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.
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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
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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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