The Washington State Labor Council, which got hit with some major losses in the state legislature last session (most notably on the workers’ privacy legislation and unemployment insurance reform ), released a scathing report of the Democratic majority today.
"I don’t think anyone was prepared for how hostile the Democratic leaders would be toward labor’s policy agenda," WSLC leader Rick Bender says in the report. "Clearly, they were more concerned about what corporate lobbying groups call our ‘unfriendly business climate’ than they were about improving Washington’s labor climate for working families," he continues.
The WSLC also released its legislative scorecard , grading legislators vote by vote on labor bills. From the Seattle area, Reps. Sharon Nelson (D-34, W. Seattle, Vashon) and Mary Lou Dickerson (D-36, Ballard, Queen Anne) and freshman Scott White (D-46, N. Seattle) got the highest marks from labor, voting WSLC’s way 88 percent of the time.
No one else topped 75 percent, and a couple of legislators—Sens. Margarita Prentice (D-11, S. Seattle) and Ed Murray (D-43, Capitol Hill)—got D grades or less, 43 percent and 63 percent respectively.
Freshman Seattle Rep. Reuven Carlyle (D-36, Ballard)—who gained notoriety last session for bucking labor and (myth has it) high-fiving Boeing’s lobbyist in the wings after a critical and dramatic unemployment insurance bill went down—got the worst mark among Seattle’s Reps, voting labor’s way just 50 percent of the time. Rep. Carlyle says the tall tale (from labor Democrats he says) that he high fived a Boeing lobbyist is "absolutely untrue."
As the PI.com reported yesterday , the WSLC said they would be reevaluating their traditional financial support of Democrats.
It’s worth noting that Rep. Ross Hunter (D-48, Medina) and Sen. Fred Jarrett (D-41, Mercer Island)—both running for King County Executive—scored 29 percent and 38 percent respectively.
Meanwhile, the politically powerful SEIU, which represents over 20,000 nurses and health care workers, janitors, and security workers in King County, said today that they will be making a sole endorsement in the K.C. Executive’s race on Wednesday.
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It’s time progressives stop pretending that Labor is progressive. They are first about protecting their power and money, second about getting more of both, and often care more about a perceived win where they vilify all business, over long term economic stability, which is good for everyone.
Honestly, I don’t see big L caring about my businesses or my employees at all.
As I understand it, the unemployment insurance bill would have given a total of $8 more per employee per month to the unemployed, while taxing a small business who needs to lay off a couple of people to stay afloat over $1,000 per year. Ridiculous.
We need balance. I agree that the large corporate interests are hardly in balance either, and we need strong lobbies to help defeat many of their practices, but big Labor isn’t either and we need to stop pretending it’s just big L vs. big B.
If we want a great state, we need to figure out how to support entrepreneurs and small businesses. Without them, there aren’t jobs, innovation, or communities, not to mention bands, bookstores, caffes, etc.
Chopp 75% – isn’t that cracking 75%?
@2,
Changed it to “topped” 75%.
Meinert @ 1:
You have bad information. The permanent UI benefit increase sought by Labor wouldn’t have cost businesses one penny more. They would have received the same UI tax CUT they got this year.
There were business lobbying groups that predicted that UI rates would go up some time in the future by (insert plucked-from-the-sky figure here) if the benefits were increased. But the truth is they would have dropped in the short term and no one can say how much they would have gone up, if at all, in the future. Depending on how long it takes for full recovery, businesses could get another tax CUT as opposed to an increase.
TRUE progressives understand that UI benefits circulating in the economy are the best economic stimulus for working families AND small businesses. Yes, the billions of dollars circulating in our state economy thanks to a healthy UI system are saving businesses as you read this.
And no, the evil Big Labor Bosses don’t get a cut of UI benefits to use as cigar money. Their motivation is because it’s the right thing to do.
Stop hatin’.
Since there were only 8 votes in the calculation Chopp was only 1 vote behind the leaders.
Deb Eddy at 63% and Murray too, maybe you should have mentioned Chopp’s good showing.
