Olympia Business Watch

House Passes Workers' Comp "Ex Parte" Bill

Last night just after midnight, the House of Representatives passed HB 1402, a measure opposed by the business community because it introduces more adversarial legal process into the state's workers' comp appeals system.  It is designed to prevent effective communication between employer representatives and claimant medical providers by channeling those contacts through the claimant's attorney. 

The bill passed 55-42, with a handful of Democrats crossing party lines to vote no.  the Department of Labor & Industries, which in past years has opposed the legislation, stayed on the sidelines this year, having brokered with the bills' proponents an exemption from the bill's more onerous features. 

The bill, if it passes the Senate and becomes law, is expected to add delay, and therefore cost and inefficiency, to the resolution of disputed workers' compensation claims.  It undoes a 1992 decision of the Washington Supreme Court, Holbrook v. Weyerhaeuser, in which the court, surveying the prior 80 years of workers' compensation law, observed "[t]he Legislature has determined that a free flow of information is necessary for the efficient and proper resolution of industrial insurance claims."  (Holbrook, 118 Wn.2d 306, 318).

Evidently, at the behest of the politically powerful claimants' bar, the Legislature, and to a certain extent the Department of Labor & Industries, is willing to revisit that determination.

AWB Action Alert: Attend This Weekend’s Town Hall Meetings

Tell Them Higher Business Taxes Jeopardize Jobs

This Friday and Saturday, members from the House and Senate will return to their legislative districts to hold town hall meetings with constituents. The conversations should quickly turn to the budget and how legislators plan to resolve the $8 billion state deficit.

 It’s imperative that you take a moment to call your senator and representatives — or better yet, attend their town hall meetings in person. Tell them how higher business taxes will put your company and your employees at risk.

Gag Rule Dead; Criminal Investigation Underway -- UPDATED

The morning before the Legislature's house-of-origin cutoff started off normally enough, with this piece by Jerry Cornfield in the Everett Herald (since overtaken by events and updated, here) exploring both sides of the so-called "Worker Privacy Act" as it gets down to crunch time. 

Then this blog post from Niki Sullivan at TVW's Capitol Record:  "'Worker privacy' bill is dead after e-mail linking contributions to votes."  (Since updated, here).

That still remains about all anyone knows (or can say) about the issue. It's now shrouded in cloak and dagger talk of pending criminal investigations, undue influence, bribery and intimidation.  Press conferences have been scheduled, then cancelled.  

Cornfield provides an updated timeline here.

Adam Wilson (The Olympian) comments on the matter here (with an update here).  His colleague Brad Shannon, here.

Joe Turner at the News Tribune here.  The Seattle Times' Politics Northwest blog here.  Rich Roesler (Spokesman-Review) here.

EFF takes a look here and here.

UPDATED:  AWB has released a statement on these developments here. 

The Washington State Labor Council has released a statement here.

Olympia Business Review - Episode 18: 2009 Midsession Legislative Review (Podcast)

In episode 18 of the Olympia Business Review, host Dan Brunell is joined by Don Brunell (AWB president) and Gary Chandler (AWB VP of governmental affairs) to discuss the first half of the 2009 legislative session. They also discuss some of the topics which will define this session.

Issues covered: Budget, taxes, environment, cap and trade, energy, unemployment insurance, conformity, card check, unionization, gage rule

To subscribe via iTunes, click here. 

To subscribe to the RSS feed, click here.

To download this podcast, click here.

CNBC Discuss Card Check Legislation (Video)

CNBC had a rather poignant discussion this morning on the pending "card check" legislation that is being debated in the U.S. Congress. In conjunction with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, AWB is opposing this legislation which would take away right of workers to a secret ballot election.

The Wall Street Journal Has It Right....Obama's Cap and Trade Proposal Taxes Families

The Wall Street Journals said it best!  The proposal to put a cap on emissions on facilities (and eventually cars and homes) emitting carbon-based pollutants, such as carbon dioxide, and charge those exceeding their limits, or cap, a hefty tax is really a tax on working families.  Here are excerpts from the Journal's editorial today:

Cap and trade is the tax that dare not speak its name, and Democrats are hoping in particular that no one notices who would pay for their climate ambitions. With President Obama depending on vast new carbon revenues in his budget and Congress promising a bill by May, perhaps Americans would like to know the deeply unequal ways that climate costs would be distributed across regions and income groups.

KUOW Examines Card-Check Bill, Employer Gag Rule

This morning's KUOW Weekday show spent an hour looking at the exquisitely mis-named "Employee Free Choice Act," or card-check bill, about to be introduced in Congress, as well as the equally Orwellian "Worker Privacy Act" now pending in the Washington Legislature.  

The show spends a considerable amount of time on the arguments of both labor and management.  The employer community's perspective received excellent treatment from Seattle labor and employment attorney (and AWB Board member) Tim O'Connell of Stoel Rives LLP, whose remarks ranged from an historical perspective on labor law in this country to up-to-date statistics on unionization from the National Labor Relations Board.  Tim covered the panoply of concerns and objections that lead the business community to oppose card-check and the gag rule as the most radical retrenchments of federal and state labor law in at least six decades. 

The archived show can be streamed here.  For folks interested in the issue, it's well worth a listen.

Governor launches new anti-fraud Web site

This week marks Consumer Protection Week in Washington state. From the Governor's press release:

In an effort to counter consumer fraud, Governor Chris Gregoire has proclaimed March 1-7 Washington State Consumer Protection Week, and has asked state agencies to help consumers avoid the pitfalls of dealing with an underground economy that too frequently takes the money and runs.

To assist consumers in checking out businesses before they commit their hard-earned dollars, the Department of Revenue, in cooperation with the Department of Labor & Industries and other state agencies, has set up a central web site, www.suspectfraud.com, to provide links to consumer fraud services.

“Knowledge is the best defense, and state agencies are combining forces to make it easier than ever for the public to ‘check with the state before it’s too late,’” Gregoire said. “We don’t want your pain to be their gain.”

On this website you can check if a charity or fundraiser is legitimate. Also you can report fraud from businesses and individuals. There are also links to assist victims of fraud.

Lobby Lunch Series 2009 - #3: State Chief Economist Dr. Arun Raha

AWB Communications Vice President Jocelyn McCabe sat down today with Dr. Arun Raha, Washington state's chief economist and executive director of the state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council. During today's podcast interview, they discussed the current economic slowdown and its effect on Washington state.

You can also download Dr. Raha's presentation from today's Lobby Lunch.

Issues covered: revenue,economy,budget, federal stimulus

To subscribe via iTunes, click here. 

To subscribe to the podcast's RSS feed, click here.

To download this podcast, click here.

Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to I-960

The Washington Supreme Court just released its eagerly anticipated decision moments ago in Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown's lawsuit against Lt. Governor Brad Owen, which attempted to invalidate the supermajority vote requirement of Initiative 960 for bills that raise taxes. 

In an unanimous opinion authored by Justice Mary Fairhurst, the court refused to entertain the question.  Agreeing with arguments made by Lt. Governor Owens, as well as AWB in our friend-of-the-court brief, the court concluded:

This original action is improperly before this court on application for a writ of mandamus and is a nonjusticiable political question.  Intervention of this court into an intrahouse dispute over a parliamentary ruling to compel the president of the senate to perform a discretionary duty would be a grave violation of separation of powers.  We dismiss the action.