Teamsters Local 79 Challenges Florida Pension Law
Teamster.org
Posted August 4, 2011
Teamsters Local 79 has filed a lawsuit against the State of Florida over changes to the Florida Retirement System (FRS) requiring employees to contribute 3 percent of their salaries into the state pension fund. The change went into effect July 1.

The Teamsters legal action contends that the contribution requirement is unconstitutional. Requiring a 3 percent contribution from employees impairs the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the Citrus County School Board (CCSB) and Tampa-based Teamsters Local 79.

Teamsters Local 79 and Adolph Baumann, a Local 79 member who works for CCSB, are plaintiffs in the case.
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How budget-cutting eliminates government jobs, in one graph
The Washington Post
Posted August 4, 2011
Forced by law to balance their budgets, many states have already made huge spending cuts since the beginning of the recession. But in terms of public-sector jobs, it’s mostly local governments that have taken the biggest hit.

The graph below shows the total change in the number of government jobs, in the hundreds of thousands, from December 2007 through June 11, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The loss of local government jobs is largely due to the withdrawal of state support, according to Chad Stone, chief economist at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, who put together the graph. (The temporary spike in federal jobs was due to temporary Census hiring.) Altogether, since August 2008, both state and local governments have lost 577,000 jobs. And the debt-ceiling deal pretty much ensures that the pain will continue.

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Layoff aversion strategies explored at conference
The Stand
Posted August 4, 2011
Dozens of economic and workforce development professionals and others interested in assisting workers, businesses and communities suffering in this weak economy attended a Layoff Aversion and Response Conference on Wednesday to showcase under-utilized layoff aversion and layoff response tools.

"We've experienced some of the worst of times these last few years, but we've also tested our ability to adapt and respond," said Jeff Johnson, President of the Washington State Labor Council (WSLC), who opened the conference. "We've learned to bend our practices to meet new demands, to leverage scarce resources, to reach out to unlikely partners and to embrace innovative public policy."

This unique conference, presented by the WSLC in partnership with the Washington State Employment Security Department and State Department of Commerce, was designed to describe tools available to both businesses and workers to "weather the storm."
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ALEC Conference: Sleazy in the Big Easy
AFL-CIO Now Blog
Posted August 4, 2011
This week in New Orleans, some 2,000 state legislators are being wined, dined and given their legislative battle plans by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to push a corporate agenda and undermine workers’ rights.  The Koch brothers-funded and corporate-backed ALEC generates model legislation for right-wing grassroots activists and funds their attacks on workers’ rights, public employees and more.

The lawmakers will be sitting down with some of the biggest corporations in the world— Koch Industries, Bayer, Kraft, Coca-Cola, State Farm, AT&T, WalMart, Philip Morris and more behind closed doors.

ALEC, writes Lisa Graves, executive director for the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD),

is little more than a bill factory for corporate-friendly legislation that often repeals people’s rights or fattens the corporate bottom line.

CMD recently made available to the public more than 800 “model” bills and resolutions voted on by corporations through their ALEC membership that have been introduced or approved by state lawmakers. Visit ALECexposed.org for the bills and more information.
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How can Washington help create jobs?
Ezra Klein, in The Washington Post
Posted August 4, 2011
The White House is promising a pivot to jobs. But pivoting doesn’t create jobs. Demand creates jobs. And two of the three ideas Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner laid out in his op-ed this morning — the Social Security payroll tax cut and extended unemployment benefits — are already in effect. Letting them expire would hurt the economy, but simply extending them isn’t the same as adding support for a weak labor market.

But there are other ideas out there. A canvass of economists and policy analysts returned five suggestions that have, at times, enjoyed bipartisan support, and that could potentially make a real difference:

1) Infrastructure Bank: The country’s infrastructure isn’t in great shape, and the government could be more effective about spending money on new projects. Supported by the Chamber of Commerce, a bipartisan group of senators proposed a new infrastructure bank that would spur the creation of public-private projects. “There is certainly interest in improving infrastructure we have, in terms of rail, ports, etc. — firms will want to take advantage of that,” says Gus Faucher, director of macroeconomics for Moody’s Analytics. “It would be a win-win situation for economy to put some of those people to work, building stuff that would improve long-run economy.”
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Taxi Workers Seek AFL-CIO Membership
AFL-CIO Now Blog
Posted August 4, 2011
Saying “a worker is a worker,” Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), and several taxi drivers from New York City today told the AFL-CIO Executive Council they want to be a part of the national labor federation.

