Washblog

Why should you care? Depends on who you are and what you do.

You've got to love it when reporters perfectly frame the debate on a particular issue.  Today we take up the infinitely exciting issue of Unemployment Insurance (UI), specifically the hub-bub about two quarter vs. four quarter averaging to determine unemployement benefits.  I.E. whether unemployment benefits are calculated based on  the two economic quarters in which you had the most income last year, or whether it is based on the total average for the year. 

This News Tribune article on the main issues of contention between the labor community and the business lobby (oooh...Lakoff would be proud) accurately sets up the opponents on this issue when it asks the question "Why should you care? Depends on who you are and what you do."

If you care about making sure workers whose jobs are seasonal or affected by the weather (construction, agriculture) have access to the same decent unemployment benefits that the rest of the workers in the state have, you support two-quarter averaging.  If what you care about is "ultimately the cost to business," you support four-quarter averaging.  Or to phrase it a little closer to the language in the article, if what you do is work night and day fighting for regular working people (the state labor council), you support two-quarter averaging.  If you are the president of Association of Washington Business, you support four-quarter averaging. 

Lucky for you all I'm going out and don't have time to get into the nitty-gritty of the fight over this issue.  Long-story short, we've had two-quarter averaging in this state for a long time.  For a variety of reasons the state's tax to fund UI insurance unfairly privileged industries like Homebuilders who had a high-level of unemployment (and used the insurance relatively more often).  This created an incentive for the other business interests to lobby for UI changes.  A labor / business partnership crafted a compromise which significantly addressed these issues.  The business lobby stabbed the labor lobby in the back and negotiated legislation in the overtime session of 2003 that preserved all of labors concessions and none of businesses - including a switch to four-quarter averaging.   Last year we went back to two-quarter averaging for two years to study the issue.   This session, one of the major fights is over making permanent the switch back to two-quarter averaging. 

It is exactly these sort of issues that show us why we need to pay attention to every legislative session, even ones the traditional media would like to tell us are likely to accomplish little.  This issue may not make the front page, but the unemployed construction worker looking at a difference of several hundred dollars in her unemployment check sure cares about it.

PortDork

How Do These People Sleep at Night?

In news that will come as a surprise to no one reading this, the right-wing assault on common decency continues unabated.  Next up?  Family Medical Leave.  It seems that the business lobby has decided that it is sick of it's constituents having to guarantee workers' jobs when they or a family member is afflicted by a serious medical emergency.  The US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers have declared war on the federal Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and according to some have named gutting this eminently sensible act their #1 priority. 

First some background.  Washington state led the nation with our Family Leave Act in 1989.  This act guaranteed job security and 12 weeks unpaid leave for the birth of a new baby or to care for a terminally ill child.   Our state legislation was superseded by the federal FMLA in 1993.  This extended coverage to more of the workforce and also included coverage for the worker's or a family member's serious illness.

The major changes being proposed include lengthening the time needed to qualify as a serious illness from three days to ten, and worst of all getting rid of incremental leave.  Currently you are able to take a couple hours every Friday, for instance to take your husband to chemotherapy.  This would take 2 hours off your allotted leave time.  In the interests of the almighty dollar, the business lobby would prefer that we be required to take leave a full day at a time.  Not only would this cause our family leave time to be used up much more quickly, it would also require us to use accumulated vacation or sick time to make up for the much bigger loss of paid hours. 

So what does this have to do with Washington?  In a preemptive move, the Family Leave Coalition is pushing legislation (Senate Bill 6185, House Bill 2392) to enshrine and slightly expand the federal FMLA standards in Washington.  Rather than leave Washingtonians to the mercy of the idiots in the other Washington, the proposed legislation would guarantee rights we already enjoy through the current federal act, extend coverage to companies with 25 or more employees (down from 50) - matching Oregon, Vermont and Utah, and include domestic partners as covered family members. 

