MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2009
NY Times: Employee Free Choice Act is "vital" 

The following was posted last week at AFL-CIO Now: 

In today's New York Times, the editorial board makes a strong, clearly argued and unambiguous case that President-elect Obama needs to strengthen working families by pushing for a quick passage of the Employee Free Choice Act and giving his Labor Secretary-designate, Rep. Hilda Solis, the power she needs to protect workers. (See full editorial below).

The editorial lays out several challenges ahead for Obama, Solis and the fight to defend workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain. Giving workers the power to improve their own lives and the support they need in the administration must be a top priority if we are to restore an economy that works for everyone.

As The New York Times aptly points out, the corporate argument that giving more workers the freedom to form unions and bargain will hurt a declining economy is exactly backwards. Indeed, as we’ve often noted, the current economic weakness is due to the fact that for far too long, workers have had less and less power to bargain for better wages, benefits and job security.

The editorial also makes a strong case for giving Solis -- described as an “unfailing advocate for workers’ rights” and a leader on issues affecting working families -- the ability to reverse the Bush administration’s years of short-sighted and anti-worker rulings on workplace safety, overtime and other key issues.

Here is the New York Times editorial published on Dec. 29, 2008:

Editorial
The Labor Agenda

There is no doubt that President-elect Barack Obama has chosen a labor secretary who could be a transformative force in a long-neglected arena. The question is whether he will let her.

Hilda Solis, a United States representative from Southern California, is the daughter of immigrant parents with union jobs. She has been an unfailing advocate of workers’ rights during eight years in Congress and before that, in California politics.

Ms. Solis has been a leader on traditional workplace issues, like a higher minimum wage and an enhanced right to form unions. She also has helped to expand the labor agenda by sponsoring legislation to create jobs in green technology, and in her support for community health workers and immigration reform.

Her record in Congress dovetails with the mission of the Labor Department, to protect and further the rights and opportunities of working people. It also dovetails with many of the promises Mr. Obama made during the campaign, both in its specifics and in its focus on the needs of America’s working families.

The main issue is whether the Obama administration will assert a forceful labor agenda in the face of certain protests from business that now -- during a recession -- is not the time to move forward.

The first and biggest test of Mr. Obama’s commitment to labor, and to Ms. Solis, will be his decision on whether or not to push the Employee Free Choice Act in 2009. Corporate America is determined to derail the bill, which would make it easier than it has been for workers to form unions by requiring that employers recognize a union if a majority of employees at a workplace sign cards indicating they wish to organize.

Ms. Solis voted for the bill when it passed the House in 2007. Senate Republicans prevented the bill from coming to a vote that same year. Mr. Obama voted in favor of bringing the bill to the Senate floor and supported it during the campaign.

The measure is vital legislation and should not be postponed. Even modest increases in the share of the unionized labor force push wages upward, because nonunion workplaces must keep up with unionized ones that collectively bargain for increases. By giving employees a bigger say in compensation issues, unions also help to establish corporate norms, the absence of which has contributed to unjustifiable disparities between executive pay and rank-and-file pay.

The argument against unions -- that they unduly burden employers with unreasonable demands -- is one that corporate America makes in good times and bad, so the recession by itself is not an excuse to avoid pushing the bill next year. The real issue is whether enhanced unionizing would worsen the recession, and there is no evidence that it would.

There is a strong argument that the slack labor market of a recession actually makes unions all the more important. Without a united front, workers will have even less bargaining power in the recession than they had during the growth years of this decade, when they largely failed to get raises even as productivity and profits soared. If pay continues to lag, it will only prolong the downturn by inhibiting spending.

Another question clouding the labor agenda is whether Mr. Obama will give equal weight to worker concerns -- from reforming health care to raising the minimum wage -- while the financial crisis is still playing out. Most members of his economic team are veterans of the Clinton administration who tilt toward Wall Street. In the Clinton era, financial issues routinely trumped labor concerns. If Mr. Obama’s campaign promises are to be kept, that mindset cannot prevail again. Mr. Obama’s creation of a task force on middle-class issues, to be led by Vice President-elect Joseph Biden and including Ms. Solis and other high-ranking officials, is an encouraging sign that labor issues will not be given short shrift.

There are many nonlegislative issues on the agenda for Ms. Solis. Safety standards must be updated: in the last eight years, the Labor Department has issued only one new safety rule of its own accord; it issued a few others only after being compelled by Congress or the courts. Overtime rules that were weakened in 2004 need to be restored. To enforce labor standards, the Labor Department will need more staff and more money, both of which have been cut deeply by President Bush.

Only the president can give the new labor secretary the clout she will need to do well at a job that has been done so badly for so long, at such great cost to the quality of Americans’ lives.

MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2009
Minimum wage increase offers relief to struggling families 

The Washington state minimum wage increased 48 cents to $8.55 an hour on Jan. 1. The state's lowest legal hourly wage is adjusted for inflation every year as a result of Initiative 688, filed by Washington State Labor Council President Rick Bender, supported by the state labor movement and dozens of community organizations, and ultimately approved by voters by a 2-to-1 margin in 1998.

The state law's annual cost-of-living adjustments took the politics out of the minimum wage issue by indexing the wage to the federal Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, a national index covering the cost of goods and services needed for day-to-day living. For the 12 months ending August 2008, that index increased 5.9%, a higher jump than previous years caused by escalating prices for gasoline, food and other necessities. The new minimum wage applies to workers in both agricultural and non-agricultural jobs; 14- and 15-year-olds may be paid 85% of the adult minimum wage.

"This increase is great news -- a desperately needed raise for minimum wage earners who are struggling to meet basic needs," Bender said. "But $8.55 an hour is still poverty wages for thousands of Washington families who are struggling to afford a tank of gas or a trip to the doctor. Every year, we should congratulate ourselves that the law is working as voters intended, and then rededicate ourselves to the fight for maintaining and creating good family-wage jobs."

The federal minimum wage, which has lagged significantly behind Washington's and therefore eroded in value due to inflation, will rise to $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009. 

Like Washington, many states have taken the matter into their own hands and increased their state minimum wages. Among the other states that will have minimum wages of at least $8 an hour on Jan. 1, 2009, are California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts and Oregon. 

While Washington was the first state to approve a state minimum wage with annual inflationary adjustments, the idea quickly caught on in Oregon, where voters approved an initiative similar to Washington's I-688. Oregon's minimum wage rose 45 cents on Jan. 1 to $8.40 an hour. In 2006, voters in six more states approved initiatives to increase their minimum wages and index them to the inflation rate.

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