Why Machinists Union Members Are to Thank for the Closest-Ever Images of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, a swirling gas storm more than double the size of Earth, is getting a close-up. The mesmerizing photos being taken from just above the planet’s surface are due in large part to the skill of Machinists (IAM) union members.
IAM members built and launched Juno, a spacecraft now orbiting our solar system’s largest gas giant. Juno passed over the giant storm this week as it continued a series of close passes around the gaseous world more than 365 million miles away.
The photos are breathtaking—and we have fellow Machinists members to thank.
IAM members built & launched #Juno, the spacecraft taking stunning images of Jupiter's #GreatRedSpot. #1u pic.twitter.com/U2dWomd5P1
— Machinists Union (@MachinistsUnion) July 13, 2017Juno was built by IAM Local 44 members at Lockheed Martin in Decatur, Alabama, and launched, in 2011, by IAM Local 610 members at United Launch Alliance in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
NASA scientists hope the Juno mission will answer long unanswered questions about the mysterious gas giant, including why its Great Red Spot appears to be shrinking.
See more images and follow Juno’s historic journey.
This post originally appeared at IAM.
Kenneth Quinnell Tue, 07/18/2017 - 09:25Farm Workers Demand North Carolina Governor Veto Racist Bill
This is a guest post written by Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) member Eli Porras and translated FLOC organizer Catherine Crowe.
It is of utmost importance that the governor of North Carolina veto Farm Bill S. 615. I consider it to be a racist bill that tries to give power back to growers so they can take advantage of workers. I am a witness that organizations and unions like the Farm Labor Organizing Committee are of incredible value. For seven years, I have come from Mexico to work in the fields of North Carolina through the H2A Visa program. In 2013, my wife had to have an emergency surgery, and I returned to Mexico. Before leaving, my boss told me that I wouldn’t have any issues returning the next year. However, when I went to visit the labor recruiter in Mexico the following year, they told me that I was permanently ineligible to return. With the help of FLOC, I filed a grievance and won my job back!
Now they are attacking our union. The North Carolina General Assembly just passed Farm Bill S. 615 with an anti-union amendment snuck in at the last minute by a farmer elected to the North Carolina legislature. This added amendment aims to stop the progress that farm workers are achieving by making it illegal for farmers to deduct dues from union members. If my grower wasn’t allowed to deduct dues, it would add yet another barrier to organizing, and we would have to depend more on donations to sustain our union. This bill also would make it more difficult for farm workers to win new union contracts. Farm Bill S. 615 is a shameful abuse of power that aims at stopping our union from being able to help those who need it. Thanks to the union, I have a job in this great country, and that is why I am calling on the governor to veto this bill. Please join me in solidarity by adding your name to the petition!
Sign the petition supporting farm workers in North Carolina.
Kenneth Quinnell Mon, 07/17/2017 - 11:38Management Threatens the Future of NPR by Not Providing Employees with a Fair Return on Their Work
Even at a time of great political division, there is broad consensus that National Public Radio provides a tremendous service. The journalism produced by NPR includes investigations that expose corruption, podcasts that make audiences think, Tiny Desk Concerts that wow and amaze, and coverage of an incredibly broad range of important and interesting issues. Unfortunately, NPR is using contract negotiations with SAG-AFTRA to propose a second class of minimum pay and benefits for new employees. This would undermine the quality work that NPR journalists have provided us, as a country, for many decades.
The SAG-AFTRA members say it best themselves:
We stand unified and strong because we have a common cause: a fair workplace with equal pay for equal work, fair benefits for all, and a codified structure for resolving disputes. We thank our colleagues both inside and outside of our union who have supported our fight for fairness. They, too, make NPR what it is today, and what it can be in the future with a respected workforce.
Here are some Tweets from SAG-AFTRA members:
Stand in solidarity for #sagaftramembers. Tell @NPR that their employees deserve respect #WeMakeNPR pic.twitter.com/YAKqsAklID
— SAG-AFTRA (@sagaftra) July 14, 2017
NPR management is in the midst of contract negotiations with NPR journalists and morale is in the dumps. #wemakenpr https://t.co/l25lmUPfaS
— Tamara Keith (@tamarakeithNPR) July 13, 2017
The @NPR hq is full of worker bees at all hours. Please support us if you love us. #WeMakeNPR #SAGAFTRA pic.twitter.com/EA4xEE4XMA
— Andrea Hsu (@andrea_c_hsu) July 13, 2017
Me & this mic traverse the country bringing you stories & voices you don't hear anywhere else RT #WeMakeNPR 4 support pic.twitter.com/26PoRILYc9
— Kirk Siegler (@KirkSiegler) July 12, 2017
Nearly 20% of @NPR's employees work full-time with zero job security because as temps, #WeMakeNPR and you deserve quality journalism.