They said drivers work 60 to 70 hours a week in one of the most grueling and dangerous jobs around–at minimum wage. They have no job security. Employers routinely misclassify them as “independent contractors” and deny the drivers protections given to traditional employees, including the freedom to form a union.  They risk their health and safety daily, from sitting in a stationary position for hours to the real possibility of being assaulted, robbed or even murdered by a passenger or street thugs. And they’re completely uninsured, unprotected.

Formed in 1998, the  NYTWA is now a powerful dues-based membership organization for taxi workers that is widely recognized as the representative of drivers in the New York City taxi industry and as an increasingly powerful voice for taxi workers in Philadelphia. They led the fight for legislation that raises the penalties for assaulting a taxi driver in New York and are working hard to gain health care benefits for drivers.
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Rick Santorum: Americans Will Be 'Dependent on Washington for Health Care Decisions' Through An IV Hook-Up
Think Progress
Posted August 4, 2011
During his speech at the Western Conservative Summit this weekend, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum leveled another outlandish accusation against the Affordable Care Act. Santorum, who has a history of fear-mongering, told the crowd that thanks to the health care law, “every single American will have an IV hooked up to them and will now be dependent upon Washington DC for whether they get their tests, whether they see a doctor, whether they get their procedure done.”

There are many problems with Santorum’s statement that make it flat out ridiculous [...]
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America Wants to Work: Time to Shift Focus to Jobs
AFL-CIO Now Blog
Posted August 4, 2011
AFL-CIO union members and allies will engage in a fall American Wants to Work mobilization to move the national debate from the right wing’s manufactured debt crisis to the nation’s real crisis: jobs.

In a statement released today at its annual August meeting, the AFL-CIO Executive Council said the mobilization will use the lessons learned from this spring’s nationwide We Are One labor-community mobilization and the current Summer Accountability campaign by partnering with allies at the local and national levels to:

create a sense of urgency and focus on challenging the corporate agenda to demand jobs and investment in our communities and for our future.

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Iowa's GOP Governor Vetoes Tax Break For The Poor Because It Didn't Lower Corporate Taxes
Think Progress
Posted August 4, 2011
Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) has a curious justification for vetoing a tax break last week for 240,000 Iowa families making $45,000 or less a year: the plan didn’t also include a tax break for corporations. Members of both parties in the Iowa House and Senate agreed to increase the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which reduces the amount of income taxes lower-income families owe:

The change would have saved Iowa families an estimated $28.5 million in taxes over two years.

Branstad vetoed that part of the bill writing that it is his desire to approach tax policy in a more comprehensive and holistic manner. [...]

Branstad additionally campaigned last year to slash Iowa’s corporate income tax rate by 50 percent, which he said would attract businesses while costing the state about $200 million a year in lost revenue. That proposal also failed.

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The F.A.A., After the Republicans
The NY Times, editorial
Posted August 4, 2011
Here is what has happened since the Federal Aviation Administration lost its authorization on July 23, courtesy of House Republicans. The agency has not collected more than $300 million in taxes (money the airlines have mostly pocketed). It has had to furlough some 4,000 workers and halt construction projects worth $11 billion in 241 airports, putting 70,000 more people out of work.

And why is this happening? Republicans, who are experts at such maneuvers, have been holding the reauthorization of the F.A.A. hostage for months, trying to get Democrats in the Senate to agree to weaken transportation workers' rights.
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Mitch McConnell admits to GOP political terrorism
The Political Carnival
Posted August 4, 2011
Thank goodness Mitch McConnell can set the record straight!

“I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting. Most of us didn’t think that. What we did learn is this – it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming. And it focuses the Congress on something that must be done.”– Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), quoted by the Washington Post, on the debt ceiling negotiations.

