Missouri Legislative Report #3 For 2007

Dear Brother & Sister Carpenters,

 No more bills can be filled this Session.  We now have 710 bills filed in the Senate and 1298 filed in the House.  The Project Labor Agreement as mentioned in my last report passed the House 145 to 7 and 33 to 1 in the Senate.  The Governor signed the PLA bill March 22^nd.  Passing and signing this bill should satisfy the General Assembly as their Labor Bill for this session.   We will find out soon because several bills concerning Prevailing Wage, Right to Work, Workers’ Compensation, and Unemployment Insurance are working through the Senate and House.

 House Bill #61 has been on the House Calendar for several weeks and is expected to be acted on soon.  This bill will exempt work done on a school in non charted counties from the prevailing wage requirement if approved by the local school board.  I have notified the District Councils about this and both Councils will provide help at the Capitol to poll all law makers about the need to vote this bill down.   April 4^th is the Carpenter’s Annual Lobby day for all Business Representatives in Missouri to visit with their Legislator. They will not only educate their individual Representative about Prevailing Wage, they will also be discussing all of the labor bills and issues.

The AFL-CIO is also having a Lobby Day April 3^rd to help on HB 61.  We will work together on educating the law makers on HB 439, 440 and 441 that are Open Shop and Right to Work Bills.  The AFL-CIO expects over 1,000 members to show up at the Capitol for an all day education.

 I have been meeting with Representative Jim Avery who again this year seems to lead a group of Republicans who want to vote with us on Building and Trades issues.  In the next week or so he has promised to have his group attend a sit down meeting with labor to discuss the issues and give ideas and suggestions.  The meeting we had last year was productive and I’m assured this year will be the same.

The Missouri House approved a $21 billion budget for the fiscal year beginning July1.  The budget is slightly larger than last year and includes increases for Medicaid and Education, but the Senate will have the final say before approval.

I testified against HB 685 and SB 668 that would terminate benefits under the Second Injury Fund for all claims occurring on or after January 1, 2008.  Also, the Immigration bills have been keeping me busy.  At this point I believe SB #348, sponsored by Senator Koester, will be successful in combining the other six immigration bills into his bill.