Labor sees partial gains, modest
disappointments at Olympia
OLYMPIA — When the Washing-
ton State Legislature wrapped up its
2007 session last month, the state la-
bor movement looked back on a sea-
son of partial gains and modest disap-
pointments. Democrats controlled
both chambers and the governor’s of-
fice for the third year in a row, and yet
many of the union-supported bills
tracked by the Washington State La-
bor Council (WSLC) died in one leg-
islative committee or another.
Several proposals that didn’t make
it through the Washington Legislature
may end up being passed by the Ore-
gon Legislature this year, even though
Democrats hold a slimmer majority in
Salem than in Olympia. Democrats
have a 32 to 17 majority in the Wash-
ington Senate, and 62 to 36 in the
House.
The Washington State Legislature
meets annually starting each January,
with five-month sessions in odd-num-
bered years and three-month sessions
in even-numbered years.
The highlight for labor in this
year’s session was the creation of a
family leave insurance program, a
proposal WSLC has been pushing for
years. Beginning in 2009, all Wash-
ington workers will be able to leave
work for up to five weeks upon the
birth or adoption of a child into their
families — and collect a stipend of
$250 a week (pro-rated for part-time
workers.) California is the only other
state that offers such a benefit. As
originally proposed, the insurance
would also have included family leave
for a child’s serious illness and would
have been funded by a 2-cent-per-hour
payroll tax. As passed, it will cover
just maternity/paternity leave, and a
legislative task force will come back
next year with a proposal for how to
pay for it.
Building trades unions chalked up
several victories this session, includ-
ing requirements that sprinkler fitters
and crane operators be state-certified.
The crane operator certification was
clinched among legislators after a
crane collapsed in Bellevue, killing a
man who was in his home watching
TV. The trades also won passage of a
law setting minimum standards for ap-
prenticeship utilization in school dis-
trict public works projects; most gov-
ernment-funded construction projects
in Washington now require that at
least 15 percent of construction work-
ers be apprentices — to open up op-
portunities for new workers to get on-
the-job training.
Another new law sets up “responsi-
ble bidder criteria” for public-works
contracts; in other words, contractors
that break state laws, such as the re-
quirement to pay the prevailing wage,
won’t be able bid on further govern-
ment construction work.
Building trades unions also sup-
ported forming a new joint legislative
PAGE 10
task force to study the underground
economy in the construction industry,
in response to concerns about compe-
tition from unscrupulous employers.
Public employees had successes
too. The Washington Federation of
State Employees (WFSE), a 40,000-
member affiliate of the American Fed-
eration of State, County and Munici-
pal Employees (AFSCME), negotiat-
ed an improved pay and benefits pack-
age last fall with the governor; the
Legislature agreed to fully fund the
deal. Washington state workers have
only had collective bargaining rights
since 2002, and this is their second
union contract.
WFSE also won the right to repre-
sent two new groups — foster parents
and adult home care providers. Wash-
ington will be the first state in the na-
tion to recognize a foster parents
union. While the state’s roughly 6,000
foster parents aren’t government em-
ployees, and the new law doesn’t give
them full collective bargaining rights,
it does direct a state agency to “meet
and confer” with WFSE over reim-
bursement rates and licensing and
screening rules.
Meanwhile, the 2,500 or so adult
family home care providers will be
able to unionize with WFSE, as soon
as it can be worked out how to com-
bine large and small providers into a
single organization. The way the pro-
gram works, state-licensed facilities
get $55 a day to care for elderly or dis-
abled individuals who are unable to
live alone. Some providers are indi-
viduals who open up their own
homes; others are businesses that em-
ploy others.
When union-backed bills got a
vote, most lawmakers voted along
partisan lines, Democrats siding with
labor and Republicans voting against.
There were exceptions. WSLC is still
tabulating its official Committee On
Political Education (COPE) ratings of
lawmakers, but draft results showed
Don Benton, (R-Vancouver) voting in
accord with labor on the majority of
issues this year, in contrast to his pre-
vious lifetime voting record of 24 per-
cent. Benton was one of only two Re-
publicans to vote for the family leave
insurance bill in its original version.
But many important union-backed
proposals didn’t get a vote, because
they didn’t have the support of a com-
mittee chair. The way the Legislature
works, each bill is assigned to a com-
mittee to look at. Each committee has
a chair who controls the agenda. Only
if a bill is passed by a committee does
it generally get a vote of the House or
Senate. And in order to become law,
bills must pass both chambers and get
the signature of the governor.
“The Legislature is set up to kill
legislation, not pass it," said WFSE
lobbyist Tim Welch.
One bill would have allowed public
employees to unionize by “card
check.” Another would have prohib-
ited aerospace employers that received
state tax incentives from forcing em-
ployees to attend anti-union meetings.
Another would have required a list of
all state tax exemptions to be included
with the governor’s biennial budget
proposal.
Proposals to stop fraud in the initia-
tive system got nowhere. One would
have provided more campaign finance
disclosure during the signature-gather-
ing phase of initiative campaigns. An-
other would have required the licens-
ing of paid signature gathering firms,
and training and permitting of paid
signature-gatherers. A third would
have required signature gatherers to
sign a declaration on the back of the
petition, attesting that the signatures
on the petition are those of registered
voters.
For the second year in a row,
unions pushed a bill that would have
required employers with more than
1,000 workers to reimburse the state if
their employees are uninsured — and
poor enough to be enrolled in tax-sub-
sidized health plans. Wal-Mart, in
other words. Last year House speaker
Frank Chopp (D-Seattle) drew the ire
of John Sweeney, the president of the
national AFL-CIO, for killing a simi-
lar bill, which was supported by the
majority of legislators. This year, said
WSLC spokesperson David Groves,
most lawmakers were spooked by a
federal court decision that overturned
a similar law in Maryland.
“Often bills take a number of years
to pass,” Groves said. “This is the start
of educating the Legislature. We plan
to push harder next year.”
EE
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