News Stories for December 27, 2011
Daily Kos
The National Labor Relations Board has announced that it will delay its new rule, issued in August, calling for employers to put up posters informing workers of their right to join or refuse to join a union. Naturally, in September, the Chamber of Commerce sued to block the rule from going into effect. Friday, the NLRB:
[A]greed to postpone the effective date of its employee rights notice-posting rule at the request of the federal court in Washington, DC hearing a legal challenge regarding the rule. The Board’s ruling states that it has determined that postponing the effective date of the rule would facilitate the resolution of the legal challenges that have been filed with respect to the rule. The new implementation date is April 30, 2012.
The posters, which are to be 11x17 size but can be printed on two pieces of 8.5x11 paper for businesses without the capacity to print 11x17, are to be hung alongside other legally required notices. It's this kind of huge burden on employers that leads the Chamber to really freak out:
“At a time when the private sector is striving to create desperately needed new jobs, it is disappointing to see that the NLRB is imposing new and unnecessary regulations on employers,” Randy Johnson, the Chamber’s senior vice president for Labor, Immigration, and Employee Benefits, said in September. “The latest rule is part of the NLRB’s pattern of tipping the scale in favor of unions, at the expense of employers and employees alike.”The poster "tips the scale" by listing rights that workers already have under the National Labor Relations Act. It creates no new rights except that of reading your rights on the wall of your workplace.
Read the source story here.
AFL-CIO Now Blog
Every wonder why it’s so hard to get a millionaires’ tax passed?
We all know that the gap between 1 percent and the rest us has grown to obscene proportions. Their wealth has soared while ours has stagnated or fallen over the past decade and more.
We picture Wall Street stockbrokers, bankers and CEOs as the top winners in our out of whack economy. But new figures from the University of Michigan and the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) show that members of Congress—where 250 lawmakers are millionaires—are doing better than anybody.
In a story today on the new data in The New York Times, Eric Lichtblau writes:Members of Congress are getting richer compared not only with the average American worker, but also with other very rich Americans.A Washington Post article points out that between 1984 and 2009, the median wealth of House members grew two and half times (adjusted for inflation), while the wealth of the average American family actually declined.
While the median net worth of members of Congress jumped 15 percent from 2004 to 2010, the net worth of the richest 10 percent of Americans remained essentially flat. For all Americans, median net worth dropped 8 percent, based on inflation-adjusted data from Moody’s Analytics.
Read the source story here.
The Stand
In the latest of the national efforts to demonize state and educational employees, following on the heels of similar anti-collective bargaining drives in Ohio, Wisconsin and Tennessee, the “blue” State of Washington’s Health Care Authority has released a legislative proposal to remove health benefits from the scope of collective bargaining for local school employees.
[...] Dubbed the "Wisconsin Plan" for its similarities to the plan put in place by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, the Washington plan looks to bring higher costs, poor customer service and bigger government to school employees and is opposed by AFL-CIO educational employee affiliates: the International Union of Operating Engineers, AFT Washington and the Teamsters union, as well as the Washington Education Association.
Read the source story here.
Teamster.org
Hollywood’s biggest awards will continue to be made by American labor after the Chicago Teamsters reached a contract agreement on Dec. 22 with the longtime manufacturers of the Oscars and Emmy Awards.
Fifty Teamsters with R.S. Owens & Company in Chicago voted overwhelmingly to ratify their first new contract in four years. The three-year agreement includes the workers’ first new wage increases since 2006. The raises will be retroactive to the previous contract’s expiration on Nov. 14, with average hourly wages between $13-$14.
“Many of the men and women who make these awards have done so for 30 years, and the Teamsters are proud to continue this rich tradition,” said Donnie Von Moore, President of Teamsters Local 743, which represents the workers. “Our members voluntarily worked shorter hours for the better part of a year to help R.S. Owens save money, and we’re pleased their hard work and dedication to the craft have not gone unnoticed.”Read the source story here.
The New York Times
So this is how the Big Lie works.
