Organized Labor

Pictured (left to right) San Mateo County Labor Copuncil Political Director Christa Indriolo and president Linda Gregory, San Mateo Building Trades Business Manager Bill Nack, SMCLC Executive Secretary-Treasurer Shelley Kessler, San Francisco Building Secretary-Treasurer, Mike Theriault, San Francisco Labor Council Executive Director, Tim Paulson, President, Conny Ford, and Political Director, Pilar Schiavo.

Health Care, Vocational Education, Worker’s Comp and Labor Compliance Top the Agenda

by Paul Burton
Contributing Writer

Union members met with Bay Area legislators April 17 to urge support for bills backed by the California Labor Federation and the State Building and Construction Trades Council as part of the annual Legislative conference in Sacramento. Members of the State Senate and Assembly were questioned about their positions on the labor-backed bills. The legislative lobbying sessions were organized by the San Mateo County and San Francisco Labor Councils and Building and Construction Trades Councils.

Meetings were held with Assembly members Mark Leno, Fiona Ma, Gene Mullin, and Ira Ruskin, and State Senators Carole Migden, Leland Yee, and Joe Simitian. Each were asked to support labor’s five principles for health care reform, and make sure any legislation passed this year includes those principles.

Also on the agenda were bills to restore the permanent disability benefits cut by Gov. Schwarzenegger’s workers’ compensation reform, support vocational education, restore funding for non-credit classes at community colleges, and reauthorize Labor Compliance Programs for the School Bond measure passed last fall. Legislators were also asked to oppose any Compact with Indian Gaming Tribes that does not contain provisions allowing workers to organize for union representation without employer interference. (The Compacts, negotiated by Schwarzenegger, passed the State Senate April 19.)

Health Care

The Executive Council of the California Labor Federation adopted five guiding principles for health care reform in December 2006. These principles are built on the values that union members and health care trustees have fought for in union contracts. Any health care reform proposals must guarantee affordable and universal coverage, contain health care costs, require employers to pay their fair share, allow patients to choose their own doctors, and improve the quality of care.

San Francisco Labor Council President Conny Ford asked each of the legislators to support labor’s five guiding principles for health care reform. “Many of us support the single-payer legislation by State Senator Sheila Kuehl,” Ford said. “We all agree on the five principles and we all oppose the ‘individual mandate’ that would require everyone to pay for health insurance.” Ford said that the experience in Massachusetts—where former governor and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s health care reform pushed the individual mandate—showed that high deductibles and costly premiums made health insurance inaccessible to many.

Fiona Ma, co-sponsor of the Kuehl bill (SB 840), said her bill includes labor’s five principles. She also said she authored AB 550, which would allow the State Compensation Insurance Fund to sell health insurance. The bill is supported by the building trades.

Ira Ruskin, Mark Leno, and Carole Migden are also co-sponsors of SB 840. Gene Mullin also said he supports single payer. They each support labor’s five principles.

“We have a real opportunity this year to pass some kind of health care reform,” Ruskin said. “The governor says he’s for it; he’s on the hook for health care reform—regardless of what his motivation may be. The Democrats want it; the Republicans have a different idea.”

Ruskin continued, “Despite my co-authorship of single payer legislation, it won’t become law [because of the need for a two thirds majority to fund it and the likelihood of another Schwarzenegger veto]. I’m open to doing something significant that’s a move towards universal health care.” Ruskin said that the governor’s proposal limiting employer costs to four percent of payroll is a step backwards and not enough.

Mullin joined the discussion briefly between committee votes and said he also supports labor’s principles and that passing single payer was a long-term solution. Ruskin said that we may end up with a bill that focuses on covering “all children,” but even that would be problematic as his Republican colleagues oppose any measure that would provide health care coverage to the children of undocumented workers. “It’s a big challenge,” Mullin agreed.

Mark Leno said the political will existed in Sacramento to get something done this year, but that passage of a bad bill could set things back. “Our Speaker [Fabian Nuñez] has said if we can’t get to single payer, what can we do? First take care of the children,” Leno said. “We put forward a bill two years ago for the governor with funding, which was vetoed.”

Leno said that unhealthy kids impact schools and that “We have to do something, so let’s start with the children.” He agreed that the effort to cover “all children” would be a battle. Leno also agreed with labor that, “Individual mandate does not work.” He also said he thought that, “If it were not for labor, we wouldn’t have come this far. Thank you for being the force behind the push for universal health care, which everyone wants.” SFBCTC Executive Secretary Mike Theriault thanked Leno for his 100 percent pro labor voting record in the Assembly.

