The Electronic Newsletter of the Florida AFL

New Members according to the AFL-CIO Work in Progress
This week's WIP: 4,312
Year to date: 47,036

A week off…well the folks at the Legislature have decided to take the week off, which is a good thing for everyone who cherishes life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness! The Florida AFL-CIO/ULL Legislative Update will be taking a break next week as well. What is the Legislative Update you might ask? Well, the update is a publication of the Florida AFL-CIO and United Labor Lobby sent weekly to all of our affiliates and to the delegates of the 2004 Legislative Conference. In it, we review the big legislative stories of the week and track all of the action on our priority issues. So if you are currently receiving the update, you won’t see it this week. If you do not currently receive the update and would like to check it out, we post it every week on our website at www.flaflcio.org, except for this week of course. Friday is Good Friday so our offices will be closed. Here is a mid-week E Messenger to satisfy your new cravings until we resume our usual Tuesday/Friday schedule next week.

No way, no how
( 04/05/2004 © Florida Today)
No way. Absolutely not. And one more thing. Don't even think about it. Florida is short of money for everything -- schools, medical care, roads, the environment, child care, the elderly -- and the Florida Marlins baseball team has the gall to ask the state Legislature for $60 million

Indefensible Budget Cuts
(04/05/2004 © Lakeland Ledger)
Anumber of important programs will be eliminated or severely hurt by budget cuts being proposed by legislative leaders in Tallahassee, but none is as indefensible as the repeal of the Medically Needy program serving 27,000 victims of catastrophic illness.

Trust us
( 04/05/2004 © Orlando Business Journal)
Hold onto your wallet. Dissatisfied with a one-time raid on state trust funds, the Legislature is now considering making such fiscal forays permanent.

State sales tax exemption in need of further review
(04/04/2004 © Pensacola News Journal)
Even as the state of Florida struggles to find enough money for roads, schools, the courts and other fundamental governmental functions, thanks to effective lobbying many businesses remain exempt from the state's single- largest source of revenue: the sales tax.

A little compassion
( 04/06/2004 © Gainesville Sun)
Killing a Medicaid bill could literally kill victims who have already suffered enough. ystic fibrosis is one of those childhood diseases whose victims seldom survive childhood.

Don t transfer state s Medicaid-waiver program
(04/07/2004 © Miami Herald)
Bills in the Florida Legislature would move the entire Medicaid-waiver program from the Department of Elder Affairs to the Agency for Health Care Administration. The move would end the leadership that Elder Affairs has had on policy issues of long-term care.

Young lawmakers leave their mark on Tallahassee
(04/05/2004 © Gainesville Sun)
MIAMI Some of Dave Aronberg's Harvard Law School classmates who graduated with him in the late 1990s are now powerful attorneys in New York, making hefty six-figure salaries and living amid Manhattan's bustle.

Florida s lawmakers at a glance
( 04/04/2004 © Lakeland Ledger)
Facts and figures on the age makeup of the Florida Legislature:

Michael Peltier: Legislative half time report ... much left
(04/05/2004 © Naples Daily News)
TALLAHASSEE — It's been more than a month since lawmakers began their 60-day session and, typical of sessions gone by, the bulk of their work remains ahead of them when they return April 12 after a week off Passover and Easter holidays. When they return, they will have less than three weeks to finish their work.

This is not the time for fiddling
( 04/05/2004 © Northwest Florida Daily News)
Legend has it that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. I thought about the infamous emperor last week when I read about the latest escapades of the Florida Legislature.

Children s advocates in limbo
( 04/05/2004 © St. Petersburg Times)
They are used to looking out for someone else, but this year is different. For more than 400 full-time staffers and 4,500 volunteers in the statewide guardian ad litem program, the future is uncertain.

Safety advocates urge passage of seat belt law
(04/06/2004 © Daytona Beach News-Journal)
TALLAHASSEE -- A national traffic safety group on Monday urged the Florida Senate to take up a measure this session that would allow police to pull over drivers for not wearing seat belts. A bill (HB 15) giving police that ability has passed the House but has stalled in the Senate over concerns about personal freedoms and the prospects for racial profiling.