You begin with a hypothesis that has a certain surface plausibility. You find an ally whose background suggests that he's an "expert"; out of thin air, he devises "data." You write articles in sympathetic publications, repeating the data endlessly; in time, some of these publications make your cause their own. Like-minded congressmen pick up your mantra and invite you to testify at hearings.
You're chosen for an investigative panel related to your topic. When other panel members, after inspecting your evidence, reject your thesis, you claim that they did so for ideological reasons. This, too, is repeated by your allies. Soon, the echo chamber you created drowns out dissenting views; even presidential candidates begin repeating the Big Lie.
Thus has Peter Wallison, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a former member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, almost single-handedly created the myth that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the financial crisis.
Read the source story here.
Reuters
Labor unions last week ramped up the pressure on Republican lawmakers to approve a Senate plan that would extend jobless benefits for millions of unemployed Americans.
Congress is deadlocked over how to provide the relief after Republicans in the House of Representatives on Tuesday scuttled a short-term measure that had been approved in the Senate with overwhelming Republican and Democratic support.
Most House Republicans voted against the Senate bill, which would extend by two months long-term jobless benefits and a payroll tax cut for 160 million Americans.
"We'll be hitting them in the media in their home districts," said labor union umbrella group AFL-CIO spokeswoman Amaya Tune. "We'll continue to look at what ways we can shame Republicans for this horrible vote," she said.Read the source story here.
Labor Notes
Rahm Emanuel, whom Occupy Chicago has dubbed Mayor 1%, fired another shot at the city’s public schools December 1. He proposed seven school closings and phase-outs, 10 “turnarounds” in which all the teachers and staff get fired, and six “co-locations,” where private charter school operators grab portions of existing public schools.
Two days later, the Chicago Teachers Union and community groups responded with a teach-in that brought 500 to a high school in South Chicago. CTU and allies pledged to fight through grassroots organizing, street mobilization, maybe even occupying schools.
Chicago communities have fought school closings for years, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. About 100 public schools have been shuttered since 2004, when the city’s Commercial Club unveiled its Renaissance 2010 school privatization plan.
In their place are 85 publicly funded, privately operated charter schools, which practice selective enrollment and often reject kids who have special needs or struggle academically. A recent report indicates that Chicago charters are doing no better than traditional public schools on standardized tests.
Still, former Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan, now U.S. secretary of education, hails Renaissance 2010 as a miracle. It is now the national model.Read the source story here.
The Progressive
It’s not often that The Progressive and Time magazine agree, and so when they do, it does mean something. This year, both publications dedicated their year-end special issues to the protester, showcasing the convulsions that have shaken countries all around the world since last January.
It’s good to see the mainstream media finally recognizing the importance of peaceful protest. Alternative publications such as The Progressive have been cheering nonviolent change forever and a day. Finally, corporate outlets have joined in the affirmation.
[...] It’s not often that The Progressive and Time magazine agree, and so when they do, it does mean something. This year, both publications dedicated their year-end special issues to the protester, showcasing the convulsions that have shaken countries all around the world since last January.It’s good to see the mainstream media finally recognizing the importance of peaceful protest. Alternative publications such as The Progressive have been cheering nonviolent change forever and a day. Finally, corporate outlets have joined in the affirmation.
Read the source story here.
The New York Times
Wall Street reported nearly $3 billion in losses in the third quarter of 2011, reducing profits through September to $9.6 billion, which was well below forecasts, according to a recent analysis by the New York State comptroller. The comptroller estimates that Wall Street banks and smaller brokerages may cut some 10,000 jobs in New York City by the end of 2012.
The weak economy, volatile markets, toxic mortgages and potential exposure to the euro zone are undeniably the biggest drags on banks’ profits. But bankers, their lobbyists, and the politicians who do their bidding are eager to heap outsize blame on new national and international bank rules, including trading curbs, consumer protections and higher capital requirements.
