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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 5, 2007)
Inside MEETING NO TICES See Page 6 V olume 108 Number 1 J anuary 5, 2007 P ortland Solving the crisis in health care: 2007 looks to be best chance in years at real solution In Washington, D.C., and in Salem, Ron Wyden and Ben Westlund gear up to push versions of universal health care By DON McINTOSH Associate Editor It’s the number one issue for unions at contract bargaining time: Unceasing growth in the cost of health care insurance is eating up wage increases and forcing unions to fight hard just to keep the same level of employer-paid health coverage. That reality has driven unions to look for a political solution, with the result that unions have become perhaps the best-organ- ized lobby for the public at large in its desire for greater access to health care and a more tolerable cost. The issue long ago passed crisis proportions: 43 million Americans were without insurance last year (600,000 in Ore- gon), and premiums for those who have health insurance have gone up 87 percent in the last six years, now averaging $956 a month for family coverage — more than the entire income of a full-time worker earning the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. America’s current health care system is famous for costliness, inefficiency and inequality. It’s a crisis that calls out for national solution, but so far Congress has failed to effectively address it, above all because of the political power of the medical-industrial complex — the tangle of entrenched economic interests that ben- efit from the status quo: insurers, hospitals, drug companies, doc- tors, medical equipment manufacturers and on and on. Those worst off under the current system, the uninsured, aren’t organized into any effective lobby. So political support for a solution is most likely to come from stakeholders like business and labor. Health care costs were an estimated $2.2 trillion last year — about one-sixth the value of everything produced in the United States. In effect, one-sixth of the economy is holding the other five-sixths hostage by resisting reform, because the 61 percent of employers that provide coverage view health care as a business expense they can’t control. Nationally and locally, there’s a sense that this could be the year major reform finally comes. The return of Democrats to the majority in Congress and the Oregon Legislature has raised the Oregon labor unions have ambitious political agenda Hopes are high among union lob- byists going into Oregon’s 2007 leg- islative session, which begins Jan. 8. With Democrats in control of the gov- ernor’s office and the Oregon House and Senate, the strategy has switched from defense to offense. Union- backed bills that couldn’t pass in re- cent years have much better prospects this year. The labor movement, which helped elect many lawmakers, now will ask them to make good on pledges to support laws that benefit working people. Whether they work independently or as part of several union groupings, there don’t appear to be any major dis- agreements among unions about what to push for. To get a preview of labor’s legisla- tive agenda for Oregon this year, the Northwest Labor Press talked with leaders and political directors of some of the state’s most politically active la- bor organizations. Here are some of the proposals they’ll be backing. M AKING I T E ASIER T O U NIONIZE • Let public employees unionize by “card check.” Oregon law allows pub- lic employees to unionize but leaves one important decision to manage- ment: Managers can recognize a union when a majority of workers have signed union authorization cards, or they can call for the question to be de- cided in a union certification election. Union organizers favor the former, known as “card check,” because it makes unionizing easier and less chancy. Governor Ted Kulongoski or- dered managers in state agencies to al- low card check, but his order didn’t apply to quasi-independent agencies like the Oregon Lottery or agencies like the Judiciary which are independ- ent of the governor. This year, unions want to settle the question for school districts and local governments as well as state agencies. • Ban “captive audience” anti- union meetings. Anti-union meetings are extremely common in company fights against union campaigns — (Turn to Page 2) hopes of health care reformers. Congress is expected to look at several far-reaching solutions, and the Oregon Legislature is likely to move ahead with major statewide reforms that could serve as an incubator for national reforms. Incoming U.S. Senate Health Committee Chairman Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and House Commerce Committee Chair- man John Dingell (D-Mich.) will push a proposal to expand Medicare to everyone under 65 (Medicare currently makes health coverage available to everyone 65 and over.) Congress started Medicare in 1965 as a single direct payer program and later added a private insurance option that has proved more costly. The Kennedy-Dingell expansion would return to the origi- nal model. It would be funded by a 1.7 percent tax on workers’ wages and a 7 percent payroll tax paid by employers. Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich.) also will push a Medicare-for-all plan, with the difference being that Conyers’ bill would put private health insurers out of business. Conyers’ pro- posal, endorsed by more than 200 labor organizations, would be paid for in part by a modest payroll tax, a small tax on stock and bond transactions, and increased personal income taxes on the (Turn to Page 3) Carpenters haul in toys for kids Joe Baron, financial secretary of Carpenters Local 247, brings a bag of toys for the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters 8th annual toy drive. This year the Car- penters Council gathered 1,685 toys and $2,531 in cash donations. Car- penters unions from around Oregon and Southwest Washington decide how to distribute the toys within their own communities. In the Portland-Vancouver area a majority of the donations go to the Portland Fire Bureau’s Toy & Joymakers. “The Carpenters Union is one of our major contributors. They make a big difference and help tremendously in our efforts,” said Dean Johnston of the Toy & Joymakers. Over the past eight years the Carpenters have donated more than 8,000 toys and $23,000 in cash, said Carpenters Council President Bruce Dennis. “We would not be able to do this without the support of all the local unions, union contractors, contractor associations, community service groups and members.”
