Northwest labor press., February 21, 2014, Page 8, Image 8

What does the minimum wage mean
for Oregon’s workers?
Oregon is one of 13 states that an-
nually increases its minimum wage to
keep pace with rising costs of infla-
tion. Despite this, many Oregonians
are still struggling to make ends meet
and are actually living below the
poverty line even while working a 40-
hour week for minimum wage.
The Oregon AFL-CIO released a
series of informational graphics to call
attention to three compelling reasons
for a higher minimum wage: poverty,
positive impact on other wages and a
comparison of the minimum wage to
the average pay of a CEO.
“For me, it’s very simple” said
Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom
Chamberlain. “We’ve seen more peo-
ple moving to Oregon in the past year
than any other state. We have excep-
tionally high rates of hunger and
poverty in parts of the state. Mini-
mum wage jobs are not just the sum-
mer jobs we picture from when we
were in high school. It’s become
abundantly clear that Oregon’s work-
ers need more than inflation adjust-
ment; we need a minimum wage
that can support a family. Otherwise,
we’re going to see more folks con-
tinue to struggle and need more and
more assistance to make ends meet
even as the economy improves.”
The graphics show that raising the
minimum wage has a direct impact on
increasing the number of jobs higher
on the income scale too, that the
poverty level is higher than the ex-
pected income of a minimum wage
worker, and that CEOs are seeing a
staggering level of profit by keeping
the minimum wage low.
59 senators support the
effort, but it’s one shy of
the 60 needed to break
a GOP filibuster
... Lafer report: Legislative attack on American labor standards
(From Page 7)
other kinds of public benefits.
You didn’t address this is the re-
port, but is there a counter-agenda
that’s also national, an pro-worker
ALEC counterpart?
In the biggest sense, no. Labor is
playing a different hand than the
other side. Business has vastly more
resources. Labor is never going to
win by outspending the other side.
One of the strengths labor has is
people, but it only has that if it uses
it. The first “paycheck protection”
campaign (barring public sector
union dues collection) was in 1998,
California’s Proposition 226. When
it started, polls showed majority
support not only among the public
as a whole but among union mem-
bers. The AFL-CIO put a ton of re-
sources into beating it back, and af-
ter they beat it, they did a poll of
people who’d started off supporting
and ended up opposing, and where
they got information. It turned out
talking to a coworker at work was
20 points more effective than any-
thing else.
To use that, you’d have to not
PAGE 8
treat union members the same as
other volunteers who get plugged
into a phone bank script. Instead,
you’d need to have hundreds of
union members who are trained and
feel confident to have five- to 20-
minute conversations with people at
work, or in their neighborhoods or
churches. That’s a big commitment.
But it’s an example of how the labor
movement could play to a strength
that its opponents do not have.
What about the labor caucus of
the National Conference of State
Legislatures? They share model
“pro-worker” legislation.
They share ideas. But they don’t
have the money to bring people to-
gether at meetings, to run cam-
paigns, to threaten politicians who
do the wrong thing with being pri-
maried, to run endless TV and radio
ads, to fund think tanks in every
state. Sharing model legislation is
just one small part of the ALEC for-
mula. Labor needs to have ideas
that are dramatic enough that they
galvanize the public imagination.
That’s what you have with the mini-
mum wage. You don’t need a mes-
Senate GOP
blocks three
month UI
extension
saging consultant to talk about the
minimum wage. I think that’s true
about K-12 class size too. There are
other issues like that. If you said,
“tax the rich and create jobs,” I
would guess that phrase by itself
would poll enormously high. On the
other hand, if it’s, “increase the ex-
cise tax 0.75 percent and devote it
these five funding streams,” it may
be the right policy, but it’s kind of
an inside game.
If the labor movement’s only
competitive advantage is people,
then it needs something that’s going
to galvanize people. It has to be
something dramatic that captures
people’s imagination. Figure out
what is workable, winnable, even in
a couple of states. In the same way
that people in Oregon volunteered
to phone bank Wisconsin, or do-
nated money to support people oc-
cupying the capitol in Madison, I
think people in lots of parts of the
country would rally around a fight,
even if it was in one state, that re-
ally captured their idea of what a
fair economy is.
But there’s not a national legisla-
tive agenda. I think the national
unions are struggling to turn a cor-
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
ner from defensive to offensive,
ever since being caught by surprise
by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in
2011. SO much resources have
been spent keeping their head above
water that the effort to get on of-
fense has been slow in coming.
I think many people in the coun-
try can say what the labor move-
ment is against, which is everything
— “stop kicking us in the head.”
But many fewer people can say
what is the labor movement’s vision
of how the economy should work in
a fair or just or humane economy. I
think nothing forces you to crystal-
lize that vision more than a ballot
initiative. If the labor movement in
even one state said, “Here’s our
plan: We want to tax the rich and
create jobs, or guarantee everyone a
decent retirement, or universal pre-
school …, ” the lessons from
polling data suggest that there are a
bunch of issues where there’s
grounds to go on offense. I would
think the national labor movement
should be looking at that, and Ore-
gon might be one of the places they
look to, because it’s one of the
places the labor movement has the
competence to carry something out.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Senate
Republicans for the third time blocked
labor-backed legislation to extend un-
employment insurance (UI) benefits
for three months. More than 1.7 mil-
lion out-of-work Americans have
missed out on benefits since the fed-
eral Emergency Unemployment Com-
pensation program expired at the end
of 2013. The program provided extra
weeks of benefits to laid-off workers
who used up the standard six months
of state benefits. The program was in-
troduced in 2008 during the Great Re-
cession.
Fifty-nine senators, including four
Republicans, voted to extend the UI in-
surance benefits. That was one vote
short of the 60 needed to end a Repub-
lican-led “silent” filibuster. A silent fil-
ibuster allows a senator to block a bill
without actually talking for hours on
the Senate floor.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
(D-Nev.) initially voted to halt debate,
but had to switch his vote to “no,” so
he could bring the measure up again in
the future. That made the official vote
count 58-40.
“This isn’t how it’s supposed to
work. In a democracy, that should be
enough,” said U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley
(D-Oregon).
The GOP’s action prompted re-
newed calls for more filibuster reform.
Last year, pressure from a wide mix
of voters and lawmakers (such as
Merkley) led to a change in Senate
rules that ended silent filibusters for all
presidential nominations and judges,
except for Supreme Court justices.
However, it kept the 60-vote filibuster
threshold for legislation.
Merkley said more filibuster reform
is needed to alleviate gridlock in the
U.S. Senate.
“The way the Senate does business
is fundamentally broken,” he said.
“Debate on the issues is healthy, but a
‘silent’ filibuster that allows Republi-
cans to stop everything in its tracks
without even coming to the floor of the
Senate is just wrong. It needs to end.”
The labor-backed coalition, Fix The
Senate Now, said it will continue to
push for further filibuster reforms
throughout 2014.
If nothing else, union officials say
Reid should at least implement the
“talking filibuster,” which would re-
quire a lawmaker to actively hold the
floor in order to block legislation.
FEBRUARY 21, 2014