— Tori Whitley (@_toriwhitley) July 12, 2017
.@NPR wants less pay for new hires. #sagaftramembers want equal pay for equal work so we maintain a multi-generational staff #WeMakeNPR pic.twitter.com/myNHUXwnLW
— SAG-AFTRA (@sagaftra) July 14, 2017Sign the Change.org petition in support of the NPR employees, and learn more about the negotiations and the future of NPR.
Kenneth Quinnell Fri, 07/14/2017 - 13:10Nurses Speak Out Against Trumpcare
The list of people and organizations opposing the Republican health care scam continues to grow. Sandy Falwell, a registered nurse in Washington, D.C., and vice president of National Nurses United (NNU), recently spoke to reporters about her objections. Here are excerpts from her comments:
As registered nurses, we recognize that this is an extremely mean-spirited and callous bill that would substantially harm our patients. We can tell you, from years of experience serving our patients at the bedside in hospitals and health care facilities, that this bill poses a mortal threat to the health and well-being of our country—all to give massive tax breaks to the richest people in this country and to the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries.
Nurses have a professional and ethical obligation to advocate for our patients, and we take that obligation very seriously. We also believe that we all have a responsibility to act as a community, together—to take care of one another. Because of this, we will continue to speak out against any plan to cut funding to Medicaid and Medicare, or to exclude any person from accessing health care due to policy or inability to pay.
Instead of kicking tens of millions of people off of health insurance, we need to move forward to the only system that will guarantee that everyone has access to safe, therapeutic health care—a single-payer, Medicare-for-all system.
It is not good enough for Democrats to simply defend the Affordable Care Act—it has left 28 million people uninsured, and allowed out-of-pocket costs for premiums, copays and deductibles to skyrocket. This is also unacceptable. Registered nurses not only oppose the deadly Republican health bill, but we are strongly urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a single-payer health care system so that every single person living in the United States has access to health care as a basic human right.
And this is what Americans want to see. A poll by Pew Research, published just last week, showed that 60% of Americans believe the federal government should be responsible for ensuring health coverage for all Americans.
On behalf of the 150,000 registered nurses represented by National Nurses United, who work at the bedside caring for everyone who lives in this nation when they are sick, I urge the Senate to continue to reject the atrocious Better Care Reconciliation Act and to instead move forward with a single-payer system to ensure guaranteed health care for all.
NNU has been outspoken in their opposition to Republican health care proposals. Read more about their specific objections.
Kenneth Quinnell Wed, 07/12/2017 - 11:26Hard Work Pays Off: Worker Wins
Our latest roundup of worker wins begins with several stories of workers joining together and persevering over years to achieve victory. Other successes range from firefighters working together to improve safety to New York Times staffers walking out in support of copy editors.
Hotel Workers Win 16-Year Fight to Join Together in Union: Workers at the DoubleTree in Santa Monica, Calif., have been fighting for their freedom to negotiate together since 2001. The workers announced their victory last month, saying they “sought dignity, good salaries, benefits and job security.”
Farmworkers in Washington’s Skagit Valley Win First Contract: After five years of hard work, farmworkers at Sakuma in Washington state’s Skagit Valley have won their first contract. The workers, members of Familias Unidas por la Justicia, overwhelmingly approved the contract, which increases wages, bars discrimination, establishes seniority, creates a grievance procedure and improves disciplinary procedures.
IAFF Testifies in Support of National Cancer Registry for Firefighters: IAFF testified before the House Health Subcommittee in support of the Firefighter Cancer Registry Act. The legislation would create a registry to collect detailed information about firefighters with cancer across the U.S. The research would help us understand the link between firefighting and cancer, and could lead to improvements in safety and prevention.
National Grid Agrees to Hire IBEW Members for Granite State Power Link Project: IBEW Local 104 negotiated a memorandum of understanding with National Grid and Citizens Energy that will create as many as 2,000 jobs in the construction of the Granite State Power Link electric transmission project. The project will bring electricity to the U.S. from Canada.
