News for
the week of May 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 May 26-30, 1998Saturday, May 30 — Washington
State Labor Council makes political endorsements
Friday, May 29 — NO on "Paycheck Protection": The
New York Times and Washington Post weigh in
Thursday, May 28 — Postal workers protest USPS contracting
out
Wednesday, May 27 — State Labor Council to consider political
endorsements Saturday
Tuesday, May 26 — NLRB: Union-busters at El Centro de la Raza
broke the law
News from previous weeks:
May 18-22 — May 11-15 — May 4-8 — April 27-May 2
![[Dividing Line Image]](../images/div.gif){kind=small}
The following candidates were endorsed by a two-thirds majority of the delegates at Saturday’s COPE Convention of the Washington State Labor Council, the largest labor organization in the state representing some 400,000 rank-and-file union members:
U.S. SENATE:
-- Sen. Patty Murray
U.S. HOUSE:
-- 1st - Jay Inslee
-- 2nd - No endorsement
-- 3rd - Brian Baird
-- 4th - No endorsement
-- 5th - Brad Lyons
-- 6th - Norm Dicks
-- 7th - Jim McDermott
-- 8th - No endorsement
-- 9th - Adam Smith
INITIATIVES/REFERENDA:
-- NO on I-200, the campaign to defeat the anti-affirmative action Initiative 200
-- Initiative 688 to raise Washington state’s minimum wage
-- Took no action on I-690 & I-691, regarding vehicle tax repeal
-- NO on Ref. 49, the transportation package sent to the ballot by the Legislature
JUDICIAL:
-- Court of Appeals, Div. 2, Dis. 1 - Kenneth Kato
-- Supreme Court, Pos. 4 - Hugh Spitzer
-- Supreme Court, Pos. 5 - Barbara Madsen
-- Supreme Court, Pos. 6 - Greg Canova
STATE LEGISLATURE:
-- 1st Dist. -- House-1 - Al O’Brien; House-2 - Jeanne Edwards
-- 2nd Dist. -- House-1 - Larry Nelson; House-2 - Pat Roberts-Dempsey
-- 3rd Dist. -- House-1 - Alex Wood; House-2 - Jeff Gombosky
-- 4th Dist. -- House-2 - John Kallas
-- 5th Dist. -- House-1 - William Schiffer; House-2 - Art Skolnick
-- 6th Dist. -- House-2 - Craig Peterson; Senate - Judy Personett
-- 9th Dist. -- House-1 - Annette Hendricks; House-2 - Robert Bobincheck
-- 10th Dist. -- House-1 - Dave Anderson; House-2 - Alec McDougall
-- 11th Dist. -- House-1 - Eileen Cody; House-2 - Velma Veloria
-- 17th Dist. -- House-1 - Bob Watrous; House-2 - Michael Carmichael
-- 18th Dist. -- House-1 - Chris Mahre
-- 19th Dist. -- House-1 - Brian Hatfield; House-2 - Mark Doumit
-- 21st Dist. -- House-1 - Mike Cooper; Senate - Paull Shin
-- 22nd Dist. -- House-1 - Sandra Romero; House-2 - Cathy Wolfe
-- 23rd Dist. -- House-1 - Phil Rockefeller; House-2 - Charles Bickel
-- 25th Dist. -- House-1 - Rich Hildreth; House-2 - James Kastama
-- 26th Dist. -- House-1 - Pat Lantz; Senate - Beth Wilson
-- 27th Dist. -- House-1 - Ruth Fisher; House-2 - Debbie Regala
-- 29th Dist. -- House-1 - Steve Conway; House-2 - Mark Martinez and Brian Sullivan
(dual); Senate - Rosa Franklin
-- 30th Dist. -- House-1 - Mark Miloscia; Senate - Tracy Eide
-- 31st Dist. -- House-2 - Chris Hurst
-- 32nd Dist. -- House-1 - Patty Butler; House-2 - Ruth Kagi; Senate - Darlene Fairley
-- 33rd Dist. -- House-1 - Shay Schual-Burke; House-2 - Karen Keiser; Senate - Julia
Patterson
-- 34th Dist. -- House-1 - Erik Poulsen; House-2 - Dow Constantine; Senate - Mike Heavey
-- 35th Dist. -- House-1 - Kathryn Haigh; House-2 - Bill Eickmeyer
-- 36th Dist. -- House-2 - Mary Lou Dickerson; Senate - Jeanne Kohl
-- 37th Dist. -- House-2 - Kip Tokuda
-- 38th Dist. -- House-1 - Aaron Reardon; House-2 - Pat Scott; Senate - Jeralita Costa
-- 39th Dist. -- House-1 - Hans Dunshee; House-2 - Patricia Patterson
-- 40th Dist. -- House-1 - Dave Quall; House-2 - Jeff Morris
-- 42nd Dist. -- House-1 - Georgia Gardner
-- 43rd Dist. -- House-2 - Frank Chopp; Senate - Pat Thibaudeau
-- 44th Dist. -- House-1 - Eric Goodrich; House-2 - John Lovick
-- 45th Dist. -- House-2 - Laura Ruderman
-- 46th Dist. -- House-1 - Marlin Appelwick; House-2 - Phyllis Kenney; Senate - Ken
Jacobsen
-- 47th Dist. -- Senate - Rebecca Clark
-- 49th Dist. -- House-1 - Maureen Gallegos; House-2 - Val Ogden
The Washington State Labor Council will consider making additional endorsements at its annual convention in Spokane this August.
