WSLC Reports Today -- August 3, 2006

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WSLC Reports Today
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Links are functional at date of posting, but sometimes expire. Some links require free registration. WSLC Reports Today links to stories of interest to organized labor; some positive, some negative. The intention is to inform.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 3 ▪ Big Business lobbyists' spin on GOP "tip penalty" falls flat -- They say the bill wouldn't actually cut tipped workers' wages here, but the attorneys who interpret congressional legislation say otherwise: (Washington state) would be "prohibited from enforcing the minimum wage rate provisions of their laws with respect to a tipped employee."
▪ At AFL-CIO Now -- Listen up, Senate Republicans: The Heartland is on to your tricks -- Tomorrow is showdown day in the U.S. Senate as Democrats will fight to kill a $753 billion millionaires’ estate tax cut that GOP leaders have packaged with a minimum wage increase.

Call Sens. Cantwell and Murray!

Tell them: Oppose HR 5970.

Cantwell: 202-224-3441
206-220-6400 (Seattle)
360-696-7838 (Vancouver)

Murray: 202-224-2621
206-553-5545 (Seattle)
425-259-6515 (Everett)
360-696-7797 (Vancouver)
509-624-9515 (Spokane)
509-624-7462 (Yakima)

More Republican Tip Penalty news:
▪ In today's Seattle Times! -- Wage fight: Are your tips at risk?
▪ In today's Seattle P-I -- Cantwell, Murray face tough vote on estate tax-minimum wage bill -- A 31-year employee of Seattle's Westin Hotel says the "tip penalty" provision in the bill would cut her pay by up to $900 a month: "If you cut this kind of money out of an average person's wages, they won't be able to put food on the table and they won't be able to keep their homes."
▪ In today's News Tribune -- Will servers get stuck with the bill? -- Sens. Cantwell and Murray have not said how they will vote on the bill this Friday, but they were unhappy with the tip provision.
▪ In today's Spokesman-Review -- Minimum wage bill tips scales against fairness (Caldwell column) -- Here's a tip for Republicans: Stop jerking around American workers whose incomes are not keeping up with the rising cost of just about everything they buy.
▪ In today's Bellingham Herald -- Those who work for tips fear GOP's proposed change in wage law
▪ In today's Salem S-J -- Minimum wage bill could lower pay for Oregon tip earners
▪ In today's Oregonian -- Minimum wage bill (editor's column) -- House Republicans' legislative shotgun marriage of the two subjects looks considerably like a hostage situation. The Portland waitress and the Seattle bartender and the San Francisco parking attendant not only get to be part of the process that protects Paris Hilton from taxation, but they also get to chip in for it.
▪ In today's Wash. Post -- Estate tax twist reverses roles on minimum wage
▪ In today's Seattle P-I -- House makes obscene quid pro quo (Marianne Means column)
▪ In today's Everett Herald -- H.R. 5970 corrupts our political system (letter to the editor)
▪ In today's Seattle Times -- A winning tax-and-wage trifecta (op-ed by for GOP Rep. Jennifer Dunn)

IUOE Local 302 Strike news:
▪ In today's Seattle P-I -- Strike hits concrete, gravel suppliers -- About 100 IUOE 302 members are on strike in a contract dispute with four major concrete and gravel suppliers in King County.
▪ In today's King Co. Journal -- Strike by concrete, gravel workers could delay construction work -- The walkout that began Tuesday threatens numerous highway projects, the third Sea-Tac runway, Sound Transit's light rail project, the Brightwater project in Woodinville, and scores of construction projects by private developers, including several under way in downtown Bellevue.

Local news:
▪ In today's News Tribune -- Biggest union, state in final negotiations -- Negotiators for nearly 68,000 state employees are in the final round of talks with the governor’s office on a contract.
▪ In today's Olympian -- State workers seek raises -- Pay tops the list of remaining issues in the talks, but the WFSE is also bargaining for a language defining how the state could contract with private companies for service. Says a spokesman: "Our members would say compensation is the No. 1 issue, but compensation doesn't mean anything if our jobs are contracted out."
▪ In the Seattle Times -- Seattle's road-tax plan places undue burdens on business (Chamber op-ed)
▪ In today's Kitsap Sun -- New ferries will replace aging vessels -- The ferry system is seeking proposals to build four new ferries at a total estimated cost of $321 million.
▪ In today's Seattle Times -- New teacher home loan program: Why only a few qualify
▪ In today's Kitsap Sun -- Dispute meeting pushed back by North Mason board, teachers' union
▪ In today's Bellingham Herald -- WWU, union reach deal (brief) -- The WFSE reaches agreement on a 2-year deal covering many of the university's classified, or non-teaching, employees.

