The Labor-Management Council Board of Directors voted Jan. 19 to adopt the following issue positions:
Labor-Management Council of Greater Kansas City Issue Positions 2012
The following positions have been adopted by the Board of Directors with support from at least 75% of the management board members and 75% of the labor board members.
Federal
•Support construction of a downtown Kansas City, Mo. federal office building.
•Support construction of the Keystone pipeline project.
Watch List:
•Oppose a benefits tax in federal health care reform.
•Any future stimulus funds include significant vertical construction projects.
Missouri
•The LMC supports reasonable and effective economic development incentives. While the LMC supports ensuring that tax credits and other incentives are cost effective, we want to preserve those tax credits crucial to economic development such as the historic tax credit, tax increment financing. The LMC also supports enhancing the Quality Jobs program. The LMC also supports enhanced education and training tax credits, as long as those programs include existing construction apprenticeship and journeyman training programs. Evaluation of projects supported by the Quality Jobs Act and other tax credit programs should include the impact of construction jobs created by the programs. The LMC also supports cost effective credits for solar energy development.
•The LMC opposes SB 438 and similar legislation to impose “right-to-work.”
•The LMC supports maintaining and increasing Medicaid eligibility and adequate provider reimbursement.
•The LMC supports maintaining or increasing funding for programs that foster economic development and provide critical services, particularly education, childcare subsidies for working parents and arts development.
•The LMC supports restoration of Missouri programs that foster economic development and provide critical services such as Medicaid, education, the arts, childcare subsidies for working parents and others.
•The LMC supports state funding for a comprehensive transportation plan.
•The LMC supports Prevailing Wage in its present form.
•The LMC opposes TABOR (taxpayer bill of rights).
•The LMC endorses retention of the Missouri Plan for judicial selection and the similar policy that exists in Kansas.
•The LMC opposes attempts to ban affirmative action programs.
•The LMC supports development of a statutory framework for public employee collective bargaining in Missouri to reduce uncertainty for workers and for public employers.
Watch: Unemployment Insurance, Workers Compensation, Utility Rates & Energy Capacity, Immigration, Trespassing, Term Limits.
Kansas
•The LMC supports reasonable and effective economic development incentives.
•The LMC supports continued funding for the comprehensive transportation plan.
•The LMC opposes immigration reform proposals that would put the burden of I-9 verification on contractors for subcontractors. Verification responsibility should fall only on the direct employer of those workers.
Watch: Kansas “driveway” tax (proposed requirement for impact study if increasing user fees), Income Tax Changes, Workforce training initiatives.
Local
•The LMC opposes elimination of the Kansas City, Mo. city earnings tax until an alternative is in place.
Watch: Bidding practices in local governments, particularly regarding design build in KCMO and Johnson County (KS), KCMO Development Code, Jackson County implementation of PACE, Renewal of KCMO auto license tax, Rail and Streetcar projects.