Texas Fire Fighters Successfully Lobby to Improve Workers’ Compensation for Members with PTSD: The Texas State Association of Fire Fighters successfully lobbied for legislation that will improve workers’ compensation coverage for first responders with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Connecticut State Employees Reach Deal to Avoid Layoffs: State workers in Connecticut reached a deal that will save as many as 4,200 jobs. The agreement freezes wages for three years and cuts pension and health care benefits, but the contract’s length was extended to 10 years.
Employees at New York Times Walk Out to Protest Cuts: After proposed cuts, staffers at The New York Times walked out in support of copy editors. The proposals could lead to half of the Times’ copy editing staff losing their jobs.
SAG-AFTRA Reaches Agreement with Film and TV Studios: SAG-AFTRA has reached a tentative deal with the major film and television studios on a three-year contract. Details were not released, and the deal must still be ratified.
Kenneth Quinnell Tue, 07/11/2017 - 14:01Working People Need to Know If We Can Trust Donald Trump’s NLRB Nominees to Protect Our Freedoms
President Donald Trump chose two nominees for the National Labor Relations Board whose commitment to the freedom of working people to come together and negotiate is seriously in doubt. These two men, Marvin Kaplan and William Emanuel, have a terrible record of actively trying to strip working people of their freedoms.
Republicans are rushing to get these nominations through, but it is imperative that the Senate use upcoming hearings and meetings to find out whether these nominees will side with working people or the richest 1% of Americans. NLRB decisions and actions have a real impact on the lives of working people, particularly the ability to join together with co-workers to advocate for positive change.
Of the nominations, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said:
Marvin Kaplan has never practiced labor law, and his experience comes from crafting legislation for politicians that rigs the rules against working people. William Emanuel has a long record of practicing labor law on behalf of employers, most recently at one of the most infamous union-busting law firms in the country. On their face, the resumes of both nominees appear to be in direct conflict with the mission of the NLRB.
Emanuel, a member of the staunchly anti-worker Federalist Society, has extensive experience representing employers in collective bargaining, union elections and unfair labor practice proceedings under the National Labor Relations Act. He recently filed a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that employers should be allowed to require employees to waive their right to file class-action lawsuits or any other method of joining with others in seeking relief for rights violations. Emanuel has directly worked on numerous issues currently before the NLRB, raising serious questions about his ability to be impartial on those cases.
Kaplan hasn’t ever practiced labor law. His only related experience is in staffing a couple of Republican, anti-worker committees in Congress and helping run a series of oversight hearings criticizing the NLRB under President Barack Obama. He drafted legislation to overturn several NLRB actions that strengthened the freedom of working people join together. Like Emanuel, Kaplan has actively worked on numerous issues he would have to rule on if confirmed to the NLRB, calling into question his own impartiality on those cases.
Kenneth Quinnell Tue, 07/11/2017 - 12:25Tags: President Donald Trump
The Economy Adds 222,000 Jobs in June, and Unemployment Little Changed at 4.4%
The U.S. economy added 222,000 jobs in June, and unemployment was little changed at 4.4%, according to figures released this morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This continues the recovery of the labor market at a tempered rate, which means the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee should continue to let the economy grow and not raise interest rates.
In response to the June jobs numbers, AFL-CIO Chief Economist William Spriggs tweeted:
Republican efforts to repeal ACA causes uncertainty in health care, job gains slow. pic.twitter.com/jVO0tEMEza
— William E. Spriggs (@WSpriggs) July 7, 2017Broader measures of labor market slack show an up tic in June, including the marginally attached and those seeking full-time work @AFLCIO pic.twitter.com/8JQZKQCc4J
— William E. Spriggs (@WSpriggs) July 7, 2017Trump Effect: ACA repeal fight and uncertainty of Medicaid cuts leads to losses in nursing care facilities down 10,700 over last June pic.twitter.com/qS5Zi915F7
— William E. Spriggs (@WSpriggs) July 7, 2017Over the year, average hourly earnings up 2.5%, good but still modest. Still no reason for the Fed to raise rates again this year. @AFLCIO
— William E. Spriggs (@WSpriggs) July 7, 2017Unemployment rates for Blacks and whites with Associate Degrees and Bachelor Degrees go in opposite directions over last June--up for Blacks pic.twitter.com/jWl4N3g1MG
— William E. Spriggs (@WSpriggs) July 7, 2017Last month’s biggest job gains were in health care (37,000), professional and business services (35,000), food services and drinking places (29,000), social assistance (23,000), financial activities (17,000), and mining (8,000). Employment in other major industries, including construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, retail trade, transportation and warehousing, information, and government, showed little change over the month.
Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for teenagers (13.3%), blacks (7.1%), Hispanics (4.8%), adult men (4.0%), adult women (4.0%), whites (3.8%) and Asians (3.6%) showed little or no change in June.
The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed in June and accounted for 24.3% of the unemployed.
Kenneth Quinnell Fri, 07/07/2017 - 12:27During Congressional Recess, Mitch McConnell Ducks Working People Protesting Trumpcare
Senator Mitch McConnell sure does seem to be avoiding his constituents in the wake of his ongoing efforts to strip 22 million Americans (and over 230,000 Kentuckians) of health care in order to give yet another tax cut to the wealthiest 1%. But working people are joining together to fight back against this cynical ploy. Here are two stories of workers standing up to McConnell in Kentucky.
From Paducah:
"The fact that Sen. McConnell chose to slip quietly into Paducah and Mayfield speaks volumes," said a local Democratic activist who didn't join the protest. "He obviously thinks Trumpcare is not popular."
"So he chose to meet with his base voters, not hold a town hall for the general public."
"Will protesting make any difference in what he thinks? I don’t know," confessed 89-year-old Mary Jane Littleton of nearby Murray, the seat of Calloway County, which Trump won with 64.6%, a tad over 2% more than his statewide edge.
"But it’s like a lot of things," mused Littleton, a veteran Democratic activist whose first choice for president in 1976 was liberal populist Oklahoma Sen. Fred Harris. "You don’t know ‘till you try. Some things work and some don’t, but you don’t stop trying."
...
"He won’t hear us," said Jennifer Morrison, a Murray State University professor. "He is in this nice air-conditioned building with these nicely-dressed people who showed up in these fancy cars.
"He is ignoring his constituents again."
From Elizabethtown:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell probably figured he was on friendly turf Friday in Elizabethtown, the county seat, where he showed up for a local GOP fund-raiser.
"But some folks decided to let the senator know they aren’t happy with him or his healthcare plan," Hardin countian Jim Pence posted on his feisty Hillbilly Report blog. "Deep Red Elizabethtown, Kentucky used to be a very welcoming place for Senator Mitch McConnell, but it ain’t now."
...
Audrey Morrison, 68, came from Louisville to join her daughter, a Planned Parenthood intern.
"I hope that we persist," she told Morgan Watkins of the Louisville Courier-Journal, because the GOP has yet to close the deal on repealing and replacing the ACA.
Nonetheless, she didn't think the rally would change McConnell's mind. "I think he’s been bought and sold. I don’t think anything’s going to make a difference to him," Watkins quoted her.
Kenneth Quinnell Thu, 07/06/2017 - 10:14Preventing Another Rana Plaza: A Model for Holding Corporations Accountable
The roof collapsed, trapping thousands of workers for days. The world watched, in horror, as rescue crews scrambled to pull working people out of the debris. When the search was over, 1,134 had died and approximately 2,500 were injured.
This tragic incident occurred on April 24, 2013, in Dhaka District, Bangladesh. The collapse of Rana Plaza brought worldwide scrutiny to the poor and unsafe conditions of sweatshops in this Asian nation. The victims were garment workers who were sewing brand-name clothing for multinational corporations. Most of them earned just enough money to feed their families.
The tragedy in Rana Plaza shed light on the practices of multinational corporations that utilize the global supply chain to lower costs, even if this means risking the lives of hardworking and vulnerable people. At the same time, this unfortunate incident pushed many of these corporations to work with the global labor movement to reach agreements aimed at improving working conditions in Bangladesh.
As a result, today IndustriALL Global Union and UNI Global Union joined leading fashion brands in signing a new Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety.
The new agreement, which is an extension to one signed in May 2013, will extend independent, expert building safety inspections for three more years for all covered factories, ensuring that safety improvements achieved under the first accord will be maintained, and that new problems in any factory will be addressed. The hope is that this agreement can become a model for holding corporations accountable in global supply chains throughout various sectors.
IndustriALLThe agreement, announced at the OECD Global Forum on Responsible Business Conduct being held Paris, so far has been signed by Kmart Australia, Target Australia, Primark, H&M, Inditex (Zara), C&A, Otto, KiK, Aldi South, Aldi North, Lidl, Tchibo, LC Waikiki, Loblaw and PVH. A further seven brands—Esprit, Hüren, Bestseller, Wibra, Schmidt Group, N Brown Group and Specialty Fashion Group Australia—have committed to signing.
IndustriALL General Secretary Valter Sanches and UNI Global Union Deputy General Secretary Christy Hoffman issued a press release expressing support for the agreement.
According to this release, the new agreement “puts greater emphasis on the right of workers to organize and join a union, recognizing worker empowerment is fundamental to assuring workplace safety.”
Dennis Loney Fri, 06/30/2017 - 12:37Tags: Bangladesh, Global Labor Movement, Global Supply Chains
Davis-Bacon Is Not Racist, and We Need to Protect It
In 1931, a Republican senator, James Davis of Pennsylvania, and a Republican congressman, Robert Bacon of New York, came together to author legislation requiring local prevailing wages on public works projects. The bill, known as Davis-Bacon, which was signed into law by President Herbert Hoover, also a Republican, aimed to fight back against the worst practices of the construction industry and ensure fair wages for those who build our nation.
Davis-Bacon has been an undeniable success—lifting millions of working people into the middle class, strengthening public-private partnerships and guaranteeing that America’s infrastructure is built by the best-trained, highest-skilled workers in the world.
Yet today, corporate CEOs, Republicans in Congress and right-wing think tanks are attacking Davis-Bacon and the very idea of a prevailing wage. These attacks reached an absurd low in a recent piece by conservative columnist George Will who perpetuated the myth that Davis-Bacon is racist.
“As a matter of historical record, Sen. James J. Davis (R-PA), Rep. Robert L. Bacon (R-NY) and countless others supported the enactment of the Davis-Bacon Act precisely because it would give protection to all workers, regardless of race or ethnicity,” rebutted Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, on the Huffington Post.
“The overwhelming legislative intent of the Act was clear: all construction workers, including minorities, are to be protected from abusive industry practices,” he continued. “Mandating the payment of local, ‘prevailing’ wages on federally-funded construction projects not only stabilized local wage rates and labor standards for local wage earners and local contractors, but also prevented migratory contracting practices which treated African-American workers as exploitable indentured servants.”
The discussion surrounding Davis-Bacon and race is a red herring. The real opposition to this law is being perpetrated by corporate-backed politicians—including bona fide racists like Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa)—who oppose anything that gives more money and power to working people. For decades, these same bad actors have written the economic rules to benefit the wealthiest few at our expense. King and nine Republican co-sponsors have introduced legislation to repeal Davis-Bacon, a number far smaller than the roughly 50 House Republicans who are on record supporting the law. King and his followers simply cannot fathom compensating America‘s working people fairly for the fruits of their labor. Meanwhile, after promising an announcement on Davis-Bacon in mid-April, President Donald Trump has remained silent on the issue.
So the question facing our elected officials is this: Will you continue to come together—Republicans and Democrats—to protect Davis-Bacon and expand prevailing wage laws nationwide? Or will you join those chipping away at the freedom of working men and women to earn a living wage?
We are watching.
Jackie Tortora Wed, 06/28/2017 - 14:36Tags: Davis-Bacon Act
Working Families All Over the U.S. Mobilize Against the Senate Republican Health Care Bill
While the Senate Republican leaders announced they were going to postpone their vote on their version of a health care bill that actually takes away care from 22 million people, working people from across the country took to the streets to express their opposition to this cruel piece of legislation.
We still need to hold strong and beat back this bill. Call your senators today: 888-865-8089.
Check out some tweets and clips that show just a snapshot of this activity, which is expected to go into the congressional recess, where lawmakers on Capitol Hill will need to answer to their constituents:
In Bangor, Maine, working people and labor unions gathered to discuss the impacts the law would have on Mainers, including 117,900 people losing coverage, and urged Sen. Susan Collins to oppose the bill.
In Toledo, Ohio, more than 100 people gathered to raise opposition to the Senate bill.
From the Toledo Blade:
Organizers of the demonstration included the AFL-CIO, Our Revolution in Northwest Ohio, and the Ohio Alliance for Retired Americans.
Originally, the protest’s goal was to persuade Mr. Portman to oppose the bill, said George Tucker, executive secretary of the Greater Northwest Ohio AFL-CIO.
But the event turned more festive in light of the afternoon’s developments in Washington.
“This should be a celebration because just a few hours ago Mitch McConnell pulled that bill for after the Fourth of July,” said Dennis Slotnick, chair of Our Revolution in Northwest Ohio. “He didn’t want to spoil people’s holiday.”
Kicking off “Stop playing games with our health care" w/ activists, @ohioaflcio @PPAOhio & more at the Statehouse pic.twitter.com/lWkqO18do1
— For Our Future Ohio (@ForOurFutureOH) June 27, 2017Derek Dodds of @metrohealthCLE speaks of the harm GOP health bill will do. #ProtectOurCare @AFLCIO @AFSCME pic.twitter.com/Hq5vqnDJ2X
— Ohio AFL-CIO (@ohioaflcio) June 27, 2017In Nevada, working families and people and their unions gathered on a pedestrian bridge on the Las Vegas strip and called on Sen. Dean Heller to oppose the health care bill, which is nothing more than a massive transfer of wealth to the richest 1%.
From the U.S. News and World Report:
Nevada State AFL-CIO executive secretary-treasurer Rusty McAllister in a statement says the Senate bill gives wealthy individuals "a tax break at the expense of access to affordable, quality care for Nevada working families."
NV labor, community, seniors: Healthcare is a human right! @SenDeanHeller must #ProtectOurCare, vote no on Senate #healthcarebill pic.twitter.com/lxPQxGhDx8
— AFL-CIO (@AFLCIO) June 27, 2017Geoconda Arguello Kline: Its shameful what GOP senators are doing to working ppl, children, seniors in the Senate #Healthcarebill pic.twitter.com/0taOBrCgfe
— AFL-CIO (@AFLCIO) June 27, 2017Headline on Portman opposing health bill after it was yanked surrounded by @AFLCIO ad facts that show why he shoulda opposed it all along pic.twitter.com/MB0Ef2QNGk
— Ohio AFL-CIO (@ohioaflcio) June 28, 2017#Vegas crowd out in the heat to say no to Senate #Healthcarebill #HealthcareNotWealthcare for Nevadans! pic.twitter.com/myrf0jYVgb
— AFL-CIO (@AFLCIO) June 27, 2017Some signage to greet @senrobportman at Ohio airports today. #ProtectOurCare @AFLCIO pic.twitter.com/BHMLSCdsgc
— Ohio AFL-CIO (@ohioaflcio) June 23, 2017 Jackie Tortora Wed, 06/28/2017 - 10:03Tags: Affordable Care Act
Trying to Put It in Words
The Republican Senate members have laid another egg in their attempt to "repeal and end Obamacare." As with the House Republican bill, polling data shows the majority of Americans reject the Senate version. The elephant in the room is what makes the whole exercise stink. That elephant is the unwavering faith in the private marketplace to decide who gets what in our society. Americans sense something is fundamentally wrong but search for words to express this problem.
The Tea Party Republicans objected to the Affordable Care Act as an unwarranted expansion of government. Honestly, they were not concerned with addressing the problem of the large and growing stress on American households to access health care without going bankrupt. In their tiny-minded world, lack of anything, from housing to education to health care, is a matter of personal priorities and market choices. Therefore, if people do not have health insurance, it is because they do not want to buy it.
Trying to negotiate with that extreme view, then-President Barack Obama struck a compromise position on health care, invoking a public interest in health and declaring health insurance a personal responsibility. The ACA strikes the middle ground in softening the Tea Party's approach to caring about the high cost of health insurance and, therefore, has the government either buying insurance for those with very low incomes (by extending eligibility for Medicaid) or subsidizing those of modest incomes in meeting their "personal responsibility."
The initial revolt against the ACA was against the government creation of a new personal mandate, which to the Tea Party was an intrusion to force people to buy something they did not view as a high enough priority to forgo other wants like housing or education. Moreover, while the exchanges were a private marketplace, the Tea Party objected to taxes subsidizing people buying health insurance.
What stinks in all this is that access to health care really does not belong in the marketplace. Too much of health fits into the normal space of a public good. In fact, the portion of health care that belonged in the public good space made the ACA such an ugly compromise, angering both the right and the left, by making it an individual mandate to buy health insurance.
