SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 118, NUMBER 10
‘Right to work’ coming
to the public sector
By Don McIntosh
If public employees are required
to pay at least some costs of the
union that represents them, does
that violate their First Amend-
ment rights of freedom of
speech and association? For 40
years, U.S. courts have said it
doesn’t, in obedience to a unan-
imous 1977 U.S. Supreme
Court decision in a case called
Abood v Detroit Board of Edu-
cation. But the April 7 confir-
mation of Supreme Court Jus-
tice Neil Gorsuch starts the
clock ticking on a case that is
expected to overturn that — and
result in court imposition of the
anti-union “right-to-work” idea
on all public sector workplaces
in America.
Under the Abood decision,
union-represented workers
don’t have to become union
members, or pay anything to
support the union’s political
work if they disagree with that.
But they can be required to pay
fees to cover the union’s costs to
represent workers in discipli-
nary cases and negotiate and en-
force the union contract. The
fees are called “fair share” fees
or “agency” fees. In the 23 states
that allow unions to charge fair
OFFICE & PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYEES #11 Maureen
Colvin elected executive secretary-treasurer. | Page 3
OREGON AFSCME CONVENTION Respect for public
service. | Page 7
Meeting Notices p.4 Stamping Out Hunger p.6
PORTLAND, OREGON
On Feb. 11, Oregon AFSCME mobilized dozens of people — including Council
President Jeff Klatke and staff rep Allan MacLean above — to visit and talk
to AFSCME-represented workers who hadn’t become full union members.
A Supreme Court ruling that ‘fair
share’ fees are unconstitutional is
likely 6 to 13 months away.
IN THIS ISSUE
share fees to represented non-
members, the fees typically run
about 85 percent of full union
dues. And in those states, on av-
erage about 7 percent of repre-
sented workers pay fair share
fees instead of full union dues.
The case that could overturn
Abood is called Janus v AF-
SCME. The lead plaintiff is
Mark Janus, an AFSCME-rep-
resented public employee in Illi-
nois. The case was dismissed by
the 7th District U.S. Court of
Appeals in March, but the
Supreme Court could agree to
hear an appeal when it begins its
next session this October.
Last year, the Supreme Court
split 4-4 on Friedrichs v Cali-
fornia Teachers Association, a
similar challenge to Abood. The
four Republican-appointed jus-
tices voted to overturn Abood,
and the four Democratic ap-
pointees voted to uphold it. It’s
assumed that Gorsuch would
vote with the other Republican
appointees if the court hears the
Janus case.
That means public sector
unions have between six to 13
months before union fees be-
come strictly a voluntary deci-
sion. Many public sector unions
are getting ready by appealing to
their fair share fee payers one-
by-one to become full members.
Turn to Page 8
MAY 19, 2017
Hundreds of Oregonians overflow a Northeast Portland gymnasium at a Jan. 15 “Save Our Healthcare” rally.
The end of Obamacare?
The American Health Care Act,
dubbed Trumpcare, would
worsen Obamacare’s flaws.
The Affordable Care Act (pop-
ularly known as Obamacare) is
complicated, expensive and
flawed. But the American
Health Care Act (AHCA),
which passed the U.S. House
May 4, wouldn’t “repeal and
replace it” as Republicans
promised; it would tweak it and
break it, making it much worse.
To see how, you need to un-
derstand a little about how the
ACA works. ACA tries to re-
duce the number of uninsured
by expanding Medicaid to
cover all those below or near
the poverty line, and adding fi-
nancial carrots and sticks to get
others onto an insurance plan.
Individuals get subsidies to buy
insurance on regulated state-
level exchanges, and face tax
penalties if they don’t buy in-
surance. Big employers pay
penalties if they don’t provide
insurance. Small employers get
incentives for buying insurance
on exchanges. [But not union
small employers that get health
insurance through union-spon-
sored trusts; they were left out.]
And all this is paid for with
supervisory worker earned
$37,632 in 2016, the AFL-CIO
reported. That’s a CEO-to-
worker pay ratio of 347 to 1.
“This year’s report provides
further proof that the greed of
corporate CEOs is driving
America’s income inequality
crisis,” says AFL-CIO presi-
dent Rich Trumka. “Big corpo-
rations continually find ways to
rig the economy in their favor
and line their CEOs’ pockets at
the expense of the workers
who make their businesses
run.”
Turn to Page 3
CEO PAY
According to the 2017 edition
of AFL-CIO Executive Pay-
Watch, America’s average CEO
got a 5.9 percent raise last year.
Based on an analysis of the
most recent available data,
CEOs of S&P 500 companies
received, on average, $13.1
million in total compensation in
2016. [The S&P 500 is a list of
500 big companies whose stock
is publicly traded on U.S. stock
exchanges.] Meanwhile the av-
erage U.S. production and non-
Top-paid Oregon CEOs
Top-paid Washington CEOs
#1 Nike Mark G. Parker $47,615,302 (2016)
#2 Precision Castparts Mark Donegan $15,812,373 (2015)
#3 Rentrak William P. Livek $13,233,446 (2015)
#4 Schnitzer Steel Tamara L. Lundgren $7,070,553 (2016)
#5 Greenbrier William A. Furman $6,544,136 (2016)
#1 Expedia Dara Khosrowshahi $94,603,552 (2015)
#2 T-Mobile US John J. Legere $24,457,987 (2015)
#3 Starbucks Howard Schultz $21,815,498 (2016)
#4 Boeing Kevin G. McAllister $20,865,820 (2016)
#5 Microsoft Satya Nadella $17,692,031 (2016)
#11 Portland General Electric James J. Piro $3,317,633 (2016)
#12 Northwest Natural Gas Gregg S. Kantor $3,240,919 (2016)
#14 Columbia SportswearTimothy P. Boyle $3,080,147 (2015)
#9 Weyerhaeuser Doyle R. Simons $10,338,964 (2016)
#13 CostcoW. Craig Jelinek $6,503,276 (2016)
#14 Nordstrom Peter E. Nordstrom $5,838,769 (2016)
#23 Alaska Air Group Bradley D. Tilden $4,246,312 (2016)
#38 Amazon.com Jeffrey P. Bezos $1,681,840 (2016)
SEE THE WHOLE LIST at aflcio.org/paywatch