New regulations, properly implemented and enforced, will crimp the banks’ profitability. But that is not a sign they are defective — just the opposite. It shows that the rules are beginning to work as intended to rein in destructive products and practices that inflated the bubble, led to the crash and necessitated the bailouts. Higher capital levels, for instance, mean a hit to bank profits. But they are a boon to the broader economy because they help to restrain speculation and to ensure that banks — not taxpayers — absorb unexpected losses.Read the source story here.
Center for American Progress
Last week congressional leaders agreed to a $1 trillion compromise that avoided another threatened government shutdown. But what this latest negotiation actually compromises is the future of many hard-working students who are struggling to complete their educations and put their best foot forward in one of the worst economic climates this country has experienced.
The Pell Grant program in particular took a significant hit in this latest round of negotiations. The House Fiscal Year 2012 appropriations package includes a six-year time limit on grants that will effectively prevent thousands of students from ever receiving another Pell Grant, even if they are currently only one or two semesters away from graduating.
Read the source story here.
We Party Patriots
Self-anointed King of the 1%, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is currently trying to defeat the “Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act” that is currently before City Council. This “living wage law” would set wages for any future development act that receives financial assistance of $1 million or higher from the city. If implemented, the law would force affected employers to pay a minimum of $10 an hour plus benefits for full-time workers and $11.50 an hour without benefits for at least 10 years.
Bloomberg is fighting the act, claiming that it will scare off new development. But other cities with similar laws already in effect have not experienced this:
A similar law enacted in 2003 in Los Angeles requires companies receiving city subsidies to pay workers $10.42 an hour or $11.67 without benefits. Despite warnings that the city would lose projects, Donald Spivack, a development official in Los Angeles, said at a Council hearing last month that those predictions were wrong and that he was unaware of any project that was canceled because of the wage requirement. The Center for American Progress found that 15 cities with living wage laws, including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Cleveland and San Francisco, “had the same levels of employment growth” as other similar cities without the requirements.Pushing employers to do the right thing and pay a living wage when receiving government subsidy seems like a no-brainer, but in the current state of partisan politics, anti-worker actors want us to believe that lower wages mean more jobs. An example of how blatantly misleading this argument is can be found in Germany where their auto workers earn much higher wages than ours while producing far more product.
Read the source story here.
The Economist
POLITICO'S Alexander Burns reports on Mitt Romney's new stump speech, which attacks Barack Obama for holding beliefs that bear no resemblance to the beliefs held by Barack Obama.
Just a couple of weeks ago in Kansas, President Obama lectured us about Teddy Roosevelt’s philosophy of government. But he failed to mention the important difference between Teddy Roosevelt and Barack Obama. Roosevelt believed that government should level the playing field to create equal opportunities. President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes.
As Kevin Drum points out, Mitt Romney just made this up. Barack Obama doesn't "believe that government should create equal outcomes" any more than Mitt Romney believes that 1% of Americans should have all the wealth while the rest get nothing, or that companies should fire all their American workers and send their jobs to China because Americans are overpaid and lazy.
That said, I think Mr Drum is missing the basic logic when he writes that Mr Romney is just "hoping that by demonstrating a bit of insanity in the hate-Obama department, primary voters will cut him some slack on being relatively non-insane in the policy department," and that in the general election this kind of talk will hurt him badly among independents. The idea that Barack Obama "believes that government should create equal outcomes" has no basis in anything Mr Obama has ever said or done. But it is a logical way for a Republican candidate to try to reframe the debate about inequality in America. And that effort will be important in the general election.Read the source story here.
In These Times
With a raft of new Charles Dickens biographies hitting bookstores this fall, it is difficult not to quote the classic chronicler of the Victorian era's polarities when describing the state of America's healthcare system: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
The good times are concentrated among corporate executives. Healthcare, insurance and drug company CEOs have actually managed to displace bankers as the best-rewarded bosses in America. The Guardian archly reported recenty: "Pity Wall Street's bankers. Once the highest-paid bosses in the land, they are now also-rans. The real money is in healthcare and drugs, according to the latest survey of executive pay."
Among the big winners in healthcare listed by the UK-based newspaper:
- John Hammergren, chief executive of McKesson Corporation, a pharmaceutical distribution corporation, took home a breathtaking $145,266,971 in 2010.