Tribe s lobbying criticized
(04/07/2004 © Miami Herald)
TALLAHASSEE - Already facing criticism in the Legislature for its policy of stopping motorists traveling on a public road in west Miami-Dade, the Miccosukee Indian tribe is now also under fire for what some lawmakers call ''heavy-handed'' lobbying tactics.

Tallahassee politicians do telecom song and dance
( 04/05/2004 © South Florida Business Journal)
Going to Tallahassee these days must be akin to falling into the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland. The public was peeved about a telephone bill that passed last year and, by some counts, could end up costing consumers $1 billion over several years.

Call from lobbyist rattles lawmaker
(04/07/2004 © Miami Herald)
TALLAHASSEE - As Florida lawmakers tried to freeze the largest telephone rate hike in state history, a top-ranking official at BellSouth made an alarmed call to a lawmaker on the House floor -- shaking up the legislator so badly that it outraged his colleagues. The caller: Eliseo ''Tito'' Gomez, a BellSouth vice president and lobbyist.

Telecommunications companies charged with buying lawmakers, regulators
(04/07/2004 © Palm Beach Post)
TALLAHASSEE -- Florida telecommunications companies use campaign contributions and gifts to keep state regulators and lawmakers in their back pockets, a consumer watchdog group charged Tuesday.

Common Cause takes on utilities
(04/07/2004 © Tallahassee Democrat)
State campaign-finance laws that have allowed state-regulated utilities to donate more than $12million to lawmakers and political parties over a five-year period should be rewritten, Common Cause Florida said Tuesday.

Pre-K vouchers program provokes dispute
(04/05/2004 © Miami Herald)
TALLAHASSEE -- As Florida embarks on creating the largest state-paid pre-kindergarten program in the country, the eyes of the nation are watching, and so far the show isn't looking good.

Schools await fate on pay plan
(04/05/2004 © St. Petersburg Times)
School officials across Florida are nervously watching Tallahassee to see whether lawmakers will force them to enhance teacher pay without providing the millions of dollars needed to cover the cost. The Legislature approved a new "career ladder" pay plan a year ago, at the behest of House Speaker Johnnie Byrd.

Editorial: Start talking tuition
(04/05/2004 © Palm Beach Post)
Several thousand students from Florida universities and colleges and their parents rallied at the state Capitol last month, warning lawmakers not to touch the Bright Futures Scholarship Program.

Bill would compel class in U.S. civics
( 04/06/2004 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel)
TALLAHASSEE Perhaps it's little surprise that some state legislators want to promote familiarity with government. A proposal (SB 1670) making headway in the Legislature would make most degree-seeking community college students take a class in "civics instruction that focuses on American national government."

Editorial: State takes up changes to graduation bill
(04/06/2004 © Ft. Pierce Tribune)
Warned that a bill passed by the Florida Legislature last year that would allow early high school graduations could have unintended and detrimental consequences, steps are being taken in the current legislative session to ease some of the concerns about the bill.

Turning pre-K into a missed opportunity
(04/07/2004 © Ocala Star Banner)
Florida lawmakers charged with establishing the parameters for voluntary Universal Pre-Kindergarten in our public schools are turning a voter mandate for better education into a mockery that if left as is will be a public policy sham - not to mention a waste of money.

Anesthesiologist Assistants
( 04/05/2004 © Lakeland Ledger)
Anesthesiologist Assistants State Rep. Susan Bucher's comment that a bill creating a new, lesser-trained class of anesthesia provider "was financially greased through the system" ["How to Pass a Bill," editorial, March 22] caused a political firestorm and a flurry of media interest.

Issue: Safety, not Bucher
( 04/06/2004 © Palm Beach Post)
Tuesday, April 6, 2004 Susan Bucher said campaign contributions bought a vote. For this, her colleagues may reprimand her. Isn't truth the ultimate defense against alleged slander? Three weeks ago, the House Health Care Committee approved a bill that would allow anesthesiologist assistants to administer anesthesia to surgery patients.

