Mar 1, 1998
The second session of the 105th Congress will produce a mixed bag of threats and promises, CWA’s legislative team predicts.- Threats are already surfacing in the form of anti-worker, anti-union attacks — especially aimed at occupational safety and health protections and workers’ rights.
- Potential promise lies in the form of bills that would increase the minimum wage, expand child care opportunities and improve health care benefits for the millions who work hard for a living but are currently shut out of the system.
With all members of the House of Representatives and a third of the U.S. Senate facing voters this fall, many politicians will be focused as intently on the calendar as they are on the agenda.
Still, CWA, the AFL-CIO and organized labor — the one “interest group” in the nation that pushes an agenda to benefit all Americans — have a list of priorities. On it, according to CWA President Morton Bahr and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, is legislation that would require all but the smallest businesses to provide health insurance for all of their employees and to pay at least 75 percent of the premiums; targeting pay inequities that often hurt women workers (“Raising women’s wages is not only a matter of equity, it’s a matter of family income,” Sweeney notes); increasing the federal minimum wage, and protecting Social Security from privatization.
Gerber, CWA’s chief lobbyist, predicts that Republicans will make loud noises in the name of tax cuts but warns workers to be wary: “Our assumption is that their idea of a tax cut is really redistributing revenues to their wealthy supporters. We’ll oppose those Robin Hood-in-reverse policies.”
The Californians
One of the biggest threats is coming from California, where voters will go to the polls on June 2 to vote on a referendum requiring unions to obtain an annual written authorization from members before making political contributions or expenditures. This provision would apply even to members who already have authorized a COPE check-off.
CWA, the AFL-CIO and all of organized labor are banding together to beat back California Proposition 226. Similar legislation has already been introduced in Congress, and several other states are considering their versions, either in state legislatures or ballot initiatives. (See separate article.)
Key backers of the California referendum are Republican Gov. Pete Wilson along with wealthy GOP activists Grover G. Norquist and John Patrick Rooney. Norquist has close ties to House Speaker Newton Gingrich (R-Ga.) and heads up a conservative group called “Americans for Tax Reform.” Rooney is former chairman of the Indiana-based Golden Rule Insurance Co.
For all the Republican blistering and blustering about “excesses” and “abuses” in the campaign finance picture, GOP leaders had managed to filibuster-to-death any meaningful campaign finance reform by late February. CWA and others in the labor movement viewed the bi-partisan McCain-Feingold bill as a way to drive “soft money” and its corruptive influence out of the political arena. The AFL-CIO’s Sweeney expressed the gratitude of many in the labor movement, however, when he noted that a competing bill sponsored by Sen. Trent Lott fell 15 votes short of being able to break a Democratic filibuster. Lott’s bill contained the infamous “Paycheck Protection” language.
Minimal Wage
President Bill Clinton and other friends of labor — including U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) — have made clear their desire to boost the minimum wage this year yet know they face an uphill struggle in their efforts.
Clinton, leading a rally of Democratic legislators and supporters on Capitol Hill in the Dirksen Office Building auditorium in mid-February, said he and Kennedy have agreed to propose raising the minimum wage by $1 an hour over the next two years.
Proponents of a raise in the minimum wage hope to mobilize public pressure to push through the increase, much like they did over Republican leaders’ opposition in 1996.
Easterling points out that a person who works 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, at today’s minimum of $5.15 an hour, would earn only $10,712 a year.
“This produces an annual income $2,600 below the poverty level for a family of three,” Easterling says.
Gerber notes that the stock market has skyrocketed by 115 percent, adjusted for inflation, over the last 30 years, while the purchasing power of the minimum wage has declined by 30 percent.
While opponents argued last time that raising the minimum wage costs jobs, supporters this time around have a late December study of the impact that shows the wage increases in fast food stores in New Jersey and Pennsylvania did not take away jobs.
OSHA ‘Reform’
Labor activists and their friends are on “high alert” to guard against the “SAFE” act — a bill introduced by Republicans in the Senate and House that would, in effect, destroy worker protections now in the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
“It would be the fox guarding the chicken coop,” Gerber predicts.
