WSLC Monthly Report -- July/August 2004

WSLC Reports is a pretty-much-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) stories online. If you want to receive this via fax or mail, Get on the List!
(See previous editions of this newsletter.)

AUGUST 23-26 -- The Washington State Labor Council's 2004 Constitutional Convention will be Monday through Thursday at the Tacoma Sheraton. Delegates will debate and establish WSLC positions on issues, candidates and programs. This year, they may also consider changes to the WSLC Constitution. Convention calls were mailed in late May to affiliated unions with delegate registration and credential forms. For more information, contact Karen White at (206) 281-8901.

SEPTEMBER 12-17 -- A Train the Trainer Program on Workplace Safety and Health will be Sunday through Friday at the Laborers Training Facility in Kingston. Taught by George Meany Labor College instructors, in cooperation with the WSLC, participants will learn how to teach or facilitate classes for other union members on a variety of topics affecting workers’ health. The cost, which includes accommodations, registration and meals, is $275 per person. Enrollment is limited to 20 people and only a few slots remain. Contact Randy Loomans at (360) 943-0608 or rloomans@wslc.org for information.

OCTOBER 6-7 -- Meeting of the Minds: 2004 Workers’ Compensation Conference will be at the Shoreline Conference Center. The WSLC, the Association of Washington Business and the Dept. of Labor and Industries present this broad-based forum for participants to learn more about workers’ compensation. It should appeal to union representatives, rank-and-file workers, employers and all others affected by the system. It is expected to sell out, so register early. For information, call the Project Help office at 1-800-255-9752.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney will address the Washington State Labor Council’s 2004 Constitutional Convention set for Monday through Thursday, Aug. 23-26 at the Tacoma Sheraton Hotel.

Other confirmed speakers include Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA); Clayola Brown, vice president of the newly formed UNITE-HERE union; Carl Mack, president of the Seattle-King County branch of the NAACP; gubernatorial candidates Christine Gregoire and Ron Sims; and several U.S. representatives and state legislative leaders. The agenda also includes panels on offshore outsourcing and workers’ compensation, special speakers on health care and Social Security, and workshops on everything from union organizing to drugfree workplace issues. Delegates representing WSLC-affiliated unions will debate resolutions that establish the organization’s positions or policies on issues, candidates and programs, including constitutional changes. Additional election endorsements also will be considered to supplement those made at the WSLC’s COPE Convention in May.

Affiliated unions received a convention call with delegate registration and credential forms months ago. For more registration information or other convention questions, contact Karen White at (206) 281-8901.

The Committee on Political Education and the Women’s Committee of the Washington State Labor Council will hold auctions at the WSLC annual convention to raise money for their programs. The COPE auction will follow the COPE Barbecue on Tuesday night, Aug. 24 and the Women’s Committee’s silent auction, as always, will precede the convention banquet on Wednesday night, Aug. 25.

Sale items are needed. Sporting event tickets, posters, t-shirts, cruises, condominium time, artwork and personal services are just a few ideas. If you have an item(s) to donate for the COPE auction, contact Jeri Wood at (206) 281-8901. If you have an item for the Women’s Committee, contact Kairie Pierce at (360) 943-0608. Or you can just mail the item (indicating which auction it’s for) to the WSLC, 314 First Ave. West, Seattle, WA, 98119.

Convention delegates and guests who arrive in Tacoma a day early are welcome to participate in the 1st Annual Washington State Labor Council Invitational Golf Tournament on Sunday, Aug. 22 at the North Shore Golf Course.

Hosted by the Labor 1992 Corporation, the WSLC and its Community Services Committee, the 18 holes of scramble-rules golf features prizes and a raffle. Registration is $90 per player, which includes a barbecue. Tournament proceeds will benefit community-service agencies.

Puget Sound-area grocers and a coalition of United Food and Commercial Workers Union locals reached a tentative contract agreement Aug. 7 that could avert the threat of a strike or lockout of an estimated 14,000 workers. If UFCW members vote to accept the contract, it could define pay and benefits for as many as 25,000 grocery workers in Western Washington because many other stores traditionally sign so-called “me-too” agreements.