Low-octane solution
(04/06/2004 © Gainesville Sun)
Decreasing the state tax on gasoline, if only for a month, was a bad idea four years ago, and is still a bad idea today. ubsidize OPEC? Discourage conservation? Decrease funding for Florida 's already strapped transportation budget?

Editorial: Spoiled rotten
(04/07/2004 © Bradenton Herald)
Nothing quite epitomizes America's sense of entitlement to gas-guzzling cars and low gas prices as the bill filed by state Rep. Bob Henriquez, D-Tampa, calling for a 10-cents-a-gallon 'holiday' on gas taxes for a month this summer.

Gas tax relief not worth impact on roads programs
(04/06/2004 © Charlotte Sun Herald)
Democrats in the Florida Legislature had a good idea -- made even better by the fact their Republican colleagues are chomping at the bit to go along with it.

“Nobody knows the trouble they’ve seen…nobody knows their sorrow…”

State workers future is on shaky ground
( 04/05/2004 © Tallahassee Democrat)
Mark Neimeiser is a big, friendly guy who looks out for the interests of state employees when the Florida Legislature is in session. Lobbying for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees must be like being a Lutheran missionary in Rome .

The House taketh
( 04/06/2004 © Tallahassee Democrat)
It is easy to stereotype state employees as "bureaucrats" if you're outside of the Florida capital. Downstate, Tallahassee is often seen as Florida 's version of Mordor - the dark land in Tolkien's trilogy. With some embarrassing exceptions, that snarling stereotype is undeserved. Most state employees are conscientious and committed.

Bush won t back salary plan
(04/07/2004 © Tallahassee Democrat)
Gov. Jeb Bush said Tuesday that state government can't live with the 10 percent payroll cut sought by a House budget amendment.

Revised election rules stir fears
(04/05/2004 © Miami Herald)
TALLAHASSEE - A Fort Lauderdale activist's complaint to the Florida Elections Commission six years ago ultimately cost Broward County Commissioner Scott Cowan a $75,000 fine -- and put him in jail for six months.

Senate primaries may be tight
(04/07/2004 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel)
TALLAHASSEE -- Bill McCollum is leading a crowded field of Republicans in Florida's U.S. Senate race, but Mel Martine z is beginning to close the gap, a new statewide poll shows. The poll, conducted for the Orlando Sentinel and WESH-NewsChannel 2, shows the Republican contest shaping up as a two-man race between McCollum, who drew 27 percent, and Martine z , who got 18 percent.

Bush holds lead over Kerry in latest Florida poll
( 04/06/2004 © Sarasota Herald-Tribune)
ORLANDO , Fla. -- President Bush holds a slight lead over Democratic challenger John Kerry in Florida , according to a new statewide poll.

McCollum attack may boomerang
(04/07/2004 © St. Petersburg Times)
In the Republican race for U.S. Senate, no one has been more aggressive in criticizing Mel Martine z as a trial lawyer than rival Bill McCollum.

Senate seat is up for grabs
(04/07/2004 © Tallahassee Democrat)
Overshadowed by the presidential primaries, Florida's U.S. Senate race is still wide open for both parties, a new poll indicated Tuesday.

Workers’ Comp… California about to join Florida and Texas in the insurance scam

Nonprofit eyed as last resort on workers comp
(04/05/2004 © South Florida Business Journal)
The Legislature is considering creation of a non-profit state fund that would write workers' compensation policies for small businesses that are having difficulty obtaining coverage.

While governor vacations, staffers try to write work comp bill
(04/06/2004 © Lakeland Ledger)
While governor vacations, staffers try to write work comp bill By STEVE LAWRENCE Associated Press Writer SACRAMENTO Staff workers for the governor and Legislature hope to hash out a deal curbing workers' compensation costs by the end of the week.

Oliphant money request denied
(04/06/2004 © Miami Herald)
TALLAHASSEE - Former Broward Supervisor of Elections Miriam Oliphant won't get any taxpayer help with her legal bills and she is unlikely to see her suspension case wrap up before the Legislature goes home on April 30.