Political news:
▪ Today from AP -- I-920 to repeal state estate tax appears to secure a place on fall ballot
▪ In today's Seattle Times -- Chamber of Commerce ad backing Reichert edited for accuracy
▪ In today's King Co. Journal -- Sharp elbows of politics beginning to fly (editorial) -- The shareholder suit against Mike!™ McGavick's $28 million Safeco golden parachute is "hardball politics masquerading as innocent concern." (The editorial board offers no comment on whether the massive payout was appropriate or earned, only that they consider the suit to be political.)
▪ In today's NY Times -- Strong-arming the vote (editorial) -- Bush’s Justice Department has been criticized for letting partisanship guide its work on voting and elections. And party politics certainly appears to have been a driving force in a legal maneuver it just pulled off in Alabama.
▪ Today from AP -- New poll shows Sen. Lieberman losing ground to Democratic challenger

National news:
▪ In today's NY Times -- Opponents of Wal-Mart to coordinate efforts -- Led by longtime opponents in organized labor, a new coalition of about 50 groups -- including environmentalists, community organizations, state lawmakers and academics -- is planning the first coordinated assault intended to press the company to change the way it does business.
▪ In today's Detroit News -- NWA warns of flight attendant strike risks -- Northwest Airlines asks judge to block a threatened strike, arguing it could cause "flight cancellations, disruptions in service, and the loss of consumer confidence." (Memo to NWA: That's what strikes do.)
▪ In the NJ Star-Ledger -- CWA, AFSCME organize 7,000 home child care workers in New Jersey
▪ Today from AP -- Corporate ethics concern workers -- Unethical corporate managers contribute to lower worker productivity, drive away recruits and make some employees leave.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 2006
Big Business lobbyists' spin on GOP "tip penalty" falls flat

Yesterday, Washington State Labor Council President Rick Bender called the Republicans' estate tax-minimum wage legislation "simply indefensible" (among other things) for its provision to impose a tip penalty on Washington and other states that would dramatically cut the wages of workers who earn tips.

Well, thanks to the Washington D.C.-based business lobbying group responsible for the provision's inclusion in this everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink legislation, we now have the defense: The bill doesn't do what you say it does.

The National Restaurant Association and its local subsidiary are telling reporters (here and here) that the tip penalty would only apply to future minimum wage increases. They say it would merely freeze Washington's minimum wage for tipped workers, denying them the annual wage increases overwhelmingly approved by voters -- as if that is innocuous or somehow acceptable.

One of the U.S. Representatives from Washington state who voted for the bill, Rep. Cathy McMorris (R-5th), has attempted this spin. The Spokesman-Review reports today that she is "seeking cover" by writing a letter to the chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce saying she does not believe the bill language should "allow employers to reduce employees' base pay."

As Reps. Dave Reichert (R-8th) and Do-Nothing Doc Hastings (R-4th), the other Republicans from Washington who voted for the tip penalty, silently watch how this trial balloon of political spin fares, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports today that the people paid to advise Congress on what legislative language actually means aren't buying the business lobby's spin:

A memo by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service on Wednesday backed up the Democratic position (that the provision would cut tipped workers' wages). Under the bill language, the seven affected states (including Washington) "would seem to be prohibited from enforcing the minimum wage rate provisions of their laws with respect to a tipped employee," said the memo, written by Jon Shimabukuro, a legislative attorney at the research service.

The assessment jibes with the analysis of the non-partisan, though admittedly left-leaning, Economic Policy Institute, which says the legislation will allow employers in our state to pay as little as $2.13 an hour to worker who earn tips.

This election-year combination of a long-overdue federal minimum wage increase, that is actually a major wage CUT in Washington state, with the long-sought Republican goal of estate tax repeal for the richest of America's richest families -- one financed entirely by more debt spending (read: by our children) -- remains a cynical and INDEFENSIBLE attack on working families.

So, Reps. Reichert and Hastings, what are your excuses?

If you have news items regarding unions or workplace issues in Washington state that you would like to see posted here, please submit them via e-mail to David Groves or via fax to 206-285-5805.