A few days after AWB released its own Legislative Review and Vote Record (link forthcoming), the Washington State Labor Council followed up with their own take on the major bills of the 2007 session and their tally of the lawmakers' votes.
No real surprises amongst the vote record. The folks you would expect to "vote right," as Labor puts it, voted "right" and the folks you would expect to "vote wrong," in their view, voted "wrong."
It was the nature of the session that Labor had a litany of successes: paid family leave, a budget proviso requiring study of the controversial "pay or play" health care policy, the blockbuster (bankbuster?) public employee bargaining agreement and pay hikes, a variety of labor-backed workers' comp benefit increases, and a bill that helped blunt the effect of the US Supreme Court's unanimous holding that states can require unions to get non-members to opt-in to have their agency shop fees used for politics.
The look ahead to 2008 is interesting. The state AFL-CIO says it will make "the illegal suppression of unions" its top legislative priority with re-runs of bills designed to force to keep employers mum about their opposition to organizing campaigns, especially employers in the aerospace industry.