This sort of incremental action may not be the sexiest issue ever, but since this is a short session the coalition has decided to forgoe the more sweeping changes they have been working on for the past few years.  Namely mandatory paid sick time (currently there is not even a requirement that employers provide any sick leave) and Family Leave Insurance (Paid family leave - which just passed in California).  I'm not sure exactly how I feel about this decision, but I think there is some merit to the recent change in strategy of the Washington environmental movement.  Clifford Traisman, a lobbyist for Washington Conservation Voters, notes: "The environmental community has historically appeared satisfied on walking away from the table if they couldn't get the whole pie as opposed to taking a piece or two. That in itself for some appeared to be a strategy," Traisman said. "That's no longer the case now. We're willing to take whatever pieces we can get, because we can always come back for more later [Link via the excellent Washington State Labor Council - Reports Today]." It certainly must be noted that including domestic partners under this legislation would be a great statement about how we do things in this Washington.

I'll keep ya'll up to date as specific legislative targets become clearer.

PortDork

PS: For those who are interested in this sort of thing, some of the groups backing the Family Leave Coalition include: WSLC, the Economic Opportunity Institute, Washington chapters of the AARP, League of Women Voters and the National Organization of Women, Puget Sound and Washington State Alliance for Retired Americans, Machinists, Teacher and Transit worker unions, Working America, and last but definitely not least..........Greenwood Hardware!!!

An air emergency? Or an outsourcing emergency?

''Alaska Airlines Flight 536 was 20 minutes out of Seattle and heading for Burbank, Calif., Monday afternoon when a thunderous blast rocked the plane.

Passengers gasped for air and grabbed their oxygen masks as the plane dropped from about 26,000 feet, passenger Jeremy Hermanns said by phone Tuesday''

The plane got down safely.

''An investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said baggage handlers had bumped the plane's fuselage with loading equipment and caused ''a crease'' in the side of the aircraft. The handlers are contract workers hired to replace unionized workers in May.

About 20 minutes after takeoff, the crease blew into a 1-foot-by-6-inch hole, said Jim Struhsaker, an NTSB senior air-safety investigator...

...Alaska saw an increase in ground-damage incidents at Sea-Tac after it replaced 472 unionized workers in May with workers from Menzies Aviation, based near London, the airline said. The switch contributed to a sharp increase in delayed departures from Sea-Tac.'' (from the same article in the Seattle Times).

My take home lesson from this? Maybe workers are NOT interchangeable corporate cogs. Maybe a union baggage handler working for Alaska would have felt some responsibility to report hitting the airplane (AND have been trained enough to know how important that reporting was).

But hey, some business major vice president probably got a promotion for firing those union workers and saving Alaska Airlines a few bucks. Ask these passengers if it was worth it..

Big Time Patriot

More Pending Legislation

Noemie's post reminded me that I hadn't gotten around to writing about an important piece of legislation making it's way through the process this session.  It doesn't appear on the pre-file list, but the latest version I saw is Bill Req #:3415.1/06 "Establishing minimum labor standards for certain large employers as related to health care services expenditures." 

**Beware, this may be boring to many people, please skip to the bottom for an important action item if you begin to feel drowsy!**

This legislation aims to establish a floor for employer based coverage that will stop the further erosion of employer-based coverage, a critical part of our health care system. 

The legislature is set to hear arguments on the Fair Share Health Care bill on January 19th.  Fair Share Health Care is a union backed initiative that is being pushed all across the country.  The basic gist is that large employers must provide a bare minimum health care coverage, if they do not, they must reimburse the state for that difference.  This is largely in response to Wal-Mart who is notorious for leeching off state health care systems.  Here in Washington alone we paid $1.6 million last year to insure 341 Wal-Mart employees through the Basic Health Plan.  Similar legislation was passed in Maine last year, but was vetoed by the Governor with an executive from Wal-Mart standing beside him. 

The legislation to be discussed this session only affects employers with 5000+ employees and sets the rate for private businesses at 9%, and non-profits at 7%.  So if a large company only pays 6% of their payroll towards healthcare for their employees, they must reimburse the state 3% of their payroll - which will go towards the Health Services Account (to fund BHP).   There are exemptions for high wage employees so that high-wage employers aren't hurt by their relatively low expenditure on healthcare.

There was apparently quite a bit of debate on where to set these percentages so as to not unduly harm good employees in the state, like Costco.  My understanding is that Costco has been convinced to stay neutral on this bill, and possibly even be supportive.  The hospitals are ok because they are up over the threshold even before high-wage deductions, the restauraunt association has no members over 5,000 employees so they are ok.  In reality this doesn't affect a whole helluva-lot of employers in the state, but the standards are so low that those it does affect really ought to be ashamed of themselves.