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Eric Cantor Defends Airlines Pocketing Taxes During FAA Shutdown: 'That's What Business Does'
Think Progress
Posted August 4, 2011
The FAA shut down over House Republicans’ insistence on including anti-union provisions in the agency’s re-authorization bill and the airlines are poised to collect $1.3 billion or more of extra profits in forgone taxes. With the FAA unable to collect the $28.6 million a day in aviation taxes it usually takes in, some of the nation’s largest airlines, including United and Delta, are pocketing the windfall, instead of passing their savings onto customers.

Appearing on Fox News this afternoon, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) defend this practice, saying, “That’s what business does”:

CANTOR: And what airlines have done is have stepped in and said, well, if we’re not going to pay that money to the federal government, we’re going to keep it towards our own bottom line. And I guess that’s what business does.

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Eric Cantor Says Medicare Promises Won't Be Kept
The Political Carnival
Posted August 4, 2011
So nice of you to put it in print for us Eric. I’m sure whoever decides to run against you next year appreciates it too. Via.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said that Republicans will continue a push to overhaul entitlement programs such as Medicare, saying that “promises have been made that frankly are not going to be kept for many” and that younger Americans will have to adjust, Dow Jones reports.Cantor said “the better way” for Americans to “get the fiscal house in order” is to “come to grips with the fact that promises have been made that frankly are not going to be kept for many.”

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The War on Shareholder Activists
Slate
Posted August 4, 2011
Last week, a conservative panel of judges on the D.C. Circuit's Court of Appeals—the second-most important court in the land—struck down an effort to inject a tiny bit of democracy into corporate governance.

The back story is a bit turgid, but bear with me. The SEC, in an effort to enhance shareholder rights, enacted a rule that permitted shareholders who have owned 3 percent of a corporation for at least three years to nominate a slate of directors in opposition to those proposed by the incumbent board of directors. Additionally, the company would be required to circulate the alternate slate's names, and a brief statement, in conjunction with the board's own nominated slate of directors. This rule was a small step toward turning the now perfunctory process of board elections into true democracy.

The D.C. circuit struck down the rule (PDF), saying that the SEC had acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner, not adequately considering the costs to corporations of burdens imposed by being required to include and circulate this information. Corporations, of course, spend untold millions promoting and compensating their entrenched incumbent board members. Yet even this one small effort to open the door to corporate democracy was slammed shut.
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Poll: Democrats are twice as likely to approve of the debt deal as Republicans
Ezra Klein, in The Washington Post
Posted August 4, 2011
USA Today and Gallup polled the debt deal and found that "only 22% of Tea Party supporters approve of the deal, compared with 26% of Republicans generally and 58% of Democrats."

I don't think there's anyone in either party who has seriously looked into the details of this deal and concluded that it tilts towards the Democrats. But most people don't evaluate politics by looking at the details. They get an impressionistic sense of the process and the outcome and they form a judgment. And what most people know is that after a long and bitter fight, Washington finally came to a compromise. So when thinking about these poll results, I'd urge you to keep the fact that Democrats like compromises and Republicans don't like compromises in mind [...]
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After the cuts, more cutting (#Wisconsin edition)
The Maddow Blog
Posted August 4, 2011
Consider the case of Milwaukee County, where Scott Walker was the county executive before he became governor. Part of what he did was to wrangle bigger contributions for health care from county workers, the way his statewide union-stripping law does. But the rest of the Governor Walker's plan calls for big cuts in aid to the counties, and Milwaukee can't anymore just ask the employees to chip in -- they've already done that. "[A] main premise of the new state budget paradigm - that reductions in wages and benefits realized via the budget-repair bill would allow local government leaders to offset the loss of state aids - almost certainly will not pan out for Milwaukee County in 2012," a nonpartisan think tank reports.

Governor Walker's budget has sent his old Milwaukee County $21 million deeper into the hole. The Journal Sentinel lists proposals for closing that gap, from laying off 617 people -- including a quarter of the zoo and parks staff -- to cutting mass transit and senior centers.
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