In Friday's editions, the two most influential newspapers in the country both editorialized against California's Proposition 226, the so-called "Paycheck Protection Act," which would set up new cumbersome administrative hurdles for unions to participate in the political process: (Californians will vote on the issue Tuesday of next week.)
Treating Shareholders Like Workers — The New York Times — Friday, May 29, 1998
Is it fair that union leaders can give union money to politicians who may or may not be supported by individual union members? That is the question posed by Proposition 226, a California budget initiative being voted on in the primary election next Tuesday.
The proposition would bar unions from using any part of an individual member's dues for political contributions without annual written permission from the member.
Those opposed to letting the union contribute their money would get that amount back for themselves. They could use it to contribute to their favorite candidate, or to buy milk, or for any other purpose.
Unions currently give money to politicians, mostly Democrats, who support them on issues of importance to labor, ranging from tenure for public-school teachers to trade legislation. It is quite possible that any given union member may be on the opposite side of such issues or not care about them at all. That union member might, on the other hand, be passionate about abortion, gun control or some other issue and be unwilling to see his or her money go to anyone who voted the wrong way -- as the union member saw it -- on those issues.
Unions have mounted a vigorous campaign against the California proposition, arguing correctly that it would effectively bar them from spending money while their opponents could still flood money into campaigns. They are right, and for that reason the one-sided proposition deserves to be defeated.
But if voters feel strongly that every person should be able to control whether his money goes to political parties or candidates, they need to extend the idea to corporations and their shareholders. Suppose, for example, that General Motors decided to contribute up to $7 million -- about a penny per share -- to politicians. The company's management no doubt would want that money to go to candidates who were sympathetic to auto industry concerns, whether on tax policy or on fleet gasoline mileage issues.
But what would happen if other shareholders were given a choice? Pension funds, with fiduciary obligations to maximize the return on their investments, would have no choice but to ask for the money in cash. Mutual funds would probably be in the same position. Charitable foundations that own stocks might fear that making contributions would jeopardize their tax-exempt status or prefer to have more money for their charitable endeavors. Some individual investors no doubt would go along with letting the company make contributions, but many, perhaps most, would want the money.
An evenhanded approach could reduce the amount of special-interest money sluicing into both parties and help diminish the corroding influence of big contributions. But that is not the goal of Proposition 226, which seeks to destroy union political power while leaving corporate power unchecked.
© Copyright 1998 The New York Times Co.
Not Paycheck Protection — The Washington Post — Friday, May 29, 1998
THE AMOUNT of money in politics should be reduced, but evenhandedly. The disingenuous "paycheck protection" proposals now in circulation fail that test. They are meant to take the unions out of play by impeding the use of union dues for political purposes, while doing nothing about the rest of the problem -- nothing to limit corporate contributions, for example. The current battleground is California, where a paycheck protection initiative is on next week's ballot. The proposal had an early lead in opinion polls but has begun to fade as voters have come to understand it. We hope it fails.
