Affiliates plan their legislative strategies

Before the November 2000 elections were decided, FPE/AFT affiliates were setting their legislative agendas for 2001 and preparing for anticipated battles based on budget estimates, history--and the personalities that compose their state governments.

For better and for worse, the elections had minimal impact on the political landscape in the states, thus resulting in continuity of the dynamic among FPE/AFT unions, state legislatures and governors. While nearly all of the states with FPE/AFT affiliates walked into state capitols in January knowing what to expect, the Colorado Federation of Public Employees (CFPE) was one exception. Voters in that state squashed a 40-year Republican hold on the state Senate, electing a Democratic majority. Jo Romero, president of CFPE, is hopeful Senate Democrats will provide "relief from the continuous attacks on state personnel," she says, noting that the new president of the Colorado Senate "sent a nice letter saying he is looking forward to working with us."

For many, including Colorado, the issues are perennial--pay, collective bargaining, health care and retirement. The battles over these issues, however, vary greatly from state to state and are much more involved than any single piece of legislation.

For example, in North Dakota, which ranks 50th in public employee pay, initiatives to bring salaries up to date are a priority, yet the effectiveness of those efforts is constrained by the state's income tax system. "Salaries are a huge issue for us," says Chris Runge, executive director of the North Dakota Public Employees Association (NDPEA). But "[lawmakers] are not going to raise taxes. If they don't bite the bullet now, it will be worse the next biennium, and then it is going to take mega millions of dollars to fix the problems."

Runge says bills have been introduced that call for bonuses of up to $1,000 over two years, which agencies would fund through their own budgets. The union, however, maintains that while bonuses may make employees feel good, they do nothing to fix the salary problem. "They are having problems recruiting and retaining employees in the state, and they are trying to figure out how to do some Band-Aid approaches instead of having a salary policy that rewards people for the work they do," Runge says.

Salaries also are an important issue in Colorado. But the battles being waged by Romero's group are of a very different origin. Specifically, two pay issues are on CFPE's agenda: Postponement of the July 1, 2001, starting date for the pay-for-performance plan and follow-up legislation to a pay differential rule implemented a year ago that authorizes agencies to hire new employees at higher salaries than existing workers. Romero says the union does not oppose the intent of the pay differential, which was intended to help the state attract new employees in the tight labor market. Instead, the union will lobby the legislature to direct agencies, which already have discretionary authority under the law, to bring all current employees up to the same level as the new hires. If successful, Romero says, the mandate will "bring some equity back into the system."

Unions lobby for equitable personnel policies

Equity, whether it is pay, worker rights or employee benefits, is a pervasive objective throughout the FPE/AFT. In Kentucky, the FPE/AFT-affiliated Kentucky Association of State Employees (KASE), in conjunction with other AFL-CIO unions, "will be making a full-court press" to undo limitations that were enacted by Gov. Paul Patton (R) with the 1996 Workers' Compensation reform measure, says KASE executive director Charles Wells. Retirement reform is another priority. Specifically, Wells says the union will pursue an initiative to change retirement annuity calculations to a system based on the top three salary years instead of the high five pay years.

"This is going to be a first-of-a-kind legislative session in Kentucky," Wells notes, saying that while the composition has remained the same, the state's electorate voted for an annual legislative session instead of one every other year. "The legislature and the governor's office have already said they will limit a certain number of items, so they will be mainly playing defensive ball with us. This session will not deal with the budget. This session, they will tweak things that are not working--and we want to make sure they don't tweak anything that is valuable to us."

Retirement is an issue for Wisconsin public employees, as well. Bob Beglinger, president of AFT's Wisconsin Federation of Teachers, says the union will be seeking "protective service status" for corrections workers who do not already have it, including physicians, dentists and psychiatrists. Public employees with the protective service status designation receive a higher benefit formula on their pension and have a lower retirement age, Beglinger says.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin's public employee unions will seek a dental benefit in state employee contracts when negotiations begin later this year for the 2001-2003 contract. Beglinger notes that the FPE/AFT affiliates, including the Wisconsin Professional Employees Council (WPEC), are anticipating a tough round of negotiations, despite recognition during bargaining over the 1999-2000 contract that the state was losing its competitive edge. Specifically, in that contract, the state committed $35 million to increasing public employee salaries to bring the public sector closer to the market rates in the private sector.

