More Notes From The Legislature

We are coming out of this legislative session still counting wins and losses, but knowing for certain that Oregon's conservative forces and their corporate allies have already started a counter-attack and that much of our immediate future will be taken up in beating this counter-attack back. It becomes, then, a fight to keep centrist Democrats from caving in to the right, broadening whatever coalitions and alliances exist so that the fight to hold on to what we won and get more serves people's real interests and moving workers into leading the fight against the right.

Unions lost on legislation to protect the rights of workers through improvements in the Public Employee Collective Bargaining Act. HB 2831 would have allowed temporary workers to join a bargaining unit after 90 days on the job, protected public employees from permanent replacement if they go on strike and clarified the definition of supervisory employees. All of this would have worked to the good in day-to-day union-state relations. This went down with a 16-14 vote. All Republicans voted against the legislation, as did Democratic Senators Betsy Johnson, Rick Metsger, Jo Anne Verger and Martha Schrader. These are a few of the so-called centrist Democrats to worry about. Their sidestepping on important issues makes politics in Oregon more complex than it needs to be.

Senators Chris Telfer and Larry George tried to move a proposal Saturday to have state workers take a $291 Million cut in wages and benefits. This would have rescinded any raises or step increases or increased payments for health insurance that most union members have received since 2007. Fuzzy thinking and fuzzy math brought the proposal down with an 18-12 vote on the Senate floor along party lines. Telfer, George & Co. are just anti-worker, but their last-minute effort was probably intended to signal the right and test the waters.

The right-wing hate radio deejay assault continued yesterday, but included odd calls to Republicans to save or convert conservative Democrats in the Senate for the next election cycle and the next legislative session in 2010. Hitting back on the "tax the rich" legislation that passed, worker rights and social spending seem to be on the tops of their lists. They're also tied down by Mannix's mandatory sentencing ballot measures and are taking a do-it-or-die approach here that could force serious state budget cuts if they ever get the chance to go through with Mannix's full program.

What are they attacking? Chief among their targets is DHS. Let's look at the reality of the new DHS budget. This new budget contains some serious cuts and shortfalls, but is nowhere near as bad as what we were looking at six weeks ago and provides for some advancements in worker or care provider rights and benefits. In that budget adult foster care providers get no COLA increase, but they also get no pay cut and they win the ability to have union dues check-off. Home care workers take no cuts in pay or hours, keep current healthcare benefits, get no funding for any increase in health care costs and see their HUBB reserves raided. Nursing homes workers see a cut to the formula for setting home rates that amounts to a virtual freeze in rates or little increases. Nursing homes pay raises this fall, though important, will not be as high as expected. The budget funds some CNA staffing improvements. Child care providers will not have a salary cut for the time being, and the Employment Related Day Care (ERDC) program has survived largely intact, but ERDC eligibility will shift in the summer of 2010 to includen only parents leaving TANF in last 24 months. This last item is really a step backwards.

Progressive forces in Oregon are generally not confident of the legislative playing field, and for good reason. This has almost nothing to do with what Oregonians are thinking about or what we want. Did you hear Courtney this morning trying to sound like an elder statesman and tripping over himself? On the other hand, the effort to work with or win over individual Republicans on even isolated issues while the Republican leadership is good with attacking workers' wages and health care and rights at work, and while Republican followers tolerate it, is usually a lost cause and detracts from efforts to defeat the right. It also overlooks all of those Democrats who are anti-worker and bad on peoples' issues. Democratic leaders may block the worst of these attacks, but it's not certain that their followers will line up behind them to support workers, or even the separate pieces of a peoples' agenda. Even when this does happen, the cost to unions and progressive groups is enormous.