- Joel Gemunder, outgoing president of Omnicare, a pharmacy company that dispenses drugs in nursing homes, benefited handsomely from s 2010 total pay package worth $98,283,242.
- “CVS Caremark, which operates 7,000 pharmacies across the US, awarded chief executive Thomas Ryan $68,079,823 in 2010.
- Ronald Williams, boss of health insurance giant Aetna, made $57,787,786 in 2010.
But for America’s healthcare consumers, the bad times got worse. Despite the slow-moving implementation of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the system’s vital signs indicated critical condition:
- 53 million Americans are now uninsured, up from 34 million in 1990.
- As many as 82,000 Americans die annually due to a lack of access to healthcare, according to a new Commonwealth Fund study that roughly doubles the previous estimate.
- 62% of personal bankruptcies are accounted for by an unaffordable stack of medical bills brought on by a family members’ health crisis.
Daily Kos
To November's excellent sales for U.S. auto manufacturers and their first gain in market share since 1988, add this piece of good news:
U.S. and foreign automakers are poised to add nearly 167,000 U.S. jobs by the end of 2015, according to the nonprofit Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. That breaks down to 30,000 hourly and salaried workers at the Big Three U.S. automakers, 17,000 jobs at foreign automakers and about 120,000 auto-supply sector jobs.The jobs added will be of widely varying quality, and even the union jobs added at Ford, GM and Chrysler will be at the lower second-tier wages, currently around $15 but rising to around $19 over the years of the contracts auto workers recently signed with those manufacturers. Still, having a manufacturing sector rebounding in America is a rare note of good news for workers.
"The industry has pretty much hired back just about everybody from the automotive side that had been laid off. And now they're hiring fresh, so they're actually adding to their rosters. And it's not just the Detroit automakers. It's everybody," said Aaron Bragman, senior analyst at IHS Automotive in Northville, Mich.
Read the source story here.
NW Labor Press
TriMet, the Portland-area public transit district, has a well-developed Internet presence: Online users can plan trips, see when buses are coming, and sign up for e-mail updates.
But now it seems the agency is using its public e-mail list to bash its union — Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757. A Dec. 15 e-mail, sent to over 20,000 subscribing members of the public, drew readers in with its subject line: “Budget Discussion Guide now online – we want your feedback!”
“Tough budget choices are ahead,” explained the unsigned email from TriMet, “and we want to know what’s most important to you when it comes to service on the street and the price you pay to ride.”
It sounds like a public agency seeking public input, right? But click through, and TriMet explains that the projected $12-17 million budget shortfall is brought on by lower payroll revenues, likely federal funding cuts … and because “negotiations with the transit union over health care benefits and other cost-cutting measures are at an impasse.”Read the source story here.
- The Week:
The growing wealth gap between Congress and constituents: By the numbers - Daily Kos:
Washington state minimum wage increase brings workers above the poverty line - Talking Union:
Working for Scrooge - The News Tribune:
Bill: WA Volunteer firefighters could pay to serve - The Daily Beast:
"Wall Street has destroyed the wonder that was America." - The Progressive:
About Civil Disobedience - Politico:
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton top most admired poll - The Washington Post:
Why House Republicans appear nuts - Crooks and Liars:
Dick Lugar: Tea Party Cost Republicans the Senate in 2010 - The Political Carnival:
How a Judge's Ruling Could Impact Indiana, National Politics - The Political Wire:
The Year of the Recall - Daily Kos:
This week in the War on Workers: AFSCME's 75-year fight for equality and worker power - The Stranger:
Sears to Close 100 to 120 Stores Nationwide - Wonkette:
Rick Perry Has Idea About Which Gov't Officials Need a Pay Cut: Not Him - The Seattle PI:
A green group's partisan anti-McKenna rant - Daily Kos:
Cash mobs support local business, but can they create change? - Addicting Info:
OccupyMarines Renews Vow to Protect Protesters - Crooks and Liars:
Will Public Outrage Finally Force The President To Prosecute Outlaw Bankers?