Union Boss Gets Hands-On Experience Again Rather Than Lay Off Staff, Idaho State Afl-Cio President Resumes Working As Electrician On Construction Projects.

Randy Ambuehl got out his tools last month and went to work.

The journeyman electrician spent August working on a remodeling project at a Boise motel and then on a job at St. Michael’s Episcopal Cathedral.

It was all a sort of working holiday for Ambuehl. For 2-1/2 years he has been president of the Idaho AFL-CIO and was just elected to a new four-year term. So he usually spends his time fighting for union causes.

But the state labor organization ran into a cash crunch last month. Rather than asking his staff to work for less, or laying someone off, Ambuehl skipped his $3,600 August paycheck.

“It’s been real good for me to get out in the field to hear what workers think,” he said. “It was really refreshing to me.”

How did it go?

“I haven’t broken anything yet,” he said, although he did melt a screwdriver by sticking it in a hot socket.

He’s been behind a desk for years. Before being elected organized labor chief in Idaho, he spent more than five years as business agent for an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers local.

It was Ambuehl’s idea to go without a paycheck to get the state organization through a money crunch.

“I could have asked the others to work for less, but that isn’t right,” he said.

After spending his days wiring and other electrical work, Ambuehl spent up to five hours at night and on weekends on his state job.

He felt he had to “create a crisis” to make union members aware that they need to be paying their fair share toward running the state organization.

He’s taken his share of joshing from “regular” union electricians, but Ambuehl says any union leader would benefit from getting out on the street and working with members.

Since Idaho passed a right-to-work law over the veto of then-Gov. John Evans in 1985, union membership in Idaho has declined. So has its finances.

John J. Sweeney, national president of the Service Employees International Union, pulls down $210,952 per year - in addition to the $79,099 he received from a local where he was president years ago. Many national union leaders get as much or more. But there isn’t that kind of money in Idaho.

Idaho’s AFL-CIO gets along on about $150,000 per year. That covers Ambuehl’s $44,000 salary, pay for two full-time staffers and office expenses.

Before right to work, Idaho had about 45,000 union members and about 28,000 of them were making per-capita payments to support the state organization.

Membership dipped a third, to about 31,000, but is back to about 32,000 to 33,000 members and is growing slowly. But only 14,000 union members are committed to per-capita payments for the state organization, averaging about $10 each per year.

Organized labor is trying to revive its fortunes with an iniative calling for an increase in the state minimum wage. If the measure qualifies for next year’s general election ballot and is approved by voters, the state minimum wage of $4.25 per hour would go up in 50-cent increments over a four-year period to $6.25 and would be extended to farm workers and other currently exempt employees.

Lawmakers have been asked for years to raise the minimum wage, but there was little chance for approval in a Legislature dominated by farmers, ranchers and other conservative Republicans.

The AFL-CIO also wants a “fair share” law, requiring workers to pay for services rendered by a union, even if they aren’t a member. If that fails, the state labor convention in Lewiston approved an attempt at an initiative campaign to repeal right-to-work.

It will be an uphill battle. The 1996 Idaho Legislature again will be overwhelmingly Republican and there’s little indication the union proposals will get far.

Ambuehl thinks people will “wake up” to the need for unions when they realize that many of Idaho’s new jobs are minimum wage that “don’t look so attractive now.”