Oliphant dealt another setback
(04/06/2004 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel)
TALLAHASSEE Miriam Oliphant's hopes for a quick resolution of her case before the state Legislature were dashed on Monday when the Senate attorney overseeing her plea to be reinstated as Broward County's elections supervisor told her the issues were too complex to be settled hastily.

Don t delay trial
( 04/07/2004 © Miami Herald)
Defendants have the right to a speedy trial, a principle that applies to elected officials who have been suspended and face impeachment trials, too. Unnecessary delay is unfair to voters and, in this case, to suspended Broward Elections Supervisor Miriam Oliphant.

The people s power
(04/07/2004 © St. Petersburg Times)
Had it always been as difficult to amend the state Constitution as some lobbies and legislators want it to be, Florida still would be stagnating under the one that unrepentant former slaveholders wrote in 1885. When it was replaced, 54.2 percent of the voters said yes.

Fight to Save Bullet Train Hits Net With `Rail Truth
(04/05/2004 © Lakeland Ledger)
Keith Rupp, the Lakeland advertising executive who is also president of the Florida Transportation Association, was in Tallahassee last week promoting the group's new Web site aimed at combating negative comments about the high-speed rail project.

MORE JOBS, BUT NOT GOOD ONES--Although the nation's economy added 308,000 new jobs in March, the official unemployment rate rose to 5.7 percent, up from 5.6 percent in February, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. It will take many more months of sustained job growth to replace the more than 3 million jobs lost since 2001, experts say. No new high-paying manufacturing jobs were created in March, but more than 300,000 lower-paying service jobs were. Meanwhile, the number of people who have been unemployed for six months or longer reached nearly 2 million--a 200 percent increase since President George W. Bush took office. Workers who have exhausted their state unemployment benefits no longer will receive long-term emergency unemployment insurance because the White House and the Republican-controlled Congress have refused to renew the Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation program, which previously provided benefits when regular state benefits expired.

Statement from President John Sweeney regarding last weeks improved job figures – April 2^nd

Today's unemployment report is good news and we hope it will be sustained. But this report does not erase our nation's jobs crisis.

Before we buy into a lot of hype, we need to look at this report in the context of the bigger picture of sustained job loss and take a sober look at how far we still have to go to get

America

working again. We have 1.8 million fewer jobs today than in January 2001 and average monthly job growth over the last seven months has been only 108,000 jobs. The nation's information industry lost another 1,000 jobs overall last month and the telecommunications sector shed 2,000 jobs.

Long-term unemployment actually rose in March, pointing to the difficulties confronting workers trying to find jobs, and the average duration of unemployment remains longer than 20 weeks.

Since the first of the year, more than a million jobless workers have exhausted their regular unemployment benefits without finding work, yet the Bush Administration still refuses to support legislation to extend the emergency federal unemployment program.

And we suffer from a real shortage of good jobs - jobs that come with good wages, health care and retirement security. According to the Economic Policy Institute, jobs in industries that are growing pay an average 21 percent less than jobs in industries that are contracting.

No amount of rosy rhetoric will bring good paying jobs to states where tens of thousands of white-collar and blue-collar workers have joined the ranks of the unemployed as

U.S.

jobs move overseas. Furthermore, millions of workers are at risk of losing overtime pay as the Administration prepares to issue final overtime eligibility rule changes. We won't have a genuine jobs recovery until there is sustained growth across-the-board, providing all Americans who want to work a meaningful opportunity to do so. To get there, we need aggressive policies and actions to create good jobs now.