The bill would shift the OSHA law’s focus from strong enforcement to voluntary compliance and would take away the rights of workers to get an inspection of workplace hazards.
S. 1237 in the Senate and H.R. 2579 in the House would also allow warnings to be issued, rather than citations, even for serious violations of the law. Part of the deviousness of the bill, Gerber says, is that there would be no conflict-of-interest provisions.
One of the bill’s Senate sponsors, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), was able to get the measure through the Senate Labor Committee on a strict party-line vote and on a fast-track schedule without hearings in the last session of Congress, Gerber says, and will try again this session.
Already the statistics are tragic: more than 55,000 American workers die and another 7 million are injured on the job every year. With a diluted law, the figures would surely climb, Gerber adds.
Child Care
A centerpiece of the Clinton administration’s efforts in this session of Congress will be to improve the availability of decent and affordable child care — a basic need, enabling parents to work.
Clinton is proposing to Congress a $22 billion child care initiative that would aim to improve the quality of child care, improve licensing and enforce health and safety standards and assist in developing more qualified care providers.
Others in the administration and in Congress are floating proposals that would expand coverage under the Family and Medical Leave Act to an additional 13 million workers. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) has introduced a bill (S.183) that would extend coverage to businesses with 25 or more workers, compared with 50 under current law. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) is sponsoring a similar bill (H.R. 234), and the administration is working on yet another approach to cover an additional 10 million workers.
Privatization
The labor movement is on guard against anticipated ambushes from the business community that will try to rob workers of labor law protections, by labeling them “independent contractors.” House Republicans tried to tack an “independent contractor” provision onto last year’s budget agreement — in its tax provisions — but were beaten by Democratic filibuster and veto threats.
“The independent contractor issue could affect everyone,” says Torres. “Where do you draw the line between who is and who is not an employee?”
She says evidence that the issue is still alive comes from truck drivers in San Diego and public workers in Texas — both of whom have had their basic rights attacked.
Comp Time
Gerber and Torres expect Congression-al extremists to try to substitute a bill that would, in effect, abolish the 40-hour week for many workers in place of President Clinton’s proposal to expand child care.
Big business supporters of the “Comp Time for Overtime” bill will argue that workers won’t need child care if they just have more “flex” time.
“It’s an illogical argument that could devastate family life for millions of working people,” Gerber says.
The bill would let business force workers into choosing to take comp time off in place of receiving overtime pay — after working more than 80 hours in two weeks.
“The business community has invested too much money in the public relations aspect and the advertising budget for this bill not to have it addressed and voted on in some way,” Gerber predicts. Clinton has already promised to veto comp-time-for-overtime if it reaches his desk.
Fixing Managed Care
The Clinton administration and Democrats in the House and Senate — with labor support — will try to erase some of the abuses of patient care that have resulted under managed-care plans. A major thrust will be aimed at setting federal standards for health insurance plans, as well as an appeals process to enforce them.
On Feb. 20., Clinton unveiled a “Patients’ Bill of Rights,” as well as a broad set of protections for all 9 million federal workers and their family members plus the 75 million Americans covered by Medicare, Medicaid and other government health programs.
“This could become a defining issue,” Gerber says.
In proposed legislation sent to Congress, the administration is urging strong regulations that protect the rights of 180 million Americans who are covered under private health care insurance. Recommendations for the regulations grew out of a study the administration ordered last year by a commission composed of consumers, insurers, employers and health care providers.
The legislation would provide insured patients with easier access to treatment, more information to help them select health plans or physicians and new ways to appeal if they are dissatisfied with the quality of their care, Gerber and Torres say.
The managed-care industry and the nation’s largest employers — along with a loud crowd in Congress — are already ganging up to fight against tougher regulations or stipulations.
Medicare
The labor movement is expected to support a Clinton administration effort to open up Medicare coverage to people between the ages of 55 and 64. Affordable health care is a major problem for workers forced out of their jobs before age 65 when plants close or move overseas, union reps point out.
Workers who have lost their jobs can ill afford the $300 or so a month that is required for even basic health care coverage under private plans, according to Torres.
