NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | July 6, 2018 | PAGE 3
...Untangling Trump’s trade policy
From Page 1
automotive parts.
■ Tariffs on solar panels and
washing machines On Jan. 23, 2018,
the Administration announced 30
percent tariffs on foreign-made solar
panels and 20 to 50 percent tariffs on
foreign-made washing machines.
■ Retaliatory tariffs on China On
March 22, Trump announced that he
would order 25 percent tariffs on $50
billion worth of Chinese exports to the
U.S., more than 1,300 items in all, from
flat-screen televisions to aircraft parts to
medical devices. Officially, the tariffs are
in response to China’s practice of
requiring American businesses to share
intellectual property with Chinese
companies if they want to do business in
China. The tariffs took effect June 30.
■ Flipflop on Trans Pacific
Partnership (TPP) Having called the
TPP the “rape of our country” during his
campaign, Trump in his first week in office
formally withdrew the United States from
the proposed 12-nation Pacific Rim trade
agreement – which Obama negotiated
but failed to ratify. But on April 12, 2018,
Trump shocked farm-state lawmakers
and governors with a remark that he was
looking to rejoin the TPP. Later in the day,
he tweeted that he’d only get back in if
the TPP became a much better deal. And
four days after that, he tweeted that he
didn’t like the TPP after all, and would
rather do bilateral deals.
■ Talks on NAFTA Trump promised
during his 2016 campaign to withdraw
from NAFTA. That could still happen. So
far, he’s attempting to renegotiate it. In
the negotiations, Trump trade
representatives have proposed to
eliminate NAFTA’s much-criticized
“investor-state dispute settlement”
process, in which foreign corporations
can sue governments over rules they say
unfairly harm expected profits. Trump
negotiators also have proposed that
NAFTA not continue automatically, but
have a sunset clause; that domestic
content requirements on autos be
strengthened; and that restrictions on
“buy local” and “buy American” policies
in government purchasing be lessened.
Trump wanted the negotiations to wrap
up quickly, but that’s not happening.
Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan
said May 17 would be the deadline for
getting the current Congress to vote on a
revised NAFTA. On July 1, Mexicans
elected a new president, left-populist
Andrés Manuel López Obrador; Trump
will have a different negotiating partner
when Obrador takes office Dec. 1.
Will Trump’s trade moves
succeed? In year one of his
term, the trade balance actually
worsened. In 2017, the trade
deficit reached $566 billion, its
highest level since 2008. The
U.S. goods deficit with China
alone grew 8 percent to a record
$375 billion. [The last time the
United States had an overall
trade surplus was 1975.]
U.S. labor leaders who have
been critical of so many other
Trump moves — cutting cor-
porate taxes, slashing federal
worker union rights, appointing
union foes to head federal
agencies— have found at least
some things to approve of in
Trump’s trade moves.
When business groups and
Republicans in Congress
howled in protest as tariffs were
announced in March, national
AFL-CIO President Richard
Trumka defended the policy in
an opinion piece in the Washing-
ton Post: “The politicians who
are screaming about a trade war
have one thing in common:
They are beholden to Wall
Street. The real trade war is be-
ing waged directly on working
people — our jobs, our commu-
nities, our way of life. We’ve
been getting our butts kicked for
decades because the rules allow
global companies to profit at our
expense rather than letting us
rise together. It’s a rigged game.
…Wall Street CEOs and power-
ful billionaires have rigged our
economic rules to protect and
maximize their profits. Their
trade rules boost outsourcing, la-
bor exploitation and environ-
mental degradation—cutting the
legs out from under working
people and our communities.
Trade has become, like tax cuts
and austerity, a primary weapon
in CEOs’ war on workers.”
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
Kaiser Permanente may be near a
deal with breakaway union group
A recently formed breakaway
coalition of unions may be near
its first national contract with
Kaiser Permanente. The coali-
tion, known as the Alliance of
Health Care Unions (ACHU),
formed March 26 when 22 local
unions left the existing Coalition
of Kaiser Permanente Unions
(CKPU) over differences with its
largest member, SEIU United
Healthcare West. On June 13, an-
other union left CKPU to join
ACHU: UNITE HERE Local 5,
which represents about 2,000
Kaiser employees in Hawaii.
That brought the ACHU coali-
tion to a total of about 47,000
members in 23 local unions:
They are local affiliates of the
Oregon Federation of Nurses and
Health Professionals-American
Federation of Teachers, Team-
sters, AFSCME, Operating Engi-
neers, United Food and Com-
mercial Workers, UNITE
HERE, United Steel Workers,
and United Nurses Association
of California. CKPU meanwhile
represents 68,700 members of 12
locals of the Service Employees
and Office and Professional Em-
ployees unions.
Kaiser Permanente quickly
recognized ACHU, and on May
22 the two sides came to agree-
ment on a Labor Management
Partnership Agreement substan-
tially similar to the one Kaiser
has had with CKPU since 1997.
Since then, Kaiser and ACHU
have held three rounds of con-
tract bargaining with another
round scheduled July 8 and 9.
UFCW Healthcare Division
Director Nate Bernstein said the
goal is to finish by July 9 if a
good agreement can be achieved.
The ACHU has been pushing for
wage increases, improved health
benefits for retired and active
members, and maintenance of re-
tirement benefits, he said.
The national agreement cov-
ers core economic items, and is
supplemented by local agree-
ments. Bargaining on the local
agreements would continue after
a national agreement is reached,
with a goal of having new agree-
ments in place before the existing
ones begin to expire Sept. 30,
2018.
Bargaining between Kaiser
and the CKPU has yet to begin.
Machinists authorize strike
at Weyerhaeuser
authority to call a strike. The
union represents about 1,200
workers at Weyerhaeuser facili-
ties in Washington and Oregon.
Before beginning a strike, the
union intends to return to the
bargaining table to see if Wey-
erhaeuser will improve its offer.
Members of Machinists District
Lodge W24 in Washington and
Oregon voted by more than 90
percent June 28 to reject a com-
pany contract offer and give the
union bargaining committee the
Raymond Thomas
Cynthia Newton
Melissa Haggerty
Teamsters reach deal at UPS
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Chris Frost
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The Teamsters Union announced
June 21 that it reached tentative
agreement with UPS on a new
five-year nationwide contract
covering 260,000 workers. Bar-
gaining continues on local sup-
plemental agreements, with the
next meeting scheduled July 9-
12 in Minneapolis. Negotiations
are also still under way on a con-
tract for a smaller group of UPS
Freight employees.
The union said it won’t release
full details of the nationalcontract
until local bargaining is com-
pleted, but it did summarize
some highlights:
■ Across-the-board hourly wage increases
of $4.15 over five years.
■ Creation of a new classification of lower-
paid full-time drivers that would do
weekend deliveries. The drivers would
work Sunday to Thursday or Tuesday to
Saturday. Wages would start at $20.50
and reach a top rate of $34.79 by Aug. 1,
2022. Currently full time drivers earn over
$36 an hour, and earn double time for
Sunday work.
■ For part-time workers, an end to a two-
tier wage structure and an increase in the
starting wage from $10 to $13 an hour as
of Aug. 1, rising to $15.50 Aug. 1, 2022.
■ Increased employer contributions to
health and pension funds
After local negotiations are
completed, the agreement will go
before the membership for an
electronic vote.
The current five-year contract
runs through July 31, 2018.
The nationwide tentative
agreement came after UPS work-
ers voted to authorize a strike by
more than a 90 percent margin.
UPS publicly downplayed the
strike vote, calling it “a routine
and expected part of the negotia-
tion process.”