TAKING TO THE AIRWAVES--The AFL-CIO launched a new television advertising campaign April 1 to carry the message of the impact of the nation's jobs crisis on families and communities. The ads, which will air in 11 states, point out that 2.8 million manufacturing jobs and 544,000 information jobs have been lost since President Bush took office. The ads follow the Show Us the Jobs(TM) tour in which 51 workers--one from each state and the District of Columbia --traveled to eight states to tell their personal stories of the jobs crisis. The tour culminated March 31 in Washington , D.C. , where the workers joined Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and other members of Congress for a special Capitol Hill hearing on the jobs crisis and rallied to support policies to create good jobs and save overtime pay. The tour was sponsored by the AFL-CIO and WORKING AMERICA, a new national organization for working people. Watch a video of the new Show Us the Jobs ad and clips of the tour at http://www.showusthejobs.com. On the website, you also can read several of the riders' daily blogs or Web logs, along with each rider's personal story. You can download an activist toolkit to fight for good jobs in your community and order Show Us the Jobs gear online.

April 5, 2004

President Bush’s rosy rhetoric about job training doesn’t match his real record and, in this election year, he now claims he will magically train more workers with even less resources. In fact, Bush has slashed training programs, allocated fewer resources, and trained far fewer – not more – workers in his tenure than during previous Administrations. In fact, Bush’s record on training matches that of the rest of his presidency, which is one of consistent and repeated failure when it comes to

America

’s workers.

President Bush has recently proposed a budget that would cut worker training programs in real terms by almost a billion dollars - - a 20 percent cut since 2001. He has regularly sought to ax the H-1B high-tech and high-skilled job training program—which trains workers for the kinds of high-skilled jobs now being shipped overseas or filled by foreign workers in the United States—and now even wants to take back $100 million in unspent funds under the program. He is seeking a $340 million cut from career and technical education programs that would prove devastating to programs in high schools and postsecondary institutions, potentially forcing the programs’ reduction or elimination.

Under President Bush, the number of workers receiving job training through workforce investment adult and dislocated worker programs fell 18 percent between the program years ending in 2002 and in 2003, even though unemployment rose during that period. And the number of workers trained in the 2003 program year—116,213—was less than half the 313,000 workers who received training in 1998, even though the average unemployment rate in 2003 was 6 percent, compared with only 4.5 percent in 1998. Moreover, per capita dislocated worker spending per unemployed worker is only $166.63 under the Bush fiscal year 2005 budget—a 39 percent drop from 2001, when per capita spending for unemployed workers was more than $100 greater ($273.73).

Meanwhile, the Bush Labor Department has so failed in its administration of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program (TAA) that in the two most recent budget years, it used less than 60 percent of the money authorized to help workers who lost their jobs because of trade. The situation is so bad that the normally staid U.S. Court of International Trade recently castigated the Bush Labor Department for breaking faith with American workers, concluding that “as a result of overwork, incompetence or indifference (or some combination of the three), the Labor Department’s failure…[has] deprived the workers of the aid they needed.”

Enough is enough. President Bush’s supposed “commitment” to and record of training American workers consists of budget cuts and neglect of critical programs for displaced workers. The notion that the president will now do more with less is complete nonsense.

BUSH TAKES NEXT STEP TO GUT O.T.--The Bush administration continued efforts to eliminate the Fair Labor Standards Act's overtime pay protections for 8 million workers. In late March , the White House sent its final version of the rule gutting workers' overtime pay to the Office of Management and Budget

(OMB) for review. OMB now has up to 90 days to issue a rule. On March 31 outside a Bush campaign fund-raiser at a Washington, D.C., hotel, more than 1,000 union members, including the 51 jobless workers who had just completed the five-day Show Us the Jobs tour (see box), protested President Bush's overtime pay attack and the administration's support for shipping jobs overseas. Join the more than 2.25 million who signed petitions and sent faxes to the Bush White House urging the president to withdraw the overtime pay take-away by visiting http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/faxbush4ot . Meanwhile, on April 2, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) signed into law a bill that exempts Illinois from the overtime take-aways being crafted by Bush's Department of Labor.

Consumer foundation wants Frist investigated
(04/07/2004 © Tallahassee Democrat)
WASHINGTON - A consumer-rights foundation has asked the Senate ethics committee to investigate whether Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., improperly promoted legislation to limit medical malpractice awards while maintaining what it called 'personal and financial ties' to a large hospital chain