------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 26, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
SHOCK AND AWE IN WASHNGTON STATE: BOEING GETS BIG HANDOUT,WORKERS GET PINK SLIPS Workers Need a Second Battle of Seattle By Kaz Susat Seattle The giant airplane and weapons corporation Boeing announced late this spring that it is considering developing a new airplane. If it goes ahead, the assembly plant for this plane will hire 800 to 1,200 people. Boeing hasn't definitely decided to build the plane. The company has laid off over 20,000 people in the state of Washington over the past 18 months. The state has a budget deficit of $2.65 billion. Nevertheless, the legislature is handing over billions of dollars to Boeing and other bosses. Boeing recently claimed that 20 states were competing for the plant, vying for which would give away the most in order to win it. It demanded that Washington state make drastic changes in the "business climate" or it wouldn't even be considered. Democratic Gov. Gary Locke immediately fell into line and called a second special legislative session, dubbed by even mainstream media as the Boeing Session. The legislature had just hammered out $2.56 billion in draconian cuts in programs for the workers and the poor. That didn't stop them from giving this corporate/military giant a $3-billion-plus handout in the Boeing Session. CUT UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE State unemployment insurance is funded by taxing businesses. In reality, these taxes are a part of workers' wages that is diverted into a state- run insurance program. The program pays workers a fraction of their previous wages when they are laid off or the company they worked for folds. A new law, written largely by business lobbyists, will cut payments from the 200,000 businesses whose workers contribute to the unemployment fund. The money not paid into the fund will go to increase profits. They are stealing from workers to the projected tune of $167 million a year. Since less is going into the fund, less is going to go out. Using creative accounting, this law changes the formula for determining the amount of an unemployment check. Instead of basing the benefit on the highest-paid two quarters of the previous year, it will be based on an average of all four quarters. Additionally, the length of benefits was cut from 30 weeks to 26 weeks. These cuts will affect over 300,000 workers who recieve unemployment checks. The unemployment rate for the state is 7.3 percent. Seasonal workers will suffer the most. According to the Seattle Post- Intelli gencer, the average benefit of fishers will drop 23 percent, from $358 a week to $268. Fishing is listed by the Labor Department as the most dangerous occupation in the U.S. Agricultural workers will lose 17 percent, from $237 to $191. Both these jobs have lots of downtime. Worker's compensation for hearing loss was cut as well. Now Boeing and other manufacturers can more easily and cheaply deafen workers with their machinery. "This is significant, and unprecedented, that we are going after working people to solve the problems of business in a recession," said Robby Stern of the Washington State Labor Council. "Business is using the threat of Boeing leaving to accelerate the race to the bottom." But Boeing wanted even more. So the Boeing Session leaped to comply. Another bill was hurriedly passed just for the company. It will cut the giant corporation's business and operations taxes by 40 percent, subsidize its research and development costs, and give it breaks on property taxes. While this is contingent on the new plane being assembled in the state, there are no requirements that any of the parts be manufactured locally. These tax cuts are estimated to be worth $3.2 billion over the next 20 years. WHAT CAPITALIST DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE Meanwhile, for poor and working people, the budget axe cut deep. The state budget was cut by $2.65 billion. No new revenue sources were considered. Schools, healthcare and basic services were all on the block. In 2000, voters of Washington State had passed Initiative 732, giving teachers a 2-percent annual raise and reducing class size by hiring more teachers. State workers were demanding parity. Instead of a raise, teachers and state workers are facing wage freezes and layoffs. The state plans to get rid of 1,150 jobs over the next two years. Charles Hasse, president of the Washington Education Association, says most school districts in the state will lay off teachers, cut programs or both. The union says $600 million was cut from K-12 education. Tuition for the state universities and colleges will rise 7 percent in each of the next two years. In 2001, Initiative 775 was overwhelmingly passed. It gave 26,000 state home health care workers the right to unionize. Last year the Service Employees union led a sucessful organizing campaign and the workers got a contract. These isolated workers take care of elderly and disabled people who wish to remain at home. For this physically, emotionally and psychologically demanding work, home healthcare workers earn $7.68 an hour. The contract won in 2002 would give them a two-step raise totalling $2.02 an hour and make them elegible for worker's compensation coverage for on-the-job injuries. Some of the workers would have received state-subsidized health care coverage. But now they are getting nothing except the possibility of a layoff notice, because health care to the poor is also being cut. The state's Basic Health Plan provides bare bones insurance coverage to 122,000 low-income workers and their children. Yet another voter- approved iniative, this one hiked taxes on tobacco to raise the money to add another 50,000 families to the plan. Instead, the legislature took the tobacco tax money and will cut 22,000 families from healthcare coverage by capping the program at 100,000 people. In addition, it will start charging premiums of $15 to $25 a month per child. The legislature's own figures admit 20,000 of the state's poorest and most vulnerable children will be left with no health care at all. Counties and municipalities are cutting back as well. King County, which includes Seattle, is laying off workers, closing parks, deferring maintenance on roads, even cutting back garbage collection in an effort to make up a $52-million shortfall. Seattle School District just announced it is cutting yet another $1 million from its budget. This is on top of discovering an "accounting error" that showed the district was $35 million in the hole. The day after the unemployment insurance bill passed, Boeing announced it was firing another 270 workers and sending their jobs abroad. These are highly skilled, high-paid jobs writing technical manuals, maintenance manuals and service bulletins. "After careful study, we've decided to change the long-term business model for that work by transferring it to companies with a lower cost base," Boeing spokesperson Jill Langer arrogantly told the Seattle Times. WILL HANDOUTS KEEP BOEING HOME? Bosses and politicians claim the answer to unemployment is to give the rich more. They claim looting the treasury and the pockets of poor and working people will create jobs. They say this stolen wealth will be invested. Yet capital can fly faster and farther than any Boeing plane or missile. It is this export of capital that is accelerating the unemployment crisis at home and causing misery around the world. Organized labor is vowing a fightback, but so far is looking to electoral changes in 2004. It was Seattle that witnessed the birth of the anti-globalization movement on Nov. 30, 1999. The Millenial Round of the World Trade Organization ground to a halt and then collapsed under the weight of tremendous, militant street protests. As the pain of globalization comes home, those stunning days will be remembered. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
