WSLC Monthly Report -- November 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!

FEBRUARY 28—The Washington State Labor Council’s annual Legislative Conference in Olympia will be at the former WestCoast Olympia Hotel. (Effective Feb. 1, the hotel—formerly known as Cavanaugh’s at Capitol Lake, Holiday Inn-Select and the Westwater Inn—will be Red Lion-Olympia or something similar.) All union members are invited to attend and get updates on the status of legislation affecting working people, and spend the afternoon meeting with their elected representatives to discuss those issues. Registration information will be posted at our website as soon as it becomes available.

The 2002 Labor Neighbor program—with more than 3,500 union volunteers fanning out across the state to get the word out to union families about labor-endorsed candidates and ballot measures—was a qualified success.

At the Washington State Labor Council’s annual post-election luncheon at Seattle’s Catholic Seamen’s Club on Nov. 14, House Speaker Frank Chopp said the reason Democrats will again control the State House of Representatives is the success of Labor Neighbor in supporting labor-endorsed candidates. Democrats gained two seats in the election, extending their majority from 50-48 to 52-46.

Obviously, the election wasn’t all good news for labor-supported candidates as Republicans picked up a single State Senate seat to assume a narrow majority, 25-24. Likewise, the GOP seized control of the U.S. Senate and gained a few seats in the U.S. House. All of Washington’s congressional delegation won re-election; six of nine were labor-endorsed Democrats.

“I think we avoided a pretty significant national trend by holding our own here in Washington state,” Bender said. “Democrats suffered significant losses around the country, but not here in Washington. We lost one State Senate seat, and unfortunately that one will have a major impact, but overall I think it’s clear we bucked the tide.”

After the WSLC’s Labor Neighbor program was credited in 2001 for helping the labor-endorsed candidate win a special election and breaking the House tie, historic legislation was passed into law on collective bargaining rights, family leave, nurses’ mandatory overtime and a number of other important labor issues. So in 2002, the program was expanded into 16 legislative districts, an ambitious logistical undertaking that included hiring more than a dozen coordinators to recruit volunteers and track their progress.

“The response from our affiliated unions was incredible,” said WSLC Political Director Diane McDaniel. “They really stepped up to the plate and turned out their members to volunteer, and that made all the difference.”

In the three districts targeted for the primary election, all three of the labor-endorsed candidates won (and went on to win the general election). The 13 districts targeted for the general election included four of the five new Democrats elected to the House (the WSLC sent direct mail to union members on behalf of the fifth). Labor Neighbor also helped to successfully defend a number of labor-endorsed Democrats in races with uncertain outcomes due to redistricting. Without exception, the endorsed candidates backed by Labor Neighbor who lost their elections had strong showings that proved those districts are winnable.

“The network of volunteers who did such a fantastic job this year is something we can build upon to make Labor Neighbor even more of a force in future elections,” McDaniel said.

At press time, members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, IFPTE 2001, were voting on a three-year contract proposal with Boeing that the union’s bargaining team is recommending they accept. Some 18,000 engineers and technicians are covered under two Puget Sound-region SPEEA contracts, and 1,300 engineers in Wichita, Kansas, are covered under a third. Mail ballots will be counted Dec. 2.

The offer wraps up months of talks and face-to-face bargaining focused on pay, health-care costs and job security. The bargaining team says the contract reflects the struggles faced by Boeing with the dramatic slump in airline travel and resulting plunge in plant orders. The company has laid of tens of thousands of workers since 9-11, and projects some 5,000 more will be eliminated in 2003.

“There are some good things in these proposals,” said SPEEA Executive Director Charles Bofferding, “but there are also things that will disappoint some people. In the end, the (professional and technical) teams believe members will recognize what is here and what they succeeded in keeping out of the proposals.”

Details are sketchy because of a press blackout, but there are hopeful signs that the shipping lines and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union are making progress toward a contract agreement that could avert another work stoppage at West Coast ports. Both sides are refusing to talk about mediated negotiations still under way in San Francisco between the Pacific Maritime Association and the ILWU, but the word is that a major issue of contention—implementing new technology—has been resolved. The issue now reportedly on the table is pensions.

President Bush’s order forcing the ports to reopen after the PMA lockout will expire Dec. 27, but an ILWU lobbyist has predicted the two sides will reach agreement by then. The ILWU’s Lindsay McLaughlin recently said at a conference of importers and exporters: “I am certain that as surely as we were able to find mutually acceptable compromises on technology, we will be able to do the same on pensions. This is true for the few remaining issues that divide us right now.”

Is “America’s Store” living up to America’s values? That was the question asked by hundreds of community supporters who rallied outside Wal-Marts in Renton and Spanaway on Nov. 21 as part of a National Day of Action, spearheaded by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.

Wal-Mart customers, many of whom are union members, joined with other concerned members of their communities to deliver a message that they want to spend their dollars at a store that recognizes the value of being a good corporate neighbor. A new coalition—called People’s Campaign, Justice@Wal-Mart—has been established for grassroots action around a six-point agenda that reflects core American values of fair business practices, respect for workers and consumers, neighborhood friendly operations and good jobs that can support families.

The historic campaign to create and market organic “Fair Trade Apples” has reached a milestone as apples bearing the United Farm Workers label will soon go on sale at Madison Market Natural Foods Coop in Seattle. The effort is based on the premise that consumers will support a fair and just agricultural system, which protects our rural environment, sustains agricultural farm land, checks the loss of farms and farm work by bringing greater income back to the farm gate, and ensures workplace fairness through a contract between growers and farm workers.

A Seattle kickoff event originally scheduled in November had to be postponed. Visit www.wslc.org for updates on when that event is rescheduled and where else around the state you will be able to buy Fair Trade Apples.

On Nov. 12, the WSLC helped distribute an electronic Call to Action asking union supporters to contact the President/CEO of St. Clare Hospital in Lakewood urging him to reach agreement with some 300 service, technical and maintenance employees represented by Service Employees International Union Local 6. The workers had been attempting to negotiate a contract for five months, but management was insisting on an “open shop” and resisting inclusion of a union-security agreement. After receiving dozens of calls, letters and emails, management came to the bargaining table later that week and finally reached an agreement. On Nov. 19, the St. Clare workers ratified the contract by a 110-to-2 vote which includes union shop and weekend premium pay ($2 an hour more for technical employees and $1 an hour more for service workers).

In November, President George W. Bush was able to ram legislation through Congress that creates a new Homeland Security Department and gives Bush the authority he wanted to strip 170,000 federal workers of their collective bargaining and civil services rights.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called the bill “a shameful and unprecedented assault on workers.” It is an affront, he said, to unions’ support for the war against terrorism when “firefighters, emergency personnel and construction workers who put all else aside during the tragic events of Sept. 11 showed the world that being a union member is no obstacle to doing one’s job or performing feats of bravery and patriotism.”

Bobby L. Harnage Sr., president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the homeland security legislation allows the administration “to advance long-stalled schemes to eliminate the checks and balances ensured by collective bargaining and to transform the civil service into a politicized workforce of hacks and cronies.”

Adding insult to the injury, the new legislation comes larded with Big Business-friendly provisions the White House proposed after the Nov. 5 elections. Among these corporate favors is the gutting of a Senate amendment, sponsored by the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.), prohibiting government contracts with companies that move their headquarters offshore to avoid paying taxes. The bill also gives the go-ahead for the new department to hold advisory committee meetings in secret, which will benefit corporate lobbyists. Plus, a provision creating a homeland security research center at a U.S. university was written to ensure its placement at Texas A&M University, which is in Bush’s and other GOP power brokers’ home state.