A paycheck protection amendment was used in the Senate last fall in an effort to kill campaign finance reform. That suggests the direction in which the sponsors' interests lie. Majority Leader Trent Lott hoped the amendment would serve as a poison pill -- that its adoption would force Democrats, who get the bulk of labor support, to oppose the underlying legislation. The Republicans would gain a double victory -- beat the bill but avoid the blame. Members of the leader's own caucus refused to go along, and he was finally forced to lead a filibuster against the measure.
Now the idea is appearing in the states, of which California is only the leading example. Supporters claim that union members are routinely forced to support political causes with which they disagree in that portions of their dues are used for such purposes. They would require a union to get fresh written permission each year from each member to continue such spending or else curtail it.
The unions think a lot of members who don't necessarily disagree with the political activity would nonetheless procrastinate, and that the available funds would fall off. They note that no such burden -- to clear political spending with shareholders -- exists for corporations. They note as well that workers required to pay union dues already are free under a Supreme Court decision to direct that no share of those dues be used for political or other such purposes.
Paycheck protection pretends to confer a right that already exists. In fact what it seeks to do in the name of solicitude for workers is weaken unions. This is the wrong way to have a battle about unions and the wrong way to have the battle about campaign finance as well.
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
Postal workers protest USPS contracting out
Members of the American Postal Workers Union held an information picket Wednesday afternoon outside Seattle's Queen Anne branch of the post office, where management offices are located, to call attention to increased contracting out by the U.S. Postal Service.
Among other services, USPS Priority Mail is being contracted out to private, non-union Emery Air Freight, which the union contends will mean the loss of thousands of family-wage union jobs. Emery currently operates 10 hubs in the Eastern United States and if the Postal Board of Governors decides that move is "successful," the contract will be extended to other parts of the country.
"When it happens here, thousands of union postal worker jobs will be transferred to an airline that hires non-union workers at low wages," said Jeff Mansfield, president of the Greater Seattle Area Postal Workers Union. Mansfield contends that — like with most other forms of contracting out — USPS management's goal is not to improve service but to save money, and privatizing the postal service would accomplish neither.
"Bottom-line" driven proposals like these are seductive, but studies and analyses of national and state experiences with contracting out reveal serious hidden costs and pitfalls associated with the practice, including:
-- Low-ball bids often defer hidden future costs or operate in the red to obtain a contract until a couple of years later when the bid goes up and the state can no longer provide the services because of layoffs and reorganization.
-- Corruption and cronyism — in the form of payoffs, kickbacks, price-fixing, collusive bidding and charges for work never performed — increase.
-- Quality of service suffers and the wage gap widens when companies slash wages and hire less-skilled employees to increase profits.
-- Public accountability and disclosure is reduced because sufficient monitoring of contract performance is rare.
Union demonstrators also were protesting changes in the way the USPS handles calls from Seattle-area residents. Instead of those calls being answered by Seattle-area postal workers, new phone books offer only an 800 number to the Denver-based Teletech Corp., which has signed a $65 million contract with the USPS.
"If you want to call the post office here, your call goes to Colorado, where it is handled by a low-paid clerk who is not a Postal Service employee, who has never been a Postal Service employee and who doesn't know anything about the Postal Service," said Mansfield. A Seattle USPS spokesman contends that most calls were generic questions about ZIP codes, hours or rates, and were "tying up the phone lines" at local offices. The spokesman went on to admit that the post office has received a lot of complaints because callers were put on hold at call centers for up to five minutes, but said those problems have been "ironed out."
Hundreds of delegates representing union organizations around the state will attend the Washington State Labor Council's political endorsement convention Saturday, May 30 at the International Association of Machinists District 751 Union Hall in South Seattle at 9125 - 15th Pl. South.
Union members will have an opportunity to meet and hear from congressional, state legislative and judicial candidates before making endorsements in the afternoon. A two-thirds majority of the delegates present is required to win endorsement from the WSLC, the largest labor organization in the state, representing some 400,000 rank-and-file union members statewide.
"This is democracy in action," said WSLC President Rick Bender. "Our delegates have a full and free debate on the issues and candidates before the voting begins, then our members give us our marching orders. We just wish every political constituency had as democratic and open a process as the working men and women of organized labor."
