WSLC Monthly Report -- February 2006

The WSLC Roundup is a pretty-much-bimonthly 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.)

SATURDAY, MAY 13 -- The Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO will host its 2006 COPE Convention (Committee on Political Education) at the SeaTac Hilton starting at 9 a.m. It is at this convention that union delegates representing WSLC-affiliated unions around the state will debate and vote on endorsements in the 2006 elections for Congress, State Legislature, State Supreme Court and ballot measures. A two-thirds majority of delegates present and voting is necessary for endorsement. Statewide COPE will meet the preceding Friday night at the hotel. The COPE Convention call indicating each affiliated union’s delegate count will be mailed in mid-March.

AUGUST 21-24 -- The Washington State Labor Council’s 2006 Constitutional Convention will be held at the WestCoast Wenatchee Hotel. The convention call will be mailed to affiliated unions in mid-May.

Five new members of the Washington State Labor Council’s Executive Board were appointed in February to fill the unexpired terms of board members who have resigned. The new WSLC Vice Presidents are IAM District 751 President Mark Blondin, ILWU Local 4 Vice President Cager Clabaugh, WFSE Local 1326 member Howard Ocobock, AFT Washington President Sandra Schroeder, and Ligia Velazquez of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement.

The WSLC Executive Board meets quarterly to establish the policies and programs between conventions of the state’s largest labor organization. The current Board is composed of President Rick Bender, Secretary-Treasurer Al Link and 25 Vice Presidents, 19 of whom are elected by district. In addition, any international union that has WSLC per capita membership of 10,000 or more rank-and-file members is entitled to an At-Large Vice President, if that union is not already represented on the board. Five AFL-CIO affiliated constituency groups also have Vice Presidents appointed to represent their unique interests.

The five new Vice Presidents were nominated by WSLC affiliates, interviewed and appointed by the Executive Board to fill vacancies created by the resignation of IAM District 751’s Ron McGaha and Linda Lanham, UFCW’s Lynda Hart and Dale Palmer, and LCLAA’s Tania Maria Rosario. All members of the WSLC Executive Board, including the new Vice Presidents, will stand for election to a new 4-year term this fall.

A number of local unions that are part of the Change to Win Coalition have signed AFL-CIO Solidarity Charters and rejoined the Washington State Labor Council with full voting rights. Among the returning unions are WPEA/UFCW 365; UFCW Locals 21, 81 and 44; UNITE HERE Local 8; SEIU Local 925; and Teamsters Locals 117 and 252. Some other CTW unions have successfully received Charters, but have yet to begin paying per capita.

"I am very pleased to welcome back our Brothers and Sisters at CTW unions," said WSLC President Rick Bender. "I urge other CTW unions to apply for Charters so that together we can rebuild and improve the WSLC, making our state federation an even more effective advocate for Washington’s working families."

Chartered CTW union locals pay the same per capita fees as they did prior to their international union’s disaffiliation from the AFL-CIO, and maintain the same rights and obligations as other affiliates, including participation in WSLC governance and affairs, and eligibility of their members to hold WSLC office.

Jobless benefits, family leave still in play;
Fair Share Health Care bill will be back

As of this newsletter’s writing a number of important bills supported by the Washington State Labor Council remain alive in Olympia, with one major exception. The Fair Share Health Care bill, which would have set a standard for the provision of a minimal level of health benefits at large employers like Wal-Mart, died without a vote. However, at the WSLC Legislative Conference on Feb. 16, Gov. Chris Gregoire pledged to help "make it happen" and pass a "perfected" Fair Share bill in 2007.

In the meantime, SB 6885 to permanently restore two-quarter averaging in the calculation of Unemployment Insurance benefits has passed the Senate and is expected to get a House vote at any time. Likewise, SB 6185 codifying the federal Family and Medical Leave Act into state statute (and thus protecting it from the Bush administration’s impending attack on the law) easily passed the Senate and is also poised for a House vote. Dozens of other bills important to working families also remain in play. Check their status using the WSLC Legislative Tracker™ at the council’s web site: www.wslc.org/legis/tracker.htm

Washington state taxpayers subsidized more than 3,100 Wal-Mart employees who were on state health coverage in 2004, nearly double the total for any other company, according to confidential state reports leaked to The Seattle Times in January. A later report indicated that Wal-Mart workers received more than $22.7 million in taxpayer-funded health benefits; more than $12.1 million of that total came directly from Washington state’s coffers.

The revelations fueled an already intense debate over the Fair Share Health Care bill supported by the WSLC and a coalition of labor, business, health care and community organizations. Moreover, it added momentum to a second piece of legislation that is still alive in Olympia as of the writing, HB 3079, the Health Care Disclosure Act. It would require state agencies to work together to prepare a report identifying the employers of Basic Health Plan and Medicaid enrollees. This information is critical for taxpayers to assess the extent to which certain large employers are shifting health costs on state government, so an informed decision can be made about what to do about it.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual report on union membership Friday and unionization rates held steady nationally. In 2005, 12.5 percent of wage and salary workers were union members, unchanged from 2004. That represents a significant increase of 213,000 union members in the last year, reversing a trend of decline in recent years as good union jobs disappeared. However, the national unionization rate has steadily declined over the years from a high of 20.1% in 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available.

In Washington state, the number of union members climbed 13,000 to an estimated 523,000, but the overall union membership rate dropped from 19.3% in 2004 to 19.1% in 2005 as the state continued to emerge from the national recession, adding more than 100,000 jobs. Washington continues to rank 6th highest in the nation in terms of the unionization rate. Only New York, Hawaii, Alaska, Michigan and New Jersey, in that order, have higher rates.

The nation’s largest labor union, the National Education Association, has reached an agreement with the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of Teachers to allows NEA local chapters to join AFL-CIO central bodies and state federations. Under this reported agreement, if they so choose, local unions of the Washington Education Association could affiliate with the Washington State Labor Council and central labor bodies around the state.

The NEA boasts 2.7 million members working at every level of education, from pre-school to university graduate programs. The AFL-CIO is the voluntary federation of America’s unions, representing over 9 million working women and men nationwide.

The WEA has more than 76,000 members in Washington . The majority, nearly 59,400, are K-12 classroom teachers and other K-12 certificated staff, and 10,600 are classified employees. The WSLC represents some 400,000 rank-and-file members of its affiliated local unions.

The Laborers International Union of North America and the International Union of Operating Engineers unions have quit the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department after complaints about declining membership and misplaced priorities. The unions say they will join with the Teamsters, Carpenters, Iron Workers and Bricklayers to form a new construction union alliance called the National Construction Alliance. Laborers President Terry O’Sullivan says his union, which has been part of the Change to Win Coalition since its inception last year, says that his union will soon quit the AFL-CIO entirely. Operating Engineers President Vincent Giblin said "the jury is still out" on whether his union will completely leave the AFL-CIO.

The AFL-CIO on Feb. 21 launched AFL-CIO Now: News That Works, a comprehensive news and opinion blog offering fresh online information from around the country about issues affecting working people and unions. The "superblog" adds a dynamic new element to the AFL-CIO’s online presence, which already includes a popular website and a network of over half a million online activists. Check it out at http://blog.aflcio.org.

State Chambers of Commerce are reportedly behind a new multimillion dollar advertising campaign attacking organized labor as corrupt and outdated. (Fortunately, labor can rely on each day’s business section headlines to demonstrate corporate corruption and greed.) A new group called the Center for Union Facts has bought full-page newspaper ads and set up a website dedicated to bashing unions.