WSLC Reports Today -- August 12, 2009

August 12, 2009

Aug. 11: Congress: Stand for health care

Aug. 10: Day 2: WSLC Convention coverage

Aug. 7: Day 1: WSLC Convention coverage

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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Boeing enjoys profitable model in Washington

(John Burbank column) -- Boeing's Washington state unionized business model makes money, and it is subsidizing the company's emerging business model to outsource work to places with cheaper labor, which is sucking up money and showing nothing but delay. The model of employer-union cooperation has yielded the company and its shareholders great profits for decades. If the company sees a union-free environment as its No. 1 objective, then it has to leave behind the talent and the workers who helped to create the sweet spot for Boeing profits. That’s a heavy price for an ideological agenda, a price that would be paid by Boeing, by its current employees, and by this great community in Washington that Boeing has helped to build. Read more.

► In today's Seattle Times -- Boeing's S.C. workers to decide Sept. 10 whether to oust union -- A decision to decertify the IAM at the Charleston plant could influence whether Boeing will move future assembly work there, including a second production line for its new 787. If the vote succeeds, nonunion Boeing Charleston will compete directly with the unionized Everett plant.

► In the Charleston (SC) Regional Bus. Journal -- Union revote date set for Boeing Charleston -- A little more than a year after Vought workers voted to join the Machinists union, the union voted to ratify a contract but several workers were angry about how the contract vote was handled.

CORRECTION: Rep. Roberts' 2009 voting record was 88%

The printed version of the Washington State Labor Council's 2009 Legislative Report incorrectly listed Rep. Mary Helen Roberts (D-21st) as having voted against final passage of HB 1402, a labor-supported bill placing limits on employer and L&I communication with an injured workers’ medical provider at the appeal stage of an industrial insurance claim. Rep. Roberts voted "yes" on HB 1402. Her 2009 voting record is 88% and her lifetime voting record is 96%. This has been corrected online and in the report's PDF version. The WSLC regrets the error.

August recess health care events

This month, tell your member of Congress to support health care reform and the America's Affordable Health Choices Act.

► TODAY -- Colville town hall meeting with Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-5th) from 3 to 4 p.m. at the Agricultural Trade Center, 317 W. Astor Ave. in Colville.

► TODAY -- Town hall meeting with Rep. Rick Larsen (D-2nd) from 5 to 6 p.m. at the ~~Weyerhaeuser Room, Everett Station~~ (NEW LOCATION!) Memorial Stadium, 3900 Broadway.

► Thursday, Aug. 13 -- U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell are hosting a meeting re: the Mount St. Helens Citizen Advisory Committee from 2 to 3 p.m. at the Cowlitz County Expo Center, 1900 7th Ave. in Longview. We've learned that it will be targeted by right-wing opponents of health care reform, so supporters are urged to attend (arrive at 1 p.m.) to visibly support health care reform.

► Wednesday, Aug. 19 -- NARF Chapter Meeting with Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-5th) from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. at All Saints Lutheran Church, 314 S. Spruce St. in Spokane.

► Tuesday, Aug. 25 -- Lakewood town hall meeting with Rep. Adam Smith (D-9th) from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Milgard Family Hope Center, 10402 Kline St. SW. Space is limited so RSVP to attend by calling 253-593-6600 or (888) SMITH09.

► Thursday, Aug. 27 -- Walla Walla town hall meeting with Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-5th) from 3 to 4 p.m. at the Community Meeting Room at the Walla Walla Regional Airport, 310 A. St.

► Saturday, Aug. 29 -- Join Congressman Jay Inslee for a Town Hall Meeting from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Poulsbo Fire Hall located on the corner of Highway 305 and Liberty Road.

Local health care news:

► In today's Everett Herald -- Crowds expected at today's health care town hall in Everett -- With debate raging across the country, a town hall-style forum on health care has been moved to an Everett baseball stadium to accommodate a crowd of what could be hundreds of people. The complex personal-pocketbook issue will be on center stage during the event hosted by Congressman Rick Larsen.

► In today's Daily News -- Baird discusses health care, town halls during Longview speech -- “It’s never been like this before, not this level of vitriol,” Baird says. “It’s widespread now. I have never seen a coordinated effort with specific instructions to tell people, ‘This is how to make sure an intellectual discussion doesn’t happen'.”

► At SeattlePI.com -- McDermott: U.S. health care system inhumane, stupid (Joel Connelly column) -- In order to reform that system, he says President Barack Obama will need to show steely nerve, and steady a Democratic-run Congress filled with "raw recruits who have never been through a big battle. ... (Health care opponents) are not taking any prisoners. We know the opposition is not playing with anything approaching fairness or civility."

