Gregoire shares "good news" in closed-door talk to labor

• Published July 31, 2008

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Gov. Chris Gregoire had some good news to share this morning — at least she thought it was good news. Republican rival Dino Rossi no doubt has another take on it.

The Democratic incumbent said Forbes magazine upgraded Washington’s ranking for business climate from fifth best in the country to third best, behind Virginia and Utah. The labor force was ranked No. 2 behind only Colorado. (Credit horsesass.org for the link to the ratings here. )

I wasn’t allowed to go in and listen to Gregoire talk about this or other issues she wanted to share with the labor movement. That’s because she delivered the news to the Washington State Building and Construction Trades Council’s convention in Olympia, and the council’s policy is to run a “closed convention.”

So said Terry Tilton, a council lobbyist, and other staffers. Tilton said that has always been the policy, and the convention, held at the Red Lion hotel in Olympia, was the council’s 52nd annual.

Despite being turned away, I heard a one-minute sustained applause that the full banquet room of convention delegates gave Gregoire. The governor said later she had no idea the labor group had excluded the press, which her staff considered a public venue. Her staff had announced her appearance with a press release, and I dropped by only because I’d seen the governor make so few public appearances in Olympia over the past four months.

Click here to see what her prepared remarks were. Her announcement about Forbes was apparently added after the speech was written.

I asked Gregoire after the event what message labor had for her. She said she got questions about “prevailing wage” — a union-driven standard that requires a set wage on state-funded projects. She also was quizzed on nuclear energy — which, according to Gregoire, is “on the table’’ as a policy option.

“It has to be on the table. As we look to a clean, green economy divorcing ourselves from foreign oil, we’ve got to put everything on the table. To include, if we can find a way to do (it), clean coal. Right now I don’t see nuclear penning out financially. It looks like the cost of it is forbidding but it has to be on the table.’’

Her promises to labor?

“Keep working together,” she said, adding she supports the prevailing wage.

Then she mentioned the funding source for anti-Gregoire campaign ads paid by the Building Industry Association of Washington, which backs her opponent, Republican Dino Rossi. That funding source is BIAW’s handling fee for an insurance rebate program through the Department of Labor and Industries, known as “retro,’’ and some labor activists have tried to push legislation capping the fee collected by BIAW and other associations at 10 percent, half what BIAW has received.

“They’re upset, as I am, about those who are misusing and abusing retro. And they want it to get back to what it was supposed to be, which is safety oriented,” Gregoire said. The concern? “That all the monies are not going to safety for workers.”

Did they really mean they are concerned with the money being used by BIAW (for campaign ads)? “They didn’t say those words, but I assume that is what they were talking about.’’

With that, Gregoire hopped into her hybrid SUV and headed off to — where else but — Pierce County. The News Tribune has this item today on Gregoire and Rossi’s fixation with visiting their battleground from 2004, Pierce County.