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CWA Stakes Out Legislative Positions With Eye to November Elections
Issues of importance to working families are heating up once again with the return of the 106th Congress on Jan. 24. CWA is pushing for a stronger patients’ bill of rights, a raise in minimum wage, and legislation to address the increasingly widespread misclassification of employees as independent contractors.
Along with the entire labor movement, the union is defending against attacks on overtime pay and efforts to thwart an ergonomics standard that’s been put out for public comment.
At the same time, senators and members of Congress are staking out positions on issues like Social Security, Medicare and tax cuts, as battle lines are drawn for the November elections.
“You can bet that lawmakers who owe their seats to big business and the wealthy will come at us on every issue of concern to our members,” said CWA Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling, who heads CWA’s Government Relations program. “In the short term, we’ll have to mobilize to pass or to block legislation, but in November we’ll have a much better opportunity: to elect Al Gore President of the United States, along with a more union-friendly Congress.”
CWA will actively pursue legislation to prevent employers from misclassifying workers as independent contractors. The Independent Contractor Clarification Act of 1999 (H.R.1525), sponsored by Reps. Gerald Kleczka (D-Wis.) and Amo Houghton Jr. (R-N.Y.), would prevent employers from denying workers the umbrella of protections that an employer-employee relationship confers.
Microsoft workers represented by WashTech-CWA, some NABET-CWA TV production crews, translators and interpreters, and members of the Musicians’ union are often treated as independent contractors, earning less and living without the strong job security protection and benefits of employees working under a collective bargaining agreement. Freelance journalists and photographers compete for work that would be performed by TNG-CWA members, and subcontracting is a rampant problem in the telecommunications industry.
Minimum wage and overtime pay are two issues left over from the first session of this Congress that will surely return. A bill backed by CWA and sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) would have raised the federal minimum wage, now $5.15 an hour, by $1 an hour over a two-year period. But that measure was amended by the Republican-dominated Senate. The Senate attached a “poison pill” measure that coupled a $1 minimum wage increase over three years with a plan to allow employers to cut workers’ overtime pay.
The Senate Republican plan would have affected 73 million workers eligible for overtime pay and would have given employers new options in classifying workers’ earnings. The amendment, introduced by GOP Sens. Pete Domenici (N.M.), Rick Santorum (Pa.) and Spencer Abraham (Mich.), would have allowed employers to exclude from overtime any bonus payments made to employees. By reconfiguring their compensation systems, employers could significantly reduce overtime payments, while still requiring employees to work the additional hours. This amendment was approved by a 54-44 vote, with 44 Democrats opposing.
The House didn’t act on the measure last session, but that doesn’t mean working families won’t face an attack on overtime pay and worker issues in the new session. Nor was this Congress’s first attempt to cut overtime pay. Both House and Senate measures have been proposed to restrict overtime pay to hours exceeding 80 within a two-week period.
Working fulltime at the minimum wage, a worker earns just $10,712 a year, or about $3,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. The real value of the minimum wage has been falling steadily, because sporadic increases have not been enough to offset decades of inflation. The minimum wage now is worth 21 percent less than it was in 1979, and without an increase, the real value of the minimum wage will drop to $4.90 by 2001.
Also, House and Senate conferees will attempt to resolve the differences between two health care reform bills passed in 1999, creating a single bill the President can sign. The Bipartisan Consensus Managed Care Improvement Act (H.R.2723), introduced by Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Charles Norwood (R-Ga.), passed 275-151 last fall with CWA support. It would ensure that health care decisions are made by medical experts rather than insurance company bureaucrats. The bill would provide the 161 million Americans enrolled in managed care plans access to needed specialists and emergency room services and assurance that doctors and patients can openly discuss treatment options. It would also set up an appeals process for denials of service and legal redress for injury or death due to refusal to supply care.
In conference, the bill must be reconciled with a weaker Senate version that contains more restrictive patient protections and offers no expanded right to sue health care providers.
Along with the entire labor movement, the union is defending against attacks on overtime pay and efforts to thwart an ergonomics standard that’s been put out for public comment.
At the same time, senators and members of Congress are staking out positions on issues like Social Security, Medicare and tax cuts, as battle lines are drawn for the November elections.
“You can bet that lawmakers who owe their seats to big business and the wealthy will come at us on every issue of concern to our members,” said CWA Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling, who heads CWA’s Government Relations program. “In the short term, we’ll have to mobilize to pass or to block legislation, but in November we’ll have a much better opportunity: to elect Al Gore President of the United States, along with a more union-friendly Congress.”
CWA will actively pursue legislation to prevent employers from misclassifying workers as independent contractors. The Independent Contractor Clarification Act of 1999 (H.R.1525), sponsored by Reps. Gerald Kleczka (D-Wis.) and Amo Houghton Jr. (R-N.Y.), would prevent employers from denying workers the umbrella of protections that an employer-employee relationship confers.
Microsoft workers represented by WashTech-CWA, some NABET-CWA TV production crews, translators and interpreters, and members of the Musicians’ union are often treated as independent contractors, earning less and living without the strong job security protection and benefits of employees working under a collective bargaining agreement. Freelance journalists and photographers compete for work that would be performed by TNG-CWA members, and subcontracting is a rampant problem in the telecommunications industry.
Minimum wage and overtime pay are two issues left over from the first session of this Congress that will surely return. A bill backed by CWA and sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) would have raised the federal minimum wage, now $5.15 an hour, by $1 an hour over a two-year period. But that measure was amended by the Republican-dominated Senate. The Senate attached a “poison pill” measure that coupled a $1 minimum wage increase over three years with a plan to allow employers to cut workers’ overtime pay.
The Senate Republican plan would have affected 73 million workers eligible for overtime pay and would have given employers new options in classifying workers’ earnings. The amendment, introduced by GOP Sens. Pete Domenici (N.M.), Rick Santorum (Pa.) and Spencer Abraham (Mich.), would have allowed employers to exclude from overtime any bonus payments made to employees. By reconfiguring their compensation systems, employers could significantly reduce overtime payments, while still requiring employees to work the additional hours. This amendment was approved by a 54-44 vote, with 44 Democrats opposing.
The House didn’t act on the measure last session, but that doesn’t mean working families won’t face an attack on overtime pay and worker issues in the new session. Nor was this Congress’s first attempt to cut overtime pay. Both House and Senate measures have been proposed to restrict overtime pay to hours exceeding 80 within a two-week period.
Working fulltime at the minimum wage, a worker earns just $10,712 a year, or about $3,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. The real value of the minimum wage has been falling steadily, because sporadic increases have not been enough to offset decades of inflation. The minimum wage now is worth 21 percent less than it was in 1979, and without an increase, the real value of the minimum wage will drop to $4.90 by 2001.
Also, House and Senate conferees will attempt to resolve the differences between two health care reform bills passed in 1999, creating a single bill the President can sign. The Bipartisan Consensus Managed Care Improvement Act (H.R.2723), introduced by Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Charles Norwood (R-Ga.), passed 275-151 last fall with CWA support. It would ensure that health care decisions are made by medical experts rather than insurance company bureaucrats. The bill would provide the 161 million Americans enrolled in managed care plans access to needed specialists and emergency room services and assurance that doctors and patients can openly discuss treatment options. It would also set up an appeals process for denials of service and legal redress for injury or death due to refusal to supply care.
In conference, the bill must be reconciled with a weaker Senate version that contains more restrictive patient protections and offers no expanded right to sue health care providers.