After nearly four months of tense talks with Safeway, Albertsons, and Kroger-owned QFC and Fred Meyer stores the agreement was reached just a few days after one UFCW local, Tacoma’s Local 367, dropped out of the negotiations to pursue its own contract agreement. Although details on the tentative deal were not available at press time, a UFCW spokesman said, “The tentative agreement preserves affordable health care, protects livable wages, healthy pension plans and prevented the introduction of a two-tier system.”

The Washington State Labor Council filed an Initiative to the Legislature with the Secretary of State on Aug. 3 to reform the state workers’ compensation system. The measure articulates the changes necessary to make the workers’ compensation system more fair for injured workers.

“We’re tired of the blame-the-victims mentality in Olympia, especially among certain business lobbying groups who want to shred the safety net for injured workers,” said WSLC President Rick Bender. “It’s time for action to protect the interests of injured workers and their families.”

The initiative, yet to be assigned a number, seeks whistleblower protections; protect injured workers’ choice of medical provider; require employer-provided health benefits to continue while injured workers are off the job; eliminate the workers’ share of the premiums (Washington is currently the only state in the nation where workers pay a portion of the premiums); reform the Retrospective Rating Program; allow vocational rehabilitation benefits for up to two years; and limit attorneys’ fees for representatives of injured workers and employers.

More than 400 University of Washington employees represented by Service Employees International Union Local 925 hit the streets July 29 with a one-day informational picket as contract negotiations heat up for 6,500 workers in the UW’s research, education and business operations. Workers leafletted in front of the UW Medical Center, Harborview Medical Center and other UW offices, and presented giant postcards to each facility’s administrator reading: “Stagnant wages, rising health care costs, private subcontracting and evaluation-based wages will not recruit and retain the best staff at the University of Washington.”

“Your Tax Dollars at Work... Offshore,” a new report by the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, spotlights the growing degree to which state governments, including Washington’s, are contracting with foreign outsourcing firms for public contracts and are funneling millions of state taxpayer dollars offshore. The Washington Alliance of Technology Workers/CWA, a local union supporting workers in the information technology sector, helped fund the new study. The report is especially important because it provides information that some state legislators prefer not to have. The House of Representatives voted 64-31 this year for EHCR 4419, creating a task force to study the extent to which state tax revenue is being spent to create jobs offshore. But State Senate leaders, where Republicans hold a 1-vote majority, refused to allow a vote.

In June, union members in Washington state contributed to the success of what the AFL-CIO called the “largest and earliest mobilization of working Americans in multiple states in history.” The Washington State Labor Council’s Labor Neighbor campaign continues through Election Day as union volunteers go door-to-door talking with fellow union voters about why their union supports John Kerry for President, opposes Dino Rossi for Governor and backs certain candidates for state legislature.

There are two shifts of walks on Saturdays and Sundays in Clark/Cowlitz, King, Pierce, Snohomish and Spokane counties. In King County, there are also weekday shifts. Union members can volunteer by calling (206) 441-2647 or fill out a form online at www.wslc.org.

Bush vs. Kerry on jobs:
More failed tax cuts, or a new plan to spur investment

President George W. Bush continues to campaign that the economy is “strong and getting stronger,” even as the evidence continues to mount that his tax-cut-for-the-rich trickle-down economic policies have driven the nation into an economic ditch. The latest news, that a paltry 32,000 jobs were created in July, stunned Wall Street analysts Aug. 6 and sent the market tumbling again. The economy has lost 1.8 million private-sector jobs since Bush took office, but he says he intends to stay the course with his economic policies, which he insists are working well.

Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president, plans to roll back Bush’s tax cuts targeted to the wealthy, which he says have failed to spur the economy as Bush promised. Kerry wants instead to target tax relief to the middle class by protecting the increases in the child tax credit, the reduced marriage penalty and the new tax bracket that helps people save $350 on their first level of income. Kerry plans to shore up the nation’s industrial base with a new tax credit to encourage manufacturers to remain in this country and expand operations in the United States. He also has proposed a new manufacturing jobs credit and investing in new energy industries. He believes one of the surest steps to job creation is focusing federal infrastructure resources on building roads and bridges, water and sewer systems and upgrading the nation’s transportation systems.