WSLC convention expected to rethink relationship to Democrats

About 300 delegates will gather at the Coast Wenatchee Center Hotel in Wenatchee Aug. 6-8 for the 2009 convention of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO. WSLC has over 500 local union affiliates, representing about 400,000 rank-and-file union members.

The convention’s keynote speaker will be Arlene Holt Baker, the number three official of the national AFL-CIO. Holt Baker is running for re-election as executive vice president on the slate of Richard Trumka at the AFL-CIO convention Sept. 13-17 in Pittsburgh.

Conspicuously absent from the guest speaker list at WSLC’s convention are any top Democratic state politicians. At last year’s convention, Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire and House Speaker Frank Chopp were honored guests. But in March, those two plus Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown bowed to pressure from Boeing Co. and refused to allow a vote on WSLC’s top-priority bill, which they had promised to support. Adding insult to injury, the three called for a police investigation of an internal e-mail in which a WSLC staffperson reported a comment at a meeting — that Democrats wouldn’t get another dime from labor if they didn’t pass the bill. The Washington State Patrol found no laws had been broken.

Because of the rift with state Democratic leaders, convention delegates are expected to discuss significant changes to WSLC’s political program — to better target union support to legislators who stick by labor, regardless of their party affiliation.

Besides Holt Baker, guest speakers include Sal Roselli, Bob Baugh and John deGraaf.

• Roselli is a former president of United Healthcare Workers West, a division of Service Employees International Union. Roselli was removed from office last year in a widely-publicized fight with SEIU President Andy Stern. Stern led a group of unions to break away from the AFL-CIO and form the Change to Win labor federation. Now Roselli is leading a breakaway from SEIU with the formation of a new independent labor organization, the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

• Baugh, a former Oregon AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, is the head of the national AFL-CIO’s Industrial Union Council, the group of unions that represent workers in manufacturing industries. Together with Andrea Buffa of the University of California Berkeley Labor Center, Baugh will talk about “cap and trade” legislation in Congress, which will limit emissions of greenhouse gases but also fuel the growth of new industries. The issue is important enough that WSLC is also holding a day-long pre-convention “Cap-and-Trade and Green Jobs Conference” Aug. 5.

• DeGraaf is national coordinator of Take Back Your Time Day, an annual event on Oct. 24 that draws attention to the problem of overwork in America. His group backs a bill in Congress that would guarantee workers get three weeks paid vacation after a year with an employer.

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