@1 Your #s are misleading to the point of ridiculousness and I think you know it. As you know if you’re an employer, your UI costs vary according to a lot of different variables. (It’s structured as *insurance* in significant ways, so risk matters.) So it’s hardly just a question of $1,000 for a couple layoffs vs. $8/month. The issue was actually about the formula used to calculate benefits, but I digress. BS math doesn’t clarify anything.
As to the WSLC scorecard, good to hear them getting more fired up. Although I understand why the “correct” vote on the budget was No, it’s odd that they gave all the Rs a free 1/8 score when they voted No for the wrong reasons (i.e. b/c there were too few cuts rather than too many). Hope intention becomes part of the scoring system in the future.
@5,
What’s the obsession w/ Chopp? Most everyone scored 75.
I was calling attention to the winners and losers.
Just that you have a history of dissing Chopp and making him out to be an anti-common man guy.
Hey Josh,
It is a total, complete, unequivocal fabrication that I ‘high fived’ the Boeing folks, or anyone, after the very tense UI vote. My good friends at WSLC alleged that in the heat and tension following the vote, and it is simply not true.
I would never gloat or attack over any vote of any kind and I would appreciate if you’d validate such a claim prior to publication.
Also, when you look at the details…WSLC judged 8 votes in their analysis and 4 of them were unemployment insurance related. One of the 8 was the state operating budget itself (which WSLC wanted a ‘no’ vote on). I voted ‘yes’. Does that make me anti labor or realistic about the transformational time we’re living in relative to our nearly 10% unemployment and small business being crushed by costs and a slowed economy? The marginal difference between my 50% voting record and a nearly perfect score would be 3 votes total–and only one of them about organizing or union support (which I supported).
I have a strong, progressive and educated district. Like all Legislators, the 130,000 people of our communities expect us to go to Olympia and act independently and objectively on tough, complex policy issues. That’s what I’ve tried to do.
Reuven.
As I understand it, the whole point of the new WSLC political strategy is NOT to rely so much on the Voting Record when considering endorsements.
Chopp’s 75% is a case in point. As Speaker, he has mastered the art of killing bills without a vote in order to avoid bad labor votes (or bad business votes or bad environmental votes or bad payday lending industry votes or bad BIAW votes or bad ______ votes).
That’s why he — and others — can’t be judged solely on their 75% (or whatever) voting records. You have to look at their bill sponsorships, whether as committee chairs (or Speaker) they blocked fair votes, whether they spoke out on the floor on behalf of legislation, etc.
For more info, see http://www.wslc.org/legis/09legrep/COPE.htm
Rep. Carlyle @9,
I amended the post.
The real issue, for me is not the scorecard. It is that organized labor is one of the ONLY groups that I see willing to say in no uncertain terms what a catastrophe this past session was.
Other groups issue ridiculous apologies and qualified statements of support for Dems, saying they did the best they could. But organized labor, along with the Economic Opportunity Institute, have been nearly alone in saying that the Democratic Party has to stand for something more than “we will cut the budget just as much as Republicans, but the difference is we will feel your pain.”
The Senate Democrats have put out a response:
http://blog.senatedemocrats.wa.gov/the-hopper/senate-democrats-and-labor-unions-a-shared-philosophy/
The Senate Dems completely miss the point.
They claim to be for working rights, but make NO MENTION of the worker privacy act. They claim to want to create jobs, but pass a budget that eats up the entire federal stimulus by using it to backfill budget cuts, thus making our economic climate worse. They claim that the bad economy forced them to make cuts, then do nothing to close corporate tax loopholes and even increase them.
What consolation is it if they think they “share a basic philosophy of support for working families” with labor, if in fact they refuse to pass the worker privacy act and don’t have the guts to do what Oregon did and push for real tax reform to save jobs and mitigate the budget cuts?
What the Democrats also forget to say is that the increase in unemployment benefits will expire at the end of this year while the cuts in unemployment taxes for business are permanent. Washington is one of a few states that have not had to borrow money from the feds to pay unemployment benefits because our trust fund had enough money to cover benefits in a recession. With the substantial reduction in taxes, come the next recession we will probably also be in the position of borrowing money.
Chopp has a long history of not backing labor, every year he comes to WSLC conventions and says one thing and does another , usually chopping labor in the back.