There is a pretty impressive set of groups lined up behind this legislation, including: Washington State Labor Council, Washington Community Action (formerly Washington Citizen Action), UFCW International, SEIU State Council, WA State Nurses Association, WFSE, WA State Hospital Assoc, Community Health Network of Washington, WA State National Organization of Women, Planned Parenthood affiliates of WA, WA for Healthcare, WA Alliance for Retired Americans, and lots more.

However, as always, this won't be easy.  One really important part of getting this legislation passed is naming the companies that are leaching off our public health care system.  18 other states name the employers of people who are enrolled in basic health plans.  Just recently Governor Gregoire announced that she still will not release that information in Washington State.  EVEN THOUGH WE ALREADY COLLECT IT.  There was initially some concern that if the Employment Security Division provided this data, they may be in violation of Dept. of Labor regulations.  However it has been discovered the DSHS and the Health Care Authority have been tracking this information and providing to to legislators on condition of a pledge not to divulge that information. 

There is no law against DSHS or HCA making this information public, they have just declined to do so.  The Fair Share Coalition fears that this may signal efforts to derail this legislation.  So we all need to make our voices heard.

Please send an email to Governor Gregoire's health care point-person, Christina Hulet -  Christina.Hulet@ofm.wa.gov, and call Governor Gregoire at 360-902-4111.  Tell them that Washington State taxpayers deserve to know which large employers are using taxpayer dollars to subsidize healthcare for their employees and their dependents.

PortDork

Weyerhaeuser Grays Harbor Update

Yesterday I attended a monthly community partners' meeting (of which I am a member) at Raymond's River View campus of Grays Harbor College.

Part of our discussion included what is going on at Weyco as things move closer to the Cosmopolis plant closure.

Weyco is making the effort to reduce staff through other sorts of attrition such as offering severance and early-retirement packages intended to ease out some of the long termers with benefit then to shorter-termed employees who may receive available jobs at other Weyco sites.

Starting tonight, on-site briefings will be held to inform employees of what is coming and options available to the employees. The presentations are to include ample time for G&A.

I also learned that seniority at Weyerhaeuser does not include the ability for more senior workers to "bump" less senior workers at other Weyco sites - that each Weyco site is "fenced" and bumping from another mill cannot occur. For example, Cosmopolis workers will not be able to bump workers with less time on the job at other Weyco locations within reasonable driving distance from Cosmopolis, Aberdeen and North Pacific County.

Thus, should for example Weyco Raymond hire a Weyco worker from Cosmopolis, regardless of how many years that worker has with Weyco at Cozzy, in Raymond that worker will be at the bottom of the seniority list.

I asked about the Governor's $50,000 comittment for a feasibility study and it appears the the money primarily will be spent on gathering statistical data. I'll be asking around to see if there are more specifics on what is involved in studying "feasibility."

Weyco Cosmopolis: Keeping the Governor Engaged

According to AP Associated Press (10/30/05)

"Gov. Christine Gregoire has pledged $50,000 toward a feasibility study to see if Weyerhaeuser's Cosmopolis pulp mill can continue operations as a viable business under new ownership.

Gregoire made the announcement Saturday at a meeting at Grays Harbor Colleges Bishop Center.

Gregoire called for the meeting after the timber giant announced it would be closing the Aberdeen large log sawmill in December and the pulp mill next year."

I know that I am not fully aware of the width and breadth of gubernatorial influence and authority in terms of a response on behalf of communities impacted by plant closures and the resulting job loss.

And I was heartened by the Sierra Pacific announcement with its potential of job opportunities for at least a portion of those facing impending employment crises.

When major employers use down-sizing in an attempt to become more efficient, cut expenses, or in some cases to simply make more short-term profits, employees find themselves out on a limb, powerless to stop the sawing away of job security - and job security in this day and age is rapidly becoming only a memory.

The plant closures have our governor's attention and she has publicly responded. Her feasibility study is something citizens ought to be monitoring and looking for ways in which to participate - since government attention tends to remain focused more fully when voters are watching.