"The store has been given away," Begliner says, referring to Gov. Tommy Thompson's revenue policies over the past 14 years. "The tax base has been eroded in that rates have been indexed to inflation, and it is going to be harder to generate the money to provide decent contracts to public employees. It is going to be a battle."

Beglinger expects little to change in the dynamics between lawmakers and unions over the next year, as Gov. Thompson leaves his post to become secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services in the Bush administration. "His lieutenant is poised to take his place. Hopefully, he will be willing to listen," says Begliner.

The nature of lobbying and legislative action has changed, somewhat, in Maryland since public employees gained collective bargaining rights in 1998. Negotiations over their first contract were completed last summer, and now the union will turn to the legislature to extend collective bargaining rights to more public employees. Ward Morrow, in-house counsel and director of legislative programs at AFT Maryland, says the FPE/AFT-affiliated Maryland Professional Employees Council is "looking to expand collective bargaining to state employees at the University of Maryland."

That is one public employee priority. The other, Morrow says, is passage of a bill that decreases the potential for mandatory overtime for nurses working in state hospitals and other facilities.

Legislative priorities for the FPE/AFT's Connecticut affiliates fall under the category of housekeeping and pertain to privatization and union contracts. George Springer, president of the Connecticut Federation of Educational & Professional Employees, says the union will resume its efforts to pass a bill creating standards for privatization--"criteria that protect the jobs of state employees and provide accountability."

No doubt, many of the FPE/AFT unions will be fighting the same battles this year as were fought in years past. One difference many leaders hope they will see this year, though, is increased mobilization of the union membership in such lobbying efforts as letter-writing campaigns and phone calls to lawmakers to encourage--or discourage--their support of a particular measure. As Romero says: "You cannot extricate what happens at your job from what happens in the legislature."

Policy moves to watch in Washington, D.C.

When the 107th Congress convened in January, there was plenty of unfinished business left over from the previous congressional docket. Among the items to be addressed: a patients' bill of rights, a prescription drug benefit for senior citizens, Internet taxation, reauthorization of welfare program funding and a federal minimum wage.

"The current federal budget surplus offers an opportunity for our country to address many national problems that have grown worse over the years," says FPE/AFT chair Jim McGarvey. "The lack of adequate health care for our citizens, the growing number of children living in poverty, the inadequate funding for employment security and job training, the threats to the environment, and a rapidly growing prison population all threaten to diminish the strength of our national prosperity."

With the Senate split 50-50 and a razor-thin Republican majority in the House of Representatives, political pundits predict the policy harvest of the 107th Congress will be determined by the amount of cooperation and compromise exercised in the law-making process. But the FPE/AFT knows that the slim majority also increases the influence of citizen activists who share their views on proposed legislative measures with their elected officials.

"Rather than taking a reactive stance, we intend to be very proactive in working with Congress on a legislative agenda that responds to the needs of AFT members," says Charlotte Fraas, AFT's director of legislation, noting that the union will make every effort to work with those members of Congress who want to end the gridlock that marked the last Congress.

Will gubernatorial wishes become national policies?

Meanwhile, the union will be keeping a watchful eye on White House initiatives, particularly in the area of welfare reform. "As governor of Texas, President Bush sought a waiver from the federal Department of Health and Human Services to allow the state to contract out its welfare eligibility services," says FPE/AFT department director Steve Porter. "Such a waiver potentially would have allowed for the privatization of more than 10,000 state employee jobs in Texas. Fortunately, the Clinton administration denied this waiver. We anticipate, however, that the Bush administration may make a policy move to allow such waivers for every state, which would threaten hundreds of thousands of public employee jobs."