► In today's Peninsula Daily News -- Dicks nixes health care town hall on North Olympic Peninsula -- A supporter of Obama's plan, Dicks instead will attend an RSVP-only health and education forum at the Port Angeles Red Lion Hotel on Friday morning that is already filled to capacity, with 60 to 70 attendees expected.

National health care news:

► In today's Washington Post -- Obama faces "scare tactics" head on -- President Obama began a personal effort Tuesday to reclaim momentum for his health-care initiative with a direct rebuttal of what he called "scare tactics," rumors and misrepresentations. "Every time we come close to passing health insurance reform, the special interests fight back with everything they've got," the president says. "They use their political allies to scare and mislead the American people. They start running ads. This is what they always do. We can't let them do it again. Not this time. Not now."

► In today's LA Times -- Obama takes the stand on health care -- Reform won't mean "death panels" or rationed care, President Barack Obama tells a town hall in New Hampshire. The audience there is polite, but members of Congress elsewhere face hecklers. ... "I think it is very hard because [Democrats] don't have the message machine the Republicans do," said George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley professor who has advised Democrats on how to sharpen their message. "The Democrats still believe in Enlightenment reason: If you just tell people the truth, they will come to the right conclusion."

► In today's NY Times -- Survey finds high fees common in medical care -- Saying they felt unfairly vilified, a group of health insurance companies releases a report on some of the highest bills submitted to them in 2008, explaining that they wanted to show that doctors’ fees are part of the health care problem. The group says it had no data on the frequency of such high fees, saying that to its knowledge no one had studied that.

Health care opinion:

► In today's Wash. Post -- Behold, a national and rational conversation on health care (Steven Pearlstein column) -- Republican strategists and their media rabble-rousers cleverly thought they could dispatch their shock troops and kill health reform once and for all. Instead, they're on the verge of generating what they've been desperate to avoid -- an urgent, national, rational conversation on how to make the health-care system fairer and more affordable.

► In today's Seattle Times -- The private benefits of public competition in health insurance (op-ed by WWU professor) -- For most of the 20th century, employer-provided benefits -- life insurance, medical insurance, sick leave and retirement benefits -- increased in response to more generous federal benefits and pressure from labor unions and declined when the government pulled back. If we want more and better private coverage, we should demand a public-insurance option. When government raises the floor, companies do too.

Local news:

► In today's Tri-City Herald -- State, DOE reach deal on Hanford cleanup -- A tentative agreement lays out new court-enforceable deadlines for cleanup of some of Hanford's worst waste. Energy Secretary Steven Chu is joined by the governors of Washington and Oregon and Washington's two senators to announce the tentative agreement on new deadlines, which follows more than two years of negotiations.

► In today's Oregonian -- New plan would add oversight but delay Hanford cleanup -- Cleanup of the nation's biggest nuclear mess would take nearly two decades longer than planned under an agreement endorsed by the governors of Washington and Oregon. It would extend by 19 years the final treatment deadline for 53 million gallons of radioactive sludge, some of which is already leaking, from 2028 to 2047. By then, many of Hanford's 11,000 workers will be drawing Social Security.

► Today from AP -- PDC: Names of donors to anti-gay referendum are public record -- The state Public Disclosure Commission on Tuesday rejected a request to seal the names of donors to a campaign to overturn Washington state’s newly expanded domestic partnership law.

► In the (Aberdeen) Daily World -- Mental health sales tax moves ahead -- Grays Harbor County Commissioners are pushing forward with consideration of a plan to increase sales tax by one-tenth of 1 percent in order to fund mental health and drug abuse programs.

► In today's Yakima H-R -- We need better care for the mentally ill -- now (editorial) -- It's mind boggling that just a few miles away in Yakima, services for those with mental illness can be so much better than here in the Tri-Cities. More than money is at stake. Jail is a poor substitute for treatment. Our citizens suffering from mental illness deserve better.

► In today's Yakima H-R -- 15th District incumbent Taylor pleaded guilty to DUI -- State Rep. David Taylor (R-Moxee) says he's learned his lesson from a drunken-driving arrest in 2003.

National news:

► In today's Washington Post -- "A recovery only a statistician could love" -- The pile of economic data indicating that the worst of the recession is over also suggests a recovery isn't going to feel like one anytime soon for millions of Americans. Its existence will be confirmed by statistics, but, over at least the next year, the benefits are unlikely to materialize in the form of higher wages or tax receipts or more jobs.