A citizen's well-being is at its strongest when supported socially, economically and politically by a nurturing environment. That immediate environment is highly influenced by social, economic and political structures which make up its infrastructure.

Whether caused by natural disaster or an economic disaster created by people, the negative impact crosses the spectrum - breadwinners, partners, children, retired people, politicians, social and health workers, spiritual leaders and community businesses.

Our best effort should go toward ensuring that state perceptions of the impact take into account more than those whose jobs will be lost - but perceptions gained through the eyes of the entire community.

Affected employees, their families, their friends, neighborhoods, local business, local health, legal and social service providers, The local labor market Unions as means of influence on workers, management and government. Those perceptions must include both qualitative and quantitative information.

A community copes with corporate abandonment

COSMOPOLIS — In light of the announced closure next year of the Weyerhaeuser Co. pulp mill, Mayor Vickie Raines, the Cosmopolis City Council and city staff gave each section of the city’s proposed 2006 budget extra scrutiny at a workshop before the regular council meeting Wednesday night.

Though Raines says she doesn’t expect the greatest impacts of the pending closure to hit the city until 2007, no one really knows what will happen when, and the city can’t afford to wait to address the situation.

During the work on the budget, which is not completed yet, the council looked at proposed cuts of some $100,000. But those reductions have some painfully high prices in other ways, the most grievous being the Summer Recreation Program for children, in which kids receive free lunches.

There was discussion of offering the program on a limited basis. “It would be sad to see that go,” Raines said.

“The kids come first,” said Councilman Frank Majeski.

After celebrating a highly successful Festival in the Park just weeks ago, the cherished annual event is also on the budget chopping block. Other suggested slashes include the yearly World City Picnic, spring cleanup and the compost program.

Many other possible reductions of various sizes were looked at.

“I would be willing to decrease my salary by half,” Mayor Raines offered. The mayor’s annual salary is $6,000.

“I’ll (give) half of mine, or even all of it,” Councilman Frank Majeski said. Councilmembers make $1,800 per year for serving on the council.

Once the budget is passed, the mayor and council plan to meet quarterly to review the spending plan. Not knowing exactly when the impacts will begin to be felt and at what levels, “it’s something we’re going to have to monitor pretty closely,” Raines said.

At the council’s previous meeting, just days before the Weyerhaeuser announcement, the council voted to go ahead with a $20,000 feasibility study on construction of a new police department/municipal court building on city-owned property vs. fixing up the old building. There was no move last night to put off the study.

For one thing, “if Weyerhaeuser closes and we come to a point where we mitigate with them the impact on our community, that we go in to ask for something, … we (need to) know what it’s going to cost,” Raines said.

“I think we have to do our homework.”

Tommi Halvorsen Gatlin, a Daily World writer, can be reached at 532-4000, ext. 142, or by e-mail at tgatlin@thedailyworld.com

Hope for displaced millworkers

Governor Gregoire was in Aberdeen this weekend, listening and learning the situation regarding the soon to be layed off Weyerhaeuser mill workers in Cosmopolis and Aberdeen.

Most mill workers will tell you that they are running a profitable business, and are dumbfounded as to why Weyerhaeuser would want to shut down a business that has only one other pulp mill in the US as competition (in Florida).

“I’m trying to answer two questions,” Gregoire said. “How did this happen without me knowing, in advance, and how did this happen when we thought things were going so well? I’m the first to tell you that I don’t understand why the pulp mill is closing when we’ve got customers, and we’re making a profit. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but that’s certainly the impression the workers have.”

Another impression the workers have is that Weyerhaeuser isn’t being entirely truthful about their reasons for closing the mills, said Don Lyons, a power recovery operator who currently works at the Cosmopolis facility.

Lyons, who spoke near the end of the meeting, said that if the Cosi mill is shuttered, it will be the third Weyerhaeuser pulp mill he’s worked in that has closed down.

“They’re not being straight about why they want to close the mill,” Lyons said. “They’re getting some advantage somewhere else by shutting that (Cosmopolis) mill down. Instead of all these feasibility studies, we should be looking for what it will take for Weyerhaeuser to keep that mill open. That’s the path of least resistance.”

