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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 6, 2006)
Labor ponders which direction AOI will go The business lobbying group Asso- ciated Oregon Industries has installed a new president, leaving local labor lead- ers to wonder what direction the group will take politically. Jay Clemens, who took over Oct. 1, was president of the Tulsa Metro Cham- ber of Commerce in Oklahoma for the last eight years. Before that, he headed the Bremerton, Wash., Chamber of Commerce; managed financial opera- tions for the Association of Washington Businesses; and served 13 years as pres- ident of the Boise Area Chamber of Commerce in Idaho. In Oklahoma, Clemens served on the steering committee of the successful 2001 referendum to make Oklahoma a “right-to-work” state. Twenty-two states, mostly in the South and South- west, are dubbed “right to work” be- cause they prohibit unions from making membership (and paying dues) a condi- tion of employment — although the worker still gets the contract benefits. In what was considered a major blow to unions, 54 percent of Oklahoma voters approved the constitutional amendment. On other issues, Clemens worked in concert with local unions, most notably a $885 million sales-tax-funded devel- opment plan called Vision 2025 that in- cluded: $183 million to build an arena (Tulsa hopes to attract a professional sports team when the arena is completed in 2008); $22 million in subsidies to Ok- lahoma’s largest employer, American Airlines, to keep the company from moving its 8,000-job maintenance hub to another state; and a $350 million package of incentives to get Boeing to build its new 7E7 commercial aircraft in Tulsa (Boeing passed on the subsidy.) Clemens also worked with labor on fundraising campaigns for United Way. Contacted by the NW Labor Press, Clemens copped to backing Okla- homa’s right-to-work campaign, along with nearly the entire business commu- nity of the state, though he said it was the governor, and not business, that raised the issue. Clemens said he’s still learning Oregon’s business priorities, but doesn’t think a right-to-work law is one of them. [A right-to-work ballot ini- tiative has been filed for the 2008 elec- tion, one of a slew of anti-union meas- ures introduced by longtime union foe Bill Sizemore.] AOI, which bills itself “the voice of business in the Legislature,” is propos- ing a sales tax as the answer to the state’s budget woes, and has continually advo- cated business and capital gains tax cuts while opposing union calls to increase the $10 a year minimum corporate in- come tax. AOI has also called for con- tracting out state services. Despite those positions, former Ore- gon AFL-CIO president Tim Nesbitt said the union federation managed over the years to have a working relationship with AOI based on mutual convenience. “We disagree on more issues than not, but we agree to work together on is- sues of agreement,” he said. During the most recent recession, AOI joined the AFL-CIO in calling for unemployment insurance extensions. Nesbitt’s successor Tom Chamber- lain said the state federation has contin- ued to have “a reasonably good rela- tionship” with AOI. This year, AOI went on record opposing Ballot Measure 48, an initiative on the November ballot that would limit state government spending. Opposing the measure is a high priority for Oregon labor unions. Gradine Storms Real Estate Broker Member of CWA Local 7901 E-Mail: gstorms@equitygroup.com www.equitygroup.com/gstorms Think Again • 7886 SE 13th Ave. Portland, Oregon 97202 Direct: 503-495-4932 Branch: 503-233-8883 The ‘monkey in the middle’- class squeeze “B eing middle class these days is like being stuck in a game of ‘monkey in the middle,’ in which the rich get all the tax breaks and the poor get all the services, and we’re stuck between them playing by the rules and never getting our hands on the ball.” That’s not a quote I heard from a focus group; it’s my composite sum- mary of sentiments that I have gleaned from observations on the campaign trail this year. And, it’s a sentiment that has a lot to teach those of us who are struggling to reconnect working-family voters with candi- dates who will fight for their inter- ests. First, there’s the analysis of what troubles working families. If we get that right, we are more likely to fash- ion a political agenda that can appeal to the large majority of middle-class America. It’s not so much the middle-class speed-up — that we’re working harder and smarter but getting less and less for our efforts. We’ve been using that analysis for years now, with little resonance. Nor is it “the undeclared war against the middle class,” that subti- tles Thom Hartmann’s new book and sets us up for competing charges of class warfare. Most working families don’t buy that analysis. And only tangentially is it the loss of opportunity, although the sense that our children will have a harder time making it in the work world is closer to the core of today’s working family angst. Rather, at the heart of that angst are the insecurity and resentment that come from a middle-class squeeze that I fear most working families per- ceive as the economic equivalent of “monkey in the middle.” What’s most disturbing about this perception is its view of government — not just as an entity that is unable to make a positive difference in mid- dle class lives, but as an agent that is making things worse. We are used to blaming the anti- government right-wingers for a decades-long assault on government that has created the cynicism we now confront toward taxes and services. But we can’t continue to defend the indefensible, even if the right- wingers are to blame for it. Our tax system is unfair, and many critical government services are unfairly limited to the working poor. Here are a few examples. Three decades ago, businesses paid half the total taxes at the state and local level in Oregon. By 1990, the business share had fallen to a little over 40 percent. Now it’s about 25 percent. Three decades ago, you could work your way through the Univer- sity of Oregon by working at a mini- mum wage job full time during the summer and part time during the school year. Now you would have to work 48 hours a week year-round to cover a full year at the same univer- sity. The state’s financial aid for Ore- gon students is limited to those from families earning less than $33,000 a year. Three decades ago, most jobs pro- vided health insurance for working people and their children. Now the state is providing health insurance for one of every four children in Oregon, the most ever. But there are still an- other 117,000 children without any health coverage at all — and more than 90 percent of them are in work- ing families. Most of those families earn more than $37,000 a year, which is the upper limit for kids in the Ore- gon Health Plan. There was a telling exchange in the gubernatorial debate hosted by Oregon Public Broadcasting last week. Governor Ted Kulongoski ar- gued that it was government’s re- sponsibility to step in and provide health insurance for children when necessary. His challenger, Ron Sax- ton, argued that we should let the pri- vate sector solve that problem. “You give them (working families) better paying jobs,” said Saxton, “then we worry about those left over.” “Those left over” nowadays are increasingly those with jobs, who can’t afford to pay more taxes and aren’t getting much help from their government. But would they vote for Kulongoski’s plan to raise the corpo- rate minimum tax to fund Head Start and expand college aid to middle-in- come families? Would they support Kulongoski’s proposal to equalize Oregon’s tobacco taxes with those in Washington state to provide afford- able health insurance options to the children of all working families? Saxton says Kulongoski’s propos- als make him a tax-and-spend politi- cian. Kulongoski says Saxton is turn- ing his back on working families. And middle class voters, like mon- keys in the middle, are looking back and forth, trying to decide. The key to success for Kulongoski and other pro-worker candidates in this election is to combine an appeal to class-based tax fairness with con- crete proposals to provide much- needed help for hard-working middle class families — starting with educa- tion and health care first and fore- most. “Tax fairly, spend wisely” is a good start, but it doesn’t go far enough. We need to tax fairly and spend wisely on the kinds of pro- grams that can bolster working fami- lies and restore the middle class of this country. Politically, we cannot do one without the other. And, if we don’t do both, America’s middle class will become the leftovers. (Disclosure: I am temporarily serving as a political adviser to the Kulongoski for Governor campaign.) Tim Nesbitt is a former president of the Oregon AFL-CIO. 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