WSLC Monthly Report -- Aug/Sept 2002

WSLC Reports is a monthly summary of labor news and a preview of coming events. It is not intended to be comprehensive. More detail is available on these (and other) items online. If you would like to receive this via fax or mail, Get on the List!

OCTOBER 17-18—Annual Workers’ Compensation Conference. “A Meeting of the Minds,” the 2002 Workers’ Compensation Conference organized by the WSLC, the Department of Labor and Industries and the Association of Washington Business, will be Thursday and Friday at the Shoreline Conference Center in Seattle. The day before the conference a special workshop on workers’ comp basics. “Learn How the System Works,” will be Wednesday, October 16 from 1 to 3:30 p.m. at the Seattle Labor Temple, 2800 1st Ave. For more information on how to register, contact the Project Help office at 1-800-255-9752.

2002 LABOR NEIGHBOR. Get involved in Labor Neighbor, the WSLC’s grassroots political education program. Neighborhood walks, phone banks and other activities are happening from September through Nov. 5th, Election Day. To volunteer; call 1-800-542-0904 for more information.

FEBRUARY 28—The Washington State Labor Council’s 2003 Legislative Conference will be at the WestCoast Olympian Hotel. Registration information will be available soon, but mark your calendars now.

Members of the International Association of Machinists rejected Boeing’s “last, best and final” contract offer on Sept. 13, but failed to muster the 66.6 percent majority required to strike the company. Members rejected the proposal by 62 percent, but only 61 percent voted to authorize a strike. Under provisions of the IAM Constitution, Boeing’s contract therefore automatically took effect.

“This Union is a very democratic organization,” said IAM District 751 President Mark Blondin, who had urged members to reject the contract and authorize a strike. “Our members have spoken, and we will support their decision... Our members clearly rejected the company’s offer and saw it would eliminate jobs, but felt they could not strike the company at this time. Boeing has used scare tactics, threats and the very real economic hardships of these times to force this job-eliminating contract on the union membership. The union will do everything in our power to work within the confines of the law and this agreement to protect the interests of our members and their jobs.”

Boeing is scheduled to begin contract talks on Oct. 29 with its second-biggest union, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, IFPTE 2001. The union, which represents some 19,000 engineers and technical workers, is also concerned that their jobs are being exported, wants a pension increase, and seeks to avoid steep increases in out-of-pocket costs for health care.

Negotiators for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and shippers continue as West Coast dockworkers continue to work without a contract, which expired July 1. There has been some progress, as both sides reported tentative agreement on medical benefits in early September, but no progress is reported on the biggest issue separating the two sides: the introduction of technology that would eliminate good family-wage jobs.

Thousands of people marched and rallied in support of the ILWU in Seattle and Tacoma as part of a National Day of Action on Aug. 12. The ILWU, representing some 10,500 longshore workers at all 29 major Pacific ports from Bellingham to San Diego, has accused the Bush Administration of interfering in the collective bargaining process and urged the White House to butt out. Bush’s representatives have threatened to bring in the military to operate the ports if longshore workers walk off the job, thus taking away the biggest incentive the employers have to negotiate in good faith. Bush has made the threat at the request of the West Coast Waterfront Coalition, a collection of retailers including Wal-Mart, The Gap, Payless Shoes, Toyota and many others that fear a port disruption would harm “national security”—or more accurately, their bottom lines.

President Rick Bender opened the WSLC’s 2002 Constitutional Convention in Spokane on Aug. 19 by reinforcing the link between political action and union organizing. Addressing some 500 assembled delegates and guests, he introduced several rank-and-file members of different unions representing some of the important organizing, legislative and political victories that have taken place in Washington during the past year.

From a University of Washington academic student employee to a state homecare worker, many of the individuals who shared the stage for the opening plenary would not have had the legal right to organize a union one year ago. That’s because several bills to grant collective bargaining rights to different classifications of state employees were bottled up by the tie in the state House of Representatives. That ended after the tie was broken, thanks largely to an aggressive new grassroots political program called Labor Neighbor. Bender and several other distinguished speakers went on to urge delegates to volunteer—and recruit others to volunteer—in this fall’s Labor Neighbor program so more legislative victories can be achieved in 2003.

The Labor Neighbor program of grassroots political action has been expanded into more than a dozen legislative districts statewide to help spread the word among union members about which candidates earned labor’s endorsement—and more importantly, why. Hundreds of rank-and-file members have already volunteered for neighborhood walks, phone banks and other member-to-member activities preceding the Sept. 17 primary election.

All WSLC affiliates are urged to recruit volunteers willing to spend two or three hours on the weekend “walking the walk” in neighborhoods to share literature with fellow union members. Call Jennifer Grace at 1-800-542-0904 to get involved.

Delegates representing WSLC-affiliated unions voted overwhelmingly this summer to support passage of Referendum 51, which would finance desperately needed transportation projects across the state by phasing in a 9-cent gas-tax increase plus imposing some vehicle sales taxes and truck weight fees. Since that time the WSLC has been working to educate union members that R51 isn’t just about creating good jobs for road construction and maintenance, it’s about retaining all family-wage jobs in this state. It’s about the safety of roads and bridges for our families. It’s about holding our state accountable for the money and for each of the hundreds of projects it will finance statewide.

Help us spread the word about R51 by distributing and posting camera-ready fliers explaining the facts of R51. Learn more.

An 84 percent majority of home health care workers voted in August to join Local 6 of the Service Employees International Union in the largest such public union vote in state history. About 25,500 home care workers who make $7.68 an hour with no benefits now have a union to advocate for living wages, benefits, and improved services for their elderly and disabled clients.

“These workers live in life-threatening poverty to care for our most vulnerable citizens. That ends today,” said SEIU Local 6 President David Rolf after the results were announced. The union soon will begin negotiating with the new Home Care Quality Authority, formed with last year’s passage of Initiative 775. A University of Washington study last October projected that demand for in-home care will increase 400 percent over the next 30 years, and that unless the state raises wages and benefits for home care workers, seniors will begin facing a severe shortage of caregivers and waiting lists of up to seven months.

Some 1,600 grocery workers in Central Washington voted overwhelmingly in favor of a new four-year contract in early September, ending the threat of a strike that loomed during tense negotiations. “I think this is the end to a very frustrating process. It was very uncomfortable for all parties,” said Sue Bonnett, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1439. The Albertsons, Fred Meyer, Safeway and Top Foods employees will receive health care from a new company but retained full employer-paid coverage. Grocery employers had said during negotiations that they needed lower labor costs to compete with nonunion Wal-Mart, which now sells groceries at many of its stores, including in Yakima and Sunnyside.

As the nation commemorated the solemn anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks of last year, the AFL-CIO organized and participated in remembrances across the country to honor the more than 3,000 victims—including more than 600 union members who lost their lives that day.

The AFL-CIO urged union members to “remember, reflect and recommit” to fighting for justice for American workers, especially the other victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, the hundreds of thousands of workers who have lost their jobs in the subsequent economic downturn. Action was urged regarding two timely struggles: the ILWU negotiations with West Coast shippers and Senate deliberations over whether employees of the new Homeland Security Department will enjoy the same union and workplace rights as other federal workers.

As the pundits and policymakers wring their hands over corporate scandals at Enron, WorldCom and countless other companies, the AFL-CIO has taken action to protect the real victims of these companies’ freefalls: the laid-off workers. The AFL-CIO intervened on behalf of Enron workers, many of whom had lost their entire retirement savings, and eventually these workers received a much fairer severance package from the company. Likewise, the labor movement has moved to assist former WorldCom workers and all others who have lost their jobs as a result of corporate malfeasance and the economic downturn.