The state’s largest labor and business organizations are fighting house-to-house in the race for governor, casting the decision as one of protecting workers’ rights versus preserving a private sector.
Ringing doorbells, mailing fliers and advertising on television, the Washington State Labor Council and the Building Industry Association of Washington are engaged in a fierce battle over which candidate offers the best results with his or her economic proposal.
Organized labor is backing Democrat Christine Gregoire, whose plan zeroes in on the job side of the equation. While promising to make state rules and taxes less onerous, she is ensconced in the theme of investing public money in developing biotech industries to spawn high-paying jobs with benefits.
Business leaders are behind Republican Dino Rossi, who focuses on the corporate side of the equation. The core of his message is that Washington is an unfriendly state for business. He’s pledging all his energy to cutting enough red tape to abet the success of existing companies and aid new ones in starting up.
For the two interest groups, it’s a philosophical struggle with practical concerns; each side fears that losing will curb their access to the governor and weaken their foothold in government.
“We know she won’t be out to get the unions,” said the labor council’s president, Rick Bender. “I don’t think Dino Rossi sees any way except to go after the worker to see that business gets what they want.”
His counterpart, Tom McCabe, executive vice president of Building Industry Association of Washington, said: “The fear with Gregoire is she is pro-government and will continue to insist government is always right and that citizens and small businesses are always wrong. The hope with Dino Rossi is that he changes the culture in Olympia so that small businesses at least have a chance.”
What’s their beef?
McCabe, an energetic leader who speaks with flourishes of bombastic rhetoric, took charge of the Building Industry Association of Washington in 1990. Its 11,270 members – 900 of them in Snohomish County – employ 350,000 mostly nonunion workers.
McCabe cannot name one thing that Gregoire has done to help small business. Ask him to name two things she’s done to hurt them, and he’s also stumped.
“How do you narrow it down? I’m trying to think of the top two,” he laughed.
He charged that when she was director of the Department of Ecology, she doubled the size of the agency. “Why is that bad?,” he asked. “It means there’s more government regulators creating regulations, and more onerous rules put on the economy prohibits job creation.”
Erin Shannon, Building Industry Association of Washington public relations director, came up with a second reason: “Her absolute defense of government, no matter what they do or what they have done or what statute they’ve violated. Voters elected her to defend the law and uphold the law.”
Bender, a former state legislator, became Washington State Labor Council president in 1993. In Washington, where unions represent one in five workers, the labor council speaks for 500 union locals representing 435,000 workers.
Opposing Rossi is easy to explain, Bender said. “He’s a likable person, but then you take a look at his voting record and you find out that he’s not supportive of you on your basic issues,” he said. “We expect him to do anything he can to hurt the unions.”
He rattled off a litany of “bad votes,” including votes against collective bargaining and cost-of-living increases to the minimum wage and a vote to cut unemployment benefits
Among labor council members, the Service Employees International Union has made Rossi a prime target, committing nearly $1 million to his defeat. Members of the union, which represents 60,000 home health care workers, protested outside Rossi’s state Senate office last year when his proposed budget did not fund a negotiated pay hike for them.
“We saw what he did,” said Adam Glickman, spokesman for SEIU Local 775.
Six degrees of friendliness
The crux of the difference between the two groups – and candidates Gregoire and Rossi – is the health of the business climate. Answers to that depend on who you ask.
Rossi supporters cite studies that conclude Washington’s business climate is unfriendly, based on the state’s high minimum wage and unemployment benefits, rising costs of workers’ compensation, time-consuming land use review processes, and an unemployment rate higher than the national average.
The Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy used those factors primarily to conclude that this state, in terms of the cost of doing business, is the eighth most expensive in the country. Hawaii is the most expensive in the report, prepared by the Washington Research Council, a private, nonprofit think tank that has studied the operation of state government since 1932.
Gregoire supporters contend that the state is emerging from the recession. Unemployment in September dropped to a level just above the national average. They note that 20,500 people found work in nonfarm jobs, most of them landing in government- and education-related work. They say the minimum wage reduces the reliance of those workers on government aid.
In addition, they point to this month’s Tax Foundation study that concluded Washington has the ninth most business-friendly tax system in the country. The report said the state’s lack of personal income and corporate taxes offsets the drain of the business and occupation tax.
The Tax Foundation is a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan nonprofit that has monitored fiscal policy since 1937.
What the candidates say
Rossi intends to redraw the economic landscape with two major pen strokes. One will appoint new directors to several departments, including Labor and Industries and the Department of Ecology.
The other will create a new Governor’s Office of Regulatory Reform to “streamline and reduce the regulations that hurt businesses and job growth.” He aims for a 5 percent reduction the first year.
McCabe said installing new leadership is much needed, though he’s less enamored with another cabinet office.
“That’s what Mr. Rossi has proposed, so we’ll live with it,” he said. “Every policy that makes government bigger takes away the ability of industry to create jobs. I think he is going to be pleasantly surprised at the impact new blood will create in all of these agencies.
“I mean, if you put somebody who is pro-business in charge at the Department of Ecology, or at least balanced, they by themselves can stop these rules,” he said.
Gregoire’s blueprint centers on investing public money in public and private research and development efforts, with the focus on biotechnology. She would establish a cabinet-level Jobs Council comprised of department directors “to assess the job-creating needs of Washington.”
She has pledged to create 250,000 jobs in her first term, slightly more than what state forecasters have predicted will occur.
Bender knows not all the jobs will be union, but said he’s confident she will push for jobs that offer health care and do not weaken workers’ rights. “We know she won’t agree with us all of the time,” he said. “We’d like to see it. She will be more of a problem solver than an ideologue.”
Campaigning to the end
Since June, throughout the state, union members have been knocking on doors of other union members, plying them with information. It’s called Labor Neighbor.
“We’ve got an army, thousands of volunteers,” Bender said. “The key is getting our people out to vote. You’re not going to see CEOs going door-to-door.”
McCabe’s legion is far less visible. The Building Industry Association of Washington is spending about $650,000 on the campaign; the majority of that was spent in the primary on TV ads attacking Gregoire.
The focus in the campaign’s final days will be to “motivate” members and to “activate their employees” to turn out to vote.
Reporter Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com.
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