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Texas AFL-CIO,
February
12th and 13th,
Austin, Texas
On February 12th and 13th Jason Stingley and I attended a Texas
AFL-CIO planning session in Austin. It was a quite a learning session
on Texas politics in general and on several issues weaving there
way through the maze that is the 80th Legislative Session.
First of all and most importantly the United Auto Workers are
sponsoring and have been working to get the Innocent Bystanders
to a Labor Dispute Bill, otherwise known as House Bill 972, passed.
This bill is an attempt to solve a problem the UAW recently encountered.
In a previous labor dispute a UAW represented parts plant outside
of Texas went on strike, eventually forcing a shutdown at a GM
assembly plant in Texas and subsequent layoff of UAW represented
workers. As it turns out Texas is the only state in the union that
does not pay unemployment to union workers resulting from a layoff
due to a strike at a facility other than the one they were working
at. The innocent bystanders, if you will, of a labor dispute. To
further rub salt into the wounds of the UAW, the Texas Workforce
Commission decided to pay unemployment compensation to the non-union
laid off workers. And Texas, being a right to work state, had a
bunch of non-union members working the assembly lines right along
side the UAW members. So a dues paying union member is laid off
due to a strike by fellow union brothers at another plant in another
state, and he doesn’t collect unemployment while the non-union
scabs he worked with do collect unemployment. Now tell me that
this Republican administration is not anti labor.
In an effort to correct this flagrant inequity the UAW is proposing
House Bill 972 that would allow innocent bystanders of a labor
dispute to receive unemployment if laid off due to a strike not
of their own doing.
So what does this have to do with you? Remember when the pilots
went out in 1997 and we were all WARN acted? Had they not been
ordered back to work we could have eventually been laid off and
found ourselves not eligible for unemployment. Yep, this bill will
protect us if the pilots or flight attendants go out. But only
if it passes. Contact your state representative and senator; urge
them to vote for Texas House Bill 972.
The Texas AFL-CIO is also
trying to enact the following provisions to modernize the unemployment
insurance policy.
• The Alternative Base Period (ABP) - House Bill 580 (Deshotel)
and Senate Bill 491 (Lucio): States measure whether a recently
unemployed worker has a sufficient attachment to the workforce
to qualify for UI by determining how much the employee has earned
and when they earn it. Because of now irrelevant technological
limitations, current law fails to include up to six months of the
individual’s most recent work. This particularly impacts low-wage
workers, workers who have more irregular employment patterns, those
transitioning from welfare to work and construction workers. The
ABP would simply shift the timing of the base period calculation
to allow more recent earnings to be used in determining eligibility
for UI.
• Domestic Violence Survivors Access to Unemployment - Senate
Bill 142 (Zaffirini) and House Bill 550 (Dukes): In a major step
forward last session, Texas extended UI eligibility to women who
must leave their jobs due to family violence or stalking. The law,
however, has not proved as successful as was originally hoped because
of hurdles placed in the process for women needing this critical
assistance. This bill will help achieve the goal of the original
bill by allowing women to qualify upon providing evidence of a
protective order, a police record or a physician’s statement in
order to qualify for UI.
• Part-Time Worker Issues - House Bill 1277 (Deshotel): Texas
excludes part-time workers from UI by requiring them to look for
full-time work in order to receive UI, even where there are compelling
reasons for working part time and where the person has historically
worked part time. Many part-time workers are thus excluded from
UI even though their wages are subject to UI payroll taxes and
their earnings meet state monetary eligibility rules.
Now that you know about these bills how can you keep track of
them? The answer may be easier than you think. We were told about
a website that allows you to receive email alerts whenever action
is taken on that bill. The address is http://www.legis.state.tx.us/.
This website will also tell you who your state and U.S. representatives
are.
We were also treated to a short lesson on how a Texas legislative
session works and it is like nothing I have ever heard of before.
I had heard that the Texas legislature meets only for 140 days
every other year which is pretty unusual in its own right. What
I hadn’t heard of is the myriad of time limits and special procedures
that needed to be followed in order to get a bill passed by the
Texas House and Senate. The flow chart showing the progress of
a bill through the Texas legislature is every bit as complicated
as a 777 wiring diagram. There are at least 27 specific procedural
items that can stop a bill.
On the national front of AFL-CIO priorities the Employee Free
Choice Act is at the top of the list followed closely by securing
Collective Bargaining Rights for Transportation Security Officers.
As you may recall in the rush to deploy the TSA following 9-11
the Bush administration insisted that the Transportation Security
Officers not be allowed to unionize. There is currently a measure
gaining support in the United States House of Representative that
would allow those security officers to unionize. We need to encourage
our Senators to support such legislation.
We also were privileged to hear several speakers:
• Jim Dunnan,
State Representative, spoke on the current legislative environment.
• Eric Hartman, Director of the Texas Federation of Teachers,
spoke on the fallacy of the bonus pay for teachers based on student
performance proposal.
• Mike Cunningham, Texas Building and Construction Trades, spoke
on contractor and trades licensing for commercial and residential
construction.
• Luis Figueroa, Staff Attorney for MALDEF (Mexican American
Legal Defense and Educational Fund), spoke on voter picture ID
issues.
• Johnny Villarreal, Huston Firefighters, spoke on the effect
of a Supreme Court ruling declaring that municipalities have
sovereign immunity with respect to collecting past due wages
and grievance settlements.
• Dick Lavine, Senior financial Analyst CPPP (Center for Public
Policy Priorities), spoke on the benefit of removing spending
and revenue caps.
• W. Alex Winslow, Executive Director of Texas Watch, spoke on
the high Texas homeowners insurance rates.
• Walter Greely, Legislative Organizer from AFGE (American Federation
of Government Employees), spoke on efforts to obtain collective
bargaining rights for TSA Transportation Security Officers.
• Brian Graham, Retired Legislative Staffer, spoke on the Texas
legislative process.
Tom Carlin (Local 513), Jason Stingley and I also visited State
Representative Lon Burnam’s office and spoke on behalf of a permanent
Charles Taylor Day.
Finally, attorney Brent Coons gave on excellent presentation on
the March 2005 Texas City BP refinery explosion. Mr. Coons and
his firm sifted through thousands of BP emails and other documents
that clearly revealed BP’s blatant disregard for safety and contempt
for its union people. In one email a company official is quoted
as stating “I’m leaving to attend the Labor Management conference
in San Antonio with our illustrious union leadership… please poke
me in the eye with a sharp stick.” In the years prior to the explosion
nearly all safety measures had been slashed to bare bones or completely
eliminated. Staffing had been cut to the bare minimums. Mr. Coons
explained that oil companies typically use portable construction
trailers on refinery grounds to shelter workers. One problem is
that the trailers tend to rollover and disintegrate in an explosion,
a tendency that had been documented in previous refinery explosions.
Not coincidentally all the worker that were killed happened to
be in trailers at the time of the explosion. Unbelievably BP actually
claimed the tendency of the trailers to rollover was a safety feature,
according to BP the rolling dissipated the energy of the explosion.
Mr. Coons is sponsoring “The Eva Bill” (named after a surviving
dependant of a husband and wife killed in the explosion.) This
bill (among other things) would ban trailers and temporary buildings
from refinery sites.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the Texas
AFL-CIO Planning Session in Austin or if you have any other legislative
questions.
Gary Moffitt,
Legislative Director
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