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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 6, 2015)
SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900 NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS VOLUME 116, NUMBER 21 The top health care lobbyist for the national AFL-CIO says ef- forts to repeal Obamacare’s “Cadillac tax” may be gathering momentum. The Cadillac tax, which is due to take effect in 2018, is a 40 percent excise tax on high-cost employer health benefits. It was the part of the Affordable Care Act that labor union leaders most objected to when the bill was making its way through Congress in 2010, and they’ve have been calling for its repeal ever since. The tax was sold as a way to put a lid on premium increases — and cap what is now an open-ended tax subsidy for em- ployer-paid health coverage. Local Motion Union Meetings Classified Ads Healthy Retirees PORTLAND, OREGON Bipartisan push to kill Obamacare ‘Cadillac tax’ What do Hillary and Bernie have in common with Paul Ryan? All 3 want to dump the looming 40% tax on employer health benefits INSIDE Here’s why it makes sense … in theory. What an employer pays for employee health bene- fits isn’t taxed. If that money went instead to wages or profits, it would be subject to income and payroll taxes. So there’s a cost to the U.S. Treasury for every dollar employers spend on employee health benefits. But if the federal government levies a punitive tax on every dollar they spend on health benefits above a certain limit, employers would find a way to keep health benefit spending below that limit. Ac- cording to the theory, that can be done without hurting workers, since the reason premiums are so high is that benefits are too generous. Workers pay too little for their healthcare, the theory goes, and that causes them to use unnecessary medical serv- Turn to Page 2 3 6 11 12 NOVEMBER 6, 2015 Westmoreland Union Manor undergoes major renovation WITH ASSIST FROM UNION PENSION FUNDS. Westmore- land Union Manor, one of the largest affordable housing projects in the state, is under- going a $45 million facelift. Built in 1966 by the Union La- bor Retirement Association, the seven-story, 300-unit complex located in Southeast Portland’s Sellwood-More- land neighborhood is home to 333 low-income seniors. ULRA is a nonprofit founded in 1962 by Earl B. Kirkland and other leaders of Port- land’s building trades unions. The rehabilitation of the building includes the com- plete replacement of the building envelope, new do- mestic water and HVAC sys- Turn to Page 9 Oregon AFL-CIO resolves to ‘Fight for a Change’ Delegates say Black Lives Matter, trade votes have consequences, and corporate taxes – and the minimum wage – must go up By Don McIntosh Associate editor SEASIDE—Ready to fight? Because ready or not, the fight is coming. That was the mes- sage for 240 delegates from more than three dozen unions who gathered Oct. 22-25 in Sea- side for the biennial convention of the Oregon AFL-CIO. In 2016, President Obama will try to pass a trade deal that could make NAFTA’s impact on U.S. manufacturing jobs look small by comparison, and the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to deliver a body blow to public sector unions. The AFL-CIO is the volun- tary federation that most U.S. unions belong to. It promotes la- bor unity and coordinates union MORE CONVENTION COVERAGE See what they resolved, who got top honors, and more on Pages 4 and 5. electoral and political work. Oregon’s AFL-CIO is sustained by dues from 117,609 members of affiliated unions. And its con- vention is where those affiliates set official policy. Elected lead- ers from each union appoint del- egates, who debate priorities and strategy at the convention. This year, delegates resolved not to endorse members of Con- gress who voted for Fast Track; they embraced the Black Lives Matter movement; they en- dorsed campaigns to raise cor- porate taxes and the minimum wage; and they approved a phased-in 10 cent-per-member monthly dues increase to fund field operations around the state. They also heard from U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley about the effects of decades of bad trade policy, and from top public sector union leaders about their preparations for the fight of their lives. “As I stand before you today, we face great peril,” Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Cham- berlain declared, opening the convention. “Winter is coming” said Ran- fis Giannettino Villatoro of the Voz Workers’ Rights Education Project. The saying comes from the HBO hit show Game of Thrones. In the show, humanity is threatened by an army of ice zombies and must find a way to unite before it’s too late. In the same way, unions must unite and find allies in order to resist corporate trade agreements and survive the impact of the Supreme Court case, Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Associ- ation. The court is expected to rule on the case between March and June of 2016, and the result Turn to Page 4 I’D LIKE TO MAKE A MOTION. Oregon AFSCME Executive Director Ken Allen— crediting Gov. Kate Brown’s involvement for the best state workers contract in a decade — moves to endorse her re-election. Allen was one of four longtime labor leaders who were recognized at their last Oregon AFL- CIO convention, along with John Mohlis, Chip Elliott, and Paul Goldberg.