State Senator Joe Simitian said, “On the five core principles, I’m pretty much with you.” He said he voted for SB 840 twice. “It may not be the only way, but it has been a way to bring the governor into the conversation, which is essential,” he said. Simitian said he wanted to take a closer look at the individual mandate issue. Conny Ford told him to look at the Massachusetts reform. “With high deductibles and lack of accessibility, it doesn’t really solve the problem and it doesn’t bring costs down,” she said.

Leland Yee said he had committed his vote to the Kuehl bill. “That’s the only way we can get universal health care,” he said. Yee said that the governor wants to claim victory on health care but that passing something that doesn’t get us what we want will set us back and prevent real reform for several years. “The Governor’s proposal does not include a tax increase. He is willing to move benefits costs around, but no additional funding is forthcoming from the Governor,” Yee said. “You may get something very menial, but not what you need or want. It may do more harm than good. We already have a lesson learned with workers’ comp reform and many people hurt by that,” Yee pointed out. “We’re still trying to fix it.”

“We have to push it as far as we can via single payer and then go from there,” he said.

Workers Comp

Rich Hedges of United Food and Commercial Worers Local 101 asked each of the legislators to support the package of bills that would address some of the negative impacts of the workers’ compensation reforms enacted in 2004 and 2005. “The utilization review process is being used to bar workers from receiving health care and has to be fixed,” Hedges said. Utilization review procedures allow insurance companies and self-insured employers to send medical care recommendations to another physician to review, often resulting in delays in treatment for injured workers beyond the 14 day period mandated by SB 228. SB 936 (Perata) and AB 1212 (Nuñez) would restore some of the benefits.

Fiona Ma said that when she worked for former State Senator John Burton from 1995 to 2002, “We tried to make sure workers had enough options like chiropractic treatment, acupuncture, and choosing your physician. I support any way to increase treatment options.”

Ruskin said he supported the package of workers’ comp bills; Senator Carole Migden said she supported the bills. Her SB 942, providing incentives for employers to return injured workers back to work, is one of the bills supported by labor. “The pro tem [Sen. Don Perata] got the governor to agree that some changes need to be made,” Migden said. “We’re looking at the rules and the need to enforce the law, as well as looking at finding a way to involve the people who do the oversight in fixing the system.”

Senator Yee responded to Rich Hedges’ comment that with the 2-year limit on permanent disability benefits many injured workers are running out of funds: “That’s the tip of the iceberg,” Yee said. “The other problem is that the way of access is through a company doctor. We have to look at this deep and hard.”

Vocational Education

Doug Yamamoto of the Glaziers Local 718 asked each of the legislators to support the package of bills sponsored by the building trades expanding vocational education opportunities. “Shop classes that introduce students to the trades have been wiped out,” Yamamoto pointed out. “Building trades jobs are not second class jobs—they provide good careers. We work with our hands and our brains.”

Fiona Ma said she supported vocational education and wanted to see more programs like CityBuild in San Francisco, the pre-apprenticeship program that trains low-income residents in the trades. “We need to fund vocational education in the schools,” she said.

Yee said he “absolutely supports the bills,” and that, “I took wood shop and auto shop; any young person should have that experience.”

Ruskin said he wanted to get funding for vocational education back in the budget and see that Voc. Ed. students could still go to college. Migden said she was a strong Voc. Ed. supporter, and that one of her bills was vetoed last year. Regarding SB 672, which would require students to complete two vocational education classes to graduate high school, Migden said, “I’m not sure about making it compulsory for people who don’t want to continue into the trades. We need to make it available for those who want it.”

Senator Simitian said that he had supported similar measures in the past. “This is an area where we have the governor on our side supporting vocational education,” he said. “There’s a better awareness now but we have to connect the funding to it to get it done.”

Labor Compliance Programs

Legislators were asked to support the bills reauthorizing Labor Compliance Programs to provide compliance on public works projects, including a liability bill if they do not do the job they were supposed to do. Ruskin said he hadn’t seen the bills yet but supported them in concept. Migden said she supported SB 18 and SB 191 but hadn’t seen the Assembly Bill yet. Yee said “I will absolutely support the bills.” Simitian said that while, “I never commit until I read the bills, I have supported this in the past and support the concept [of the labor compliance programs.]” Fiona Ma said she supports the legislation.

For updates on the legislation , check the website of the California Labor Federation www.calaborfed.org.