There is definitely more to the story than what Weyerhaeuser has said, which is why the Governor was not warned beforehand. The motivation to close down a profitable facility is simply greed. Greed for a more profitable facility located in another country, one that has no labor or environmental regulations. Weyerhaeuser has divested its interest in the logged-out US in favor of countries (i.e. Russia) that still have old-growth timber and are allowing for it to be clear-cut.

It is good to see the Governor come down to Aberdeen, hanging out with the people that will be affected by these job cuts, and being sympathetic to their concerns. These jobs will devastate the local economy and lead to an exodus of young people and talent for larger cities, turning Grays Harbor into a Washington version of a desolated Ohio manufacturing town. She shows a concern for the blue collar workers and is willing to go to the mat for them and their families, and at this point hope means alot.

“We will continue to take the actions necessary to make Weyerhaeuser a more competitive company and generate greater returns while returning cash to our shareholders. "

“Today’s announcement is part of the ongoing effort to strengthen Weyerhaeuser’s overall portfolio to enhance shareholder value,” said Steven R. Rogel, chairman, president and chief executive officer, Weyerhaeuser Co.

I have some experience with job loss. I've lost seven of them.

I remember the night I heard for the first time that I had lost my job. It was late 1979 in Portland and I was called in from the unloading dock at Garrett Freightlines to sit with the friends who had helped me get hired 2 months earlier. I was 32, making $10 an hour, married and with 4 children in our home. My wife was not working and the six of us were totally dependent on my job.

Garrett had just suffered through a ten-day-long decline in shipping orders and had decided to lay off 200 workers system wide based on seniority (and that meant I was 2nd from the bottom of the seniority list). I don't remember how many in Portland were laid off that night, but at least 2 of my friends who'd been working there for several years got their notices also. They were never called back to work.

Having moved to Portland 7 months earlier and aware that I would get unemployment, it would not be enough to pay the bills. Trying to suppress any sense of panic, I told myself that I lived in a city economy where things were busy and bustling - and was grateful not to be stuck in the rural area in Idaho where I grew up - an area that had been in economic decline for decades.

I promptly sat down and typed up the classiest resume I could create and mailed 300 to every employer advertising in the help-wanted section of the Oregonian and to every employer in the yellow pages with a business I felt could use someone of my experience.
I stopped at 300 because I could not part with any more unemployment income for postage purposes.

I worked at job-networking, made cold calls in person and out of the yellow pages and considered self employment. I tried selling on a straight commission basis, looked for part time jobs I could bundle into adequate monthly income, considered joining the Reserve for a monthly weekend paycheck, and took several civil service exams.

Still no adequate employment.

After 3 months, nearly crazy in a personal financial panic, resigned to losing my mortgage, and having lost my car to repossession, I received two offers the first week in January, 1980.

The first offer was from Standard Insurance Company as a contract draft specialist. They offered $12k per year to start. The second was from a local trucking company offering me 17k as a dispatcher. Needing money more than job security I became a dispatcher. I would come to regret making that choice.

I was to enter the world of cut-throat small time trucking and suffer through 6 companies laying me off or going out of business in the next seven years (I spent enough time there to create my own network for replacing lost jobs - always afraid to go back into that terrifying nightmare of 1979).

My nightmare eventually ended and today I am theoretically within 7 years of retirement with the Washington State DSHS. When the opportunity to move back to rural living came up, I took it and moved to Pacific County where I administer the federal TANF program under its state-designed WorkFirst program. I see first hand what it means to do job-searching in a rural area that has been in economic decline for decades.

Job-seeking in North Pacific County amounts to a potential of contacting every employer within 30 miles.

That might take three weeks.

In the fourth week, you start over again.

Market conditions forcing companies like Weyerhaeuser to close plants and let people go is an unfortunate circumstance that emphasizes above all else two significant priorities: the bottom line and its relationship to stockholders.

"Nobody likes it. I wish we didn't have to do it that way," a Weyco official declared.

"The Weyerhaeuser closures mark yet another hardship for Grays Harbor County, which has been suffering since 1980 from timber-industry woes." regional economist Dick Conway said.

"Metropolitan areas elsewhere in the state have benefited from the growing technology industry, but rural, blue-collar Grays Harbor County has been too far away from cities to share in those fortunes." [Conway]

Apparently Weyerhaeuser reported - the same day it announced the Grays Harbor closures - third-quarter net earnings of $285 million on net sales of $5.6 billion. The third-quarter 2004 numbers were $594 million and $5.7 billion, respectively.

I could find no information at this point and probably need to be enlightened as to whether or not Weyco's quarterly report means they operated in the black or the red. But if they are still in the black with only quarterly earnings of $285 million, does that not suggest that  "returning cash to the shareholders" and the standard of "shareholder value" has some arbitrarily fixed standard of profit measurement under which Weyco management dares not go out of fear of stockholder dissatisfaction?

Weyerhaeuser cannot be singled out as an exception to an overall pattern of corporate social consciousness, sensitivity and awareness - because there is no strong overall pattern of corporate social consciousness, sensitivity and awareness in this country. Furthermore, to my knowledge, Weyco should not be compared to corporations like Walmart in terms of how employees have been respected and valued nor in any way to economic harm done to small towns by bottom-line Walmarts.

Perhaps the bottom line IS the bottom line. Perhaps a way of integrating social consciousness into the monetary agreement between stockholders, the corporations, the employees and the communities where business is done needs to be found.

Perhaps what needs to be integrated is an understanding that stockholding with an eye single to the bottom line has not proven to be the best and most uniform means of spreading prosperity across a broader range of society. We live in a time when talking heads (primarily Republican) bray about the economy "growing" but have no answer or justification for why the middle class is shrinking - and why a shrinking middle class  is a good thing overall for an economy or society.

WashBlog is going to spend some time exploring the Weyerhaeuser closings, their impact on the community and the response from state government.

Pat Davis, Port of Seattle, and Stevedoring Services of America

Over the years, the relationship between the Commissioners at the Port of Seattle and Stevedoring Services of America (SSA), which has earned a spot in the Rogues Gallery of Iraq War Profiteers, has been, indeed, cozy. Like so much else at the Port, this relationship has received precious little public scrutiny -- and has been characterized by huge transfers of public funds, scant accountability, and accusations of secrecy and unjust transactions.

Pat Davis, a 20-year commissioner up for re-election, has received contributions -- at an unprecedented level for the port races -- from developers. These developers include SSA and Citizens for a Healthy Economy (CHE), a PAC composed primarily of large developers who benefit from no-bid contracts at the Port. Media and internet documents indicate that she's an integral member of this cozy Port-SSA relationship and has otherwise earned the support of big developers by elevating their interests to the apparent detriment of the public interest.

Davis, who, is being challenged by a reform candidate, Jack Jolley, originally was elected as a reform candidate herself and claims to still be so. Voters, who subsidize the Port operations with property taxes and depend on the regional economy that the Port serves, deserve to know that evidence indicates otherwise.

Before covering the history on SSA and the Port, it is worth noting that Washington's Public Disclosure Commission is now investigating both Pat Davis and Citizens for a Healthy Economy (CHE). CHE has so far contributed to only one campaign, Davis'. Both Davis and CHE have consistently missed legal deadlines for reporting. Therefore, in step with the pattern of Port secrecy, we are not likely to find out, until after this election is over and the point is moot, where the CHE money was actually spent. But we know where it comes from: developers who have benefitted mightily from Port policies supported by Davis.

Current Port Commissioner, Alec Fisken, gives a rundown of the unprecedented level of contributions to Davis's campaign from CHE contributors and other developers.

He notes that, of all the current candidates, only Davis supports the continued tax levy on our homes (some $63 million annually): "The (CHE) PAC is largely a group of individuals and businesses with no-bid port contracts, who need the port tax levy (in other words, property taxes, my note here) to keep it all possible, and Davis is the only candidate who wholeheartedly supports the levy."

Other recent indications of impropriety include a recent PI article that reports on Davis' extravagent travel habits at public expense, and a September Washblog account by Miriam Israel Moses, Executive Director of Rebound, of the Port's evident recent end-run around public bidding laws. The diversionary tactics that Miriam recounts ensured a no-bid contract for a large project that otherwise would have been required to receive open public bidding.

Because Port operations are so opaque, we cannot know for sure what Davis' culpability is in these matters. But, as a long-time Port commissioner, who first ran as a reformer and who has not brought any of this to public attention, it is clear that Davis bears significant responsibility. Now, on to SSA: