Jim Justin of the governor’s office addresses the crowd at the Labor Council’s annual legislative conference in Olympia Thursday.

OLYMPIA, Feb. 25.—Events a thousand miles away in Wisconsin were on everyone’s mind Thursday as the Washington State Labor Council held its annual legislative conference at the state capital.

            The attack by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on collective bargaining for public employees in the Badger State seemed to overshadow all the talk of labor’s agenda for the current legislative session in Olympia. This is a big year for labor in this state, after one big battle over unemployment insurance and another on workers’ comp that is just beginning. But speakers during the three-hour session seemed to see the Wisconsin affair as part of the same picture – labor is on the defense as the economy falters, and its advocates said they’re going to have fight tooth and nail to make they don’t lose any of the gains they have scored in recent years.

            “Folks, this is not just an attack on the public sector,” said Greg Devereux, executive director of the Washington Federation of State Employees.

            “This is really a war on labor, and it is a war on the middle class. They want to destroy it, and it is a concerted effort. The governor of Wisconsin said yesterday that he calls the governor of Ohio every day. It is in Wisconsin and Indiana, and they say it is going to Florida. They want to destroy labor, and the way to do that is to destroy the public sector now, and they think they will then destroy the private sector. This is a fight. It is a war nationwide, and it is going to continue. We are sending troops, money, everything we can to the states.

            “We would encourage you as well. They are trying to come after all of us. We have to go after them.”

            Planning Big Demonstration Saturday

            If it hadn’t been for Wisconsin, this year’s legislative conference might have been a routine affair, much like those held by any other major trade association in Olympia. Several hundred union officials and members gathered for the morning confab at the Red Lion Inn to hear about the key bills of the session, listen to speeches from legislators and state officials, and then fan out across the Hill to buttonhole lawmakers and spread the message. It’s a scene repeated a couple dozen times ever legislative session.

            But virtually everyone who spoke had something to say about the Wisconsin situation – deploring it, of course –  and about the need to stop what appears to be a movement before it can spread.

            There’s going to be a visual demonstration of the effort on Saturday in what promises to be one of the biggest protests of the session – provided the weather holds out. The Washington chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative grass-roots organization, is planning a rally in support of Wisconsin Gov. Walker on the steps of the state Capitol at 11 a.m.

            The Washington Federation of State Employees and MoveOn.org are planning a counter-demonstration an hour later at the nearby Tivoli Fountain on the Capitol campus. It may not match the enormous rallies in Wisconsin and Indiana, where collective bargaining rules are under direct attack — and attendance will naturally depend on the amount of snow left on the ground Saturday. But judging by the buzz in the room and the flurry of emails that went out later in the day to labor supporters and allies in “progressive” organizations, Washington’s public employee unions are planning an show of force that could easily outnumber the on-Wisconsin crowd.

            A Union-Busting Effort

            “I think that what we are learning is that what Gov. Scott Walker is doing is not about balancing the budget or budget deficits,” said Jeff Johnson, president of the Washington State Labor Council. “It is a naked grab for power. It wants to bust public employee unions. When you take a look at the polling in Wisconsin, a majority of the public is supporting the public employees, the public servants, and don’t like what Scott Walker is doing. I read an article the other day that said even some of the GOP governors are beginning to back away from Gov. Walker right now.

            “It is not a good thing. The middle class is being shredded. For him to look at state employees and not look at the notion of shared sacrifice is just appalling, and people get it.”

            In this state, public-employee unions have been recognized by state and local governments for decades, but they won a major victory in 2002 when they succeeded in passing a collective bargaining law that allows the state’s unions to bargain directly with the governor’s office rather than the Legislature. The law began taking full effect in 2005 and since then has encompassed nearly all of the unions that represent state employees.

            Republicans and conservative critics have been calling for the law’s repeal ever since, and they say that the big boosts in salaries in 2005 and 2007 are one of the reasons state government was hit hard by recession and faces a multi-billion-dollar shortfall today.

            Johnson said critics are using public employees as a scapegoat, and noted that public employees agreed to a furlough plan for the next two years that amounts to a three percent pay cut. The big question at the conference was whether the fire will spread from Wisconsin and fuel an effort to overturn this state’s collective bargaining law.

            “I don’t think that would go over in this state,” Johnson said.

            Best Union Organizing Tool Ever

            What the Wisconsin furor has done is to energize labor, said state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, the Senate Labor and Commerce chairwoman and a strong supporter of union interests. “It’s really a wonderful thing that we are able to get the energizing of public workers and supporters all across the United States because of what’s happening in Wisconsin,” she said.

            Mike Sells, D-Everett, her counterpart in the House, said, “We live in a time where we are seeing larger and greater attacks on working people. We see it in Wisconsin to its utmost. And fortunately we haven’t seen it here at the same level, but there are pieces of it around issues of collective bargaining like we’ve seen it in other places in the country.”

            The biggest such issue this session has been a move to restrict bargaining by ferry workers. Sells vowed: “There will be no gutting of collective bargaining on my watch.”

            Congressman Jay Inslee, a likely Democratic candidate for governor, popped in for a quick speech and got off a few zingers. “If you see the governor of Wisconsin, please remind him that those were union workers for the Green Bay Packers who won the Super Bowl,” he said.

            Worker Comp Looms Ahead

            Wisconsin isn’t the only thing on labor’s plate, of course. Lawmakers are just beginning to do battle over workers’ compensation, and all indications are that the fight will become intense in coming weeks. The governor and the business community are advocating reforms that would begin to place limits on one of the country’s more generous programs. The governor herself has called the current system unsustainable. Some elements have support from both business and labor, particularly a move to enforce standards on doctors who treat injured workers, but the message from the Labor Council is that proposals that cut benefits are going to meet a buzz-saw of opposition.

            “The other things in the bills are just benefit cuts,” Johnson said. “We are not going to go there.”

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