► From AP -- Trade deficit increase suggests recession easing -- (Read that headline again... and then read the following column about why the erosion of manufacturing harms America.)

► In today's Washington Post -- Just one word: Factories (Harold Meyerson column) -- It's not just that the United States uniquely lacks an industrial policy. It's that the United States uniquely has an anti-industrial policy. Turning that around could help the economy as well as convey some political rewards to an administration that could use some rewards just now. At some point, the White House might realize that championing manufacturing is not only necessary economics but smart Democratic politics.

► From AP -- Macy's posts a profit, beating forecasts -- Excluding restructuring charges related to division consolidations and initiatives to localize merchandising to regional markets, the company earned 20 cents a share, well exceeding the 15 cents a share forecast by analysts.

► In today's LA Times -- Kaiser Permanente to cut more than 1,800 jobs in California -- The healthcare giant agrees not to cut union members and plans to keep all its physician positions.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2009
Boeing enjoys profitable model in Washington

The following column by John Burbank, Executive Director of the Economic Opportunity Institute, appeared recently in The (Everett) Herald:

Boeing’s second quarter profit was $998 million. That’s $46 million more than a year ago. How does this work, with the 787 sucking up billions of dollars in development and mistakes? The answer is embedded in Boeing’s tried-and-true, decades-old business model.

Boeing made more than $800 million from its commercial airline production this past spring. Every workday Boeing completes another 737. Each plane brings in gross revenues of $60 million to $70 million. Unionized workers supply the skills to build these planes from the ground up. Each plane is a custom-built, complex piece of machinery, with slightly different tolerances, set-ups and even lengths, as requested by the carriers, built to fly hundreds of people across thousands of miles.

So how about that outsourced 787? Last month Boeing engineers discovered that the 787 wing-box to fuselage attachment is compromised, so that the wing made by Mitsubishi and the center wing box made by Fuji don’t work together as they should. A fix will push out the first flight into 2010, more than two years behind schedule. Boeing has now lost 5 percent of its orders for the 787. With each delay, Airbus gains orders for its competing A350.

Another 787 innovation is to shift production to non-union states. But if you start with an unskilled workforce and add in the lack of technical infrastructure, no matter how little you pay workers, you still are not going to get a flawless airplane. And that’s what you need when you are going up into the sky.

So one business model makes money -- the Washington state unionized business model -- and subsidizes the emerging business model, which is sucking up money and showing nothing but delay.

An outraged reader responded to my last column by huffing that “overhead crane operators at Boeing … are paid in excess of $35 per hour.” He’s right. These workers operate overhead cranes in the high bays of aircraft production. A highly skilled job, with a lot of negative consequences if you do it wrong, such as the destruction of airplanes, workplace accidents, and on-the-job injuries and fatalities. Seems like the task deserves this compensation, especially if you are appreciating its benefits 35,000 feet in the air.

The contract between the Machinists and Boeing enables profits and productivity, work and advancement. You can start as a typist or a sander at $12 an hour (that’s a little less than $25,000 a year). You can advance to a sand blast operator, and onto an automatic fusion welding machine operator. Aircraft and engine mechanics start at $21 an hour. Senior electronic technicians for aircraft systems are paid between $22 and $37. The pay schedule tops out at about $77,000 for Machinists on the first shift at Boeing. This looks like a bargain, considering the product they build and in which we trust our lives.

When you go to work at Boeing, you have health coverage, a pension when you retire, and paid leave for vacation and when you are sick. You can get into an apprenticeship program to increase your job skills. And you know you are making the best and most profitable planes in the world, especially if you are working on the 737.

Why would Boeing destroy this business model and depart for South Carolina , a state that only knows aircraft as they fly overhead? Boeing’s own second quarter report shows that this has nothing to do with profitability. The answer lies with the front-page photograph that appears every three years when Boeing and the Machinists or the engineers sit down to negotiate their next contracts. The photograph shows two sides, an equality of interest and reasonableness between management and workers. But if you want unilateral control, you don’t want unions voicing the concerns of workers and elbowing their way to a contract that sets a high bar for the company.

This is now Boeing’s dilemma, because that model of employer-union cooperation has yielded the company and its shareholders great profits. If the company sees a union-free environment as its No. 1 objective, then it has to leave behind the talent and the workers who helped to create the sweet spot for Boeing profits. That’s a heavy price for an ideological agenda, a price that would be paid by Boeing, by its current employees, and by this great community here in Washington that Boeing has helped to build.

^{Copyright ©}^{2009
--} ^{Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO}