Corporate Policies On Families Draw Cheers, Jeers From Awb, Labor

The Association of Washington Business passed out awards to employers for “family friendly policies” at the lobby’s spring board meeting in Spokane.

Eastern Washington companies nearly swept the employee safety category, nabbing three of four awards - a pleasant surprise.

Western Washington employers took top honors for pay and benefits. No surprise there.

Telect Inc. of Spokane won the prize for Community Outreach. A panel of judges lauded the Liberty Lake employer for its “comprehensive efforts across a variety of categories to create a better workplace.” Efforts cited include “an ergonomics program, an English As a Second Language program, and numerous community volunteer efforts in the Spokane area.”

Also in Spokane, Acme Materials and Construction was a top winner for its safety and training programs, “including one which deals with domestic violence in the workplace and the community.”

Elsewhere in the area, Ponderay Newsprint of Usk posted a winning safety effort, along with Unocal Agricultural Products of Kennewick.

Basin Disposal Inc. of Pasco impressed judges with “a personal, one-on-one approach to personnel management and family-friendly initiatives for its 68 employees, most of whom have been with the company more than 20 years.”

According to AWB, recent studies show that employers who “promote family-friendly policies and better workplace solutions see a return on their investment.” AWB said employer benefits include “improved morale, visibility in the community, a better product and more productive work force.”

“Becoming ‘employee friendly’ is within the reach of every company,” the business lobby group said.

Labor leaders blast mean spirit

Meantime labor leaders who gathered in Spokane last weekend flayed employers for unfriendly family policies.

Linda Chavez-Thompson, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, lambasted large corporations for paying lip service to politically correct family policies while downsizing millions of workers.

Worse yet, Chavez-Thompson told several hundreds delegates to the annual convention of the Washington State Council of City and County Employees, at the same time big business was busy ripping off taxpayers for billions in corporate welfare.

She lamented the loss of permanent jobs with benefits which are being contracted out, privatized, and replaced by casual or part-time labor with low wages and no benefits.

“The economy gets harsher and meaner all the time,” said the first person of color elected to an executive office of the AFL-CIO and the highest ranking woman in the labor movement.

“We are the first generation in America that cannot offer our children a better future,” said Chavez-Thompson. “What kind of a future will there be for our grandchildren?”

In a later interview, the labor boss applauded the presentation of awards to employers for family-friendly practices - “as long as these practices are in fact good for workers.

“Are the employers paying living wages to their workers,” she asked, “instead of just adjusting their hours to escape costs? Are they providing workers quality benefits that the employer pays for, instead of getting it out of their employees’ pockets. Do they pay workers to take time off for necessary family leave? That’s not happening in America today.”

Gerald McEntee, international president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), targeted the political far right.

When Newt Gingrich was elected speaker of the house, recalled McEntee, “He said he wanted to spend the next two years debating unions about what’s good for America. So I sent him a telegram assuring him that I as head of this union am personally ready to debate him anytime and anywhere about what’s good for America.”

But he hasn’t heard anything since about the big debate.

McEntee said Gingrich and friends are still committed to crippling Medicare so severely that it will, as Gingrich boasted, “wither on the vine.”

The labor chief said his union of 1.3-million public employees, “the flagship of the American labor movement,” will lead the fight to protect and preserve Medicare.

He reminded the audience that one-fourth of voters in the 1996 general election were union members. McEntee said unions are going to write a consumer bill of rights that makes managed care institutions responsible to people, not insurance companies.

Budke chosen to lead

Spokane Club Accounting executive Gordon Budke is the new president of the 3,200-member Spokane Club. The managing partner of the Spokane Office of Coopers & Lybrand LLP succeeds Priscilla Gilkey of Empire Health Services.

The private social and athletic club at Riverside and Monroe is buying the adjacent Spokane Chamber of Commerce Building in a transaction scheduled to close this month. The chamber will occupy the premises until new offices are completed in a five-story building at Post and Riverside being redeveloped as a combined Spokane Regional Business Center.

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel writes a notes column each Wednesday. If you have business items of regional interest for future columns, call 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review