In Labor’s heart, Dems didn’t deliver

Chris Morris

By Michael Mishak (contact)

Tuesday, June 9, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Nevada labor leaders are disappointed that their Democratic allies in the Legislature failed to advance significant items on labor’s agenda despite controlling both chambers for the first time in two decades.

To be sure, unions can claim some small victories, including improvements to the state’s workers’ compensation system and mandated safety training for construction workers. But a sense of frustration — even outrage — was palpable last week as labor leaders lamented lawmakers’ failure to restructure the state’s tax system.

To hear them tell it, the Legislature robbed workers for the second consecutive session, forcing cuts in public employee pay, pensions and health benefits. Moreover, legislators amended collective bargaining rules for local governments, tilting the system toward management.

The Legislature’s failure to adopt new long-term revenue sources angers Danny Thompson, executive secretary-treasurer of the 200,000-member Nevada AFL-CIO.

He said the Legislature exhausted all its cost-cutting options this session and has no choice but to reform the state’s tax structure in 2011. Labor, he said, has nothing left to give.

“We’ve got to diversify the tax base,” Thompson said. “It’s painfully evident that you’ve got to make everybody pay, not just gaming. And if the Legislature won’t do it, you may find us doing it.”

He added: “You can’t operate as the worst state in the nation and expect you’ll have economic diversification.”

Thompson said the state AFL-CIO was exploring the option of putting the idea of a gross-receipts business tax to voters by sponsoring a ballot initiative. He said the idea has substantial support, particularly in the education community, which suffered deep cuts this session.

Still, union leaders acknowledged the political equation Democrats faced: Because the Nevada Constitution requires tax increases to pass with a two-thirds supermajority, party leaders — despite controlling both chambers — had to make concessions on big issues to win crucial Republican votes. A supermajority is also required to override the governor’s veto.

Rusty McAllister, president of the firefighters union, said labor leaders were warned upfront, before the session started. The message to unions: You’d better focus your agenda on policy issues because there is no money to fight over.

“They didn’t have any options,” he said of Democratic leadership. “They did what they had to do.”

Which is not to say lawmakers went far enough: “When we walk in the door next session we’re right back to where we started. Every two years we do the same thing.”

McAllister and David Kallas, a Metro Police detective and director of government affairs for the Police Protective Association, said they were disappointed to see the process so dominated by the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce. The chamber came to the Legislature with a list of demands, including reductions in public employee retirement and health benefits, in exchange for its support for a tax increase.

“The chamber did a very good job of changing the discussion from ‘the need to pay more in taxes’ to ‘there’s plenty of money in public employee salaries,’ ” McAllister said. “It was a great diversionary job.”

Kallas offered an unsubtle warning: Looking ahead to next year’s election, the police association will show no mercy toward elected officials it views as unfriendly to the union and its members.

The Southern Nevada Building and Construction Trades Council has already chosen sides in the governor’s race. On Monday, Executive Secretary-Treasurer Steve Ross said the 22,000-strong council endorsed Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid over Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley because the Legislature “left so many difficult decisions on the table for the next session.”

“Coming out of a legislative session where the concerns of working men and women, like creating jobs, were too often put on the back burner, we need a leader who will bring a fresh perspective to Carson City,” Ross said in a statement.

In the general election, labor will unify against Gov. Jim Gibbons, who vetoed a pair of union-backed bills early in the session. One, sponsored by the Service Employees International Union, would have mandated nurse-to-patient staffing ratios statewide. The other, pushed by the ironworkers union, set up a voluntary framework for union contractors to negotiate workers’ compensation claims with labor organizations, outside the state system.

The Legislature overrode Gibbons’ veto on the latter.

Unions lost on two other issues: The governor vetoed a bill that would have granted noneconomic bargaining rights to state workers and a measure that would have required paying the prevailing wage on more state projects.

The building trades council can boast of a victory in Assembly Bill 148, which requires 10 hours of OSHA-certified safety training of all construction workers and 30 hours of training for all construction supervisors.

The bill was the council’s top priority this session following a string of 12 deaths in 18 months on the Las Vegas Strip, and was strongly supported by a number of large contractors, including CityCenter contractor Perini Building Co. Ross says that reiterating safety practices among construction workers is the key to safe work sites.

Most union workers receive the training during their apprenticeships, but some journeymen and most nonunion workers have not received the training.

National safety experts say a training mandate has been difficult to fully enforce in other places, and they maintain it is just one step toward creating safe work sites. Also key, they say, is strong enforcement, ensuring that contractors follow safety laws.

An effort by Nevada Sen. Maggie Carlton to reform state workplace safety oversight did not receive the strong backing of unions and was unsuccessful.

Thompson noted labor also won legislation making it easier for workers to claim secondary injuries and making it more difficult for employers to fire injured workers. And he said unions would reintroduce other key measures in 2011, starting with collective bargaining rights for state employees.

“We’ll go back and we’ll get it next session,” Thompson said.

Alexandra Berzon and J. Patrick Coolican contributed to this report.