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In Labor’s heart, Dems didn’t deliver
Leaders say unions took unfair hit in legislative session, vow to fight in ’11
Tuesday, June 9, 2009 | 2 a.m.
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Beyond the Sun
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.
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What?
Democrats have full control because the Union tactics put them there.
And the lawmakers failed them.
This legislature was pathetic. The problem is that voters are still likely to re-elect. Remember who was involved in this pitiful session, and how, when election time rolls around.
First, gross receipts taxes are widely known to be one of the most economically harmful tax structures available to policy makers. There is a reason only 10 states have adopted some form of a gross receipts tax. It would do more harm than good.
Second, and perhaps more troubling, is the threat by the police officer's union. "The police association will show no mercy toward elected officials it views as unfriendly to the union and its members." What are you going to do? Shoot them? I wouldn't put it past our trigger happy police officers.
You have to feel bad for our Union workers. The Public employees have guaranteed pay and benefits, so they can live close to where they work. A short commute. So they spend their short day whining and complaining about what a tough life they have. Barely high school graduates who "knew" somebody, and got a job for life. The cops, of course, have a hazardous job, writing enormous tickets and enlarging their waistline at Dunkins.
Construction Unions? Wait about a year, they're toast. Everything is coming to a halt, and they know it. How many loafers can they hide on the Airport terminal job? Greyhound will be transporting thousands of them out of town soon, and I say "Good Riddance".
"I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" is the story of a sixteen-year-old who retreats from reality into the bondage of a lushly imagined but threatening kingdom, and her slow and painful journey back to sanity.
This seams to be the ideology that the unions demand, a "Rose Garden". Well we the tax payers can't afford to pay you what you think your worth, that being said, I guess you'll have to apply for a job somewhere they can.
Good luck to you.
And while we are at it;
"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."
So the various Business Agents who are demanding reinstatement of workers who grossly violated life threatening safety rules due to the fact that the jobs are too few; are they somehow part of the problem?
Seems to me that not too long ago GC's and Owners were accused of not caring, OSHA 10 hr was mandated, zero tolerance was established for the workers safety, and now that times are tough, the Unions BA's are demanding that the workers who refused to follow the safety rules be reinstated.
Hypocrisy at it's finest.