All congressional candidates were invited to address delegates. Confirmed speakers include: U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA); U.S. Reps. Jack Metcalf (R-2nd), Jim McDermott (D-7th) and Adam Smith (D-9th); and congressional challengers Jay Inslee (D-1st), Margarethe Cammermeyer and Fran Einterz (both D-2nd), Brian Baird (D-3rd) and Paul Phillips (R-3rd), and Brad Lyons (D-5th).
Saturday's agenda:
7-9 a.m. — Convention registration (Candidates meet and greet delegates in halls)
9 — Call to Order, Remarks from President Rick Bender
9:30-10 — Representatives of ballot measures ("No on I-200" and I-688)
10-12:30 p.m. — Candidates' speeches & question-and-answer session
12:30 p.m. — Lunch
1:30 — Endorsement action (order: US Senate, US House, ballot measures, judicial and state legislative races)
The morning session and speeches are open to all candidates and the press, but the afternoon session and endorsement action is open only to credentialed delegates and alternates. Endorsement action results will be posted on this web site early Saturday evening.
Organizations affiliated with the Washington State Labor Council received credential forms months ago and should have pre-registered their delegates and alternates by now. But delegates can also register at the door if they present credentials signed by an officer of their union. For more information about registration, call Karen White at (206) 281-8901.
Workers at El Centro de la Raza in Seattle won a major victory late last week when the National Labor Relations Board ruled that management harassed, intimidated and fired employees for trying to organize a union. The ongoing struggle for justice at El Centro has received extensive media attention because of the irony that an organization that purports to advocate for civil rights — including the right to join a union — now stands guilty to using union-busting tactics in its own office.
If a settlement cannot be reached this week between El Centro's management and Office and Professional Employees Local 8, the union workers approached last year for help in organizing a union, the NLRB will file a formal complaint against El Centro and schedule a hearing before an administrative law judge. Possible outcomes include fines, payment of back wages, and reinstatement of workers who were fired or harassed into leaving (if they want to return.)
Of the 14 employees — a majority of the workers at El Centro — who initially sought union representation last fall, more than half no longer work there. The union says those workers were laid off, fired or forced to leave by a hostile work environment, and there is no longer enough support to form a union at El Centro.
Roberto Maestas, longtime director of El Centro, has steadfastly opposed the union ever since he was presented a petition last fall signed by a majority of his employees requesting union representation. Now that it is clear the union doesn't have enough supports left at El Centro, Maestas has claimed a willingness to hold a representation election. But he refused to consider such a vote last fall when a clear majority wanted representation by OPEIU Local 8.
Maestas has gone so far as to declare the entire labor movement as racist, telling a reporter that some workers "have been fearful of unions because labor has not been open to minorities in general, and there has been an anti-union sentiment in general in minority communities." A majority of his employees at the time clearly disagreed and the union actively responded to the workers' request for help, so it is not clear who in this scenario was racist.
"The only reason he doesn't want the union is that it would interfere with his dictatorship," said former El Centro board member Gilberto Salcedo of Maestas. "You can't have it both ways. You can't become what you used to fight."
Among the NLRB's findings was that there was sufficient evidence that case manager Julio Sanchez was discharged for his support of the union organizing drive. He had worked there for 18 months, mostly without benefits, and the NLRB found "he was overworked, overloaded and not specifically disciplined before (his firing)."
"I was fired because I put into practice the principles I learned at El Centro," said Sanchez.
Other NLRB violations cited include:
n El Centro granted wage increases to $8 an hour only for employees who opposed the union, and denied wage increases to union supporters. And a committee of union opponents was allowed to meet on company time on company premises, but that privilege was denied union supporters.
n El Centro isolated union supporters and created onerous working conditions for them, such as denying them access to the office kitchen and prohibiting discussion of "El Centro business" with other employees.
n El Centro interrogated and coerced union supporters with implied promises of benefit for changing their position. The NLRB ruled that Maestas and other managers held "seminar meetings" and told employees that talk of union organizing puts employees in a "bad light" and that talk needs to be stopped. Other threats included a manager telling workers that El Centro would "clear house if the union comes in."
n Maestas either planned or failed to prevent the hostile interrogation of an employee by a Maestas associate at a Seattle restaurant, which included an attempted assault on the employee's spouse. The man accused in the assault was an ex-convict well-known in the Latino community as El Mosco or "The Fly" who happened to be staying at Maestas' house at the time of the incident.
To read about the working conditions that led to the El Centro organizing drive in the first place, click here.
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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