacks and additional layoffs and investments in public infrastructure and schools.  The Chairman’s proposals for unemployed workers are a mere pittance and fall woefully short of existing need, much less needs that will develop.

Instead of choosing to cut taxes on unemployment benefits or temporarily reduce workers’ payroll taxes, Representative Thomas chooses to cut capital gains taxes and repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax, which ensures that profitable corporations pay some taxes.