A public good has several characteristics. One common problem is the free rider problem, resulting from providing a good where it is difficult to exclude usage. Examples include clean air and proper functioning roads. If you live in a nation with people who are healthy because of proper infrastructure investments like proper sanitation, then certain diseases are not going to be very common, like cholera. But how would you exclude someone from the sanitation system? Second, when the externalities of a good are positive, then people will tend to under consume them because people other than the purchaser will benefit. Living in a society of well-educated people helps democracies function and makes it easier to start a business needing highly trained or trainable workers for instance. But because education can be personally expensive, left as a private good, many people would not get enough education to help economic growth or support democratic institutions. Health is similar. If people get their children inoculated against childhood diseases like measles and whooping cough, the diseases become less prevalent and your children will be less likely to get them. Third, some goods are rights. You have the right to life, which means personal safety, so we accept police as a public good. Many people think that the right to life also means access to health care, the ultimate in the necessity of a right to life. All modern advanced industrialized economies, except the United States, assume health care is a publicly provided human right.
When something is a private good, and we leave it to the market to allocate, then price is the signaling device and the rationing mechanism. The price of a good, as a popular automobile, sends a signal to automakers which type of cars to build. In addition, the price rations who will get the automobile and who will not. If your income is too low, or if you do not care that much about the specifics of any particular automobile, you will not buy a high-priced popular car. In health, this can have the two drawbacks mentioned. Some people will not contribute, because they will get some of the benefits of living in a healthier advanced economy, even if they do not themselves spend their own money to get healthy. Further, some people will not buy enough health insurance, leaving it to others to support our health infrastructure. Imagine how we could have adequate emergency room space if no one had health insurance and, instead, assumed that hospitals would exist and be properly staffed when people needed an emergency room if they had an appendicitis. Worse, some people will be priced out of the market. Health insurance will be too expensive, and their health will likely suffer from it. The results are death by poverty. These results are not equivalent to Janis Joplin’s prayer for the Lord to buy her a Mercedes-Benz.
The United States relies, more than other advanced economies, on private, market-based provisions of major human capital investments like education and health and personal investments like housing. The result is that a higher share of U.S. GDP (gross domestic product, the value of all the new goods and services in a country) is consumption (items bought by private households). In a middle-income nation, such as the United States through 1986, where the majority of income is earned by the middle 60% of the population, this has a lot of virtues. One of which is that providers aim to please this income group because they are the majority of the economy (in a market-based system where price is the rationing tool, it is "one dollar one vote," hence the majority of the economy is where the majority of the income lies). And, it means that the rise in prices will follow the income growth of the economic majority, assuring they can continue to be customers. However, today, the majority of income is with the top 20% of income earners, and in a few short years will be the top 10% of earners. That means prices and goods and services today tilt to the top 20% and will soon follow the incomes of the top 10%. Think about why it is never difficult for middle-aged men to buy their little blue pill, but sometimes your doctor may run out of flu shots.
From 2000-2009, the share of Americans getting private health insurance through their employer declined from 63.9% to 55.8%. Employer-based private health insurance had provided the bedrock of the American health care system. Medicaid was introduced in 1965 to fill the void for low-wage workers whose employers tended not to provide health insurance. This is the typical U.S. policy response when price rations portions of people out of the market. From 1965-1986, while America was a middle-income nation, the average wage of production and non-supervisory workers increased by a factor of 3.6, while health care costs increased by factor of 4.3. But, from 1986-2008, health care costs increased by a factor of 3.3 while the average wage went up by only a factor of 2.2. Health care costs were rising much faster than wages for the middle class. The increase in health care more resembled the increase in income for the top 20%, the economic majority. As a result, not just the poor, but middle-class workers were being priced out of health care, too.
The ACA solution was an extension of subsidies to those who cannot afford a necessity. The flaw was that insurance is cheapest when it is universal, including both high- and low-risk individuals in the pool to share broadly in the risks. This is why Social Security is so effective in covering workers’ families against premature death, an onset of a disability or living into old age. It is why Medicare works as health insurance for the elderly, some of whom are very healthy and some who are critically ill. Creating an adequate market for something that is a public good proved too difficult, especially in those states with Republican governors who refused to extend public health coverage by expanding Medicaid and balked at promoting the private health insurance marketplace.
While Republicans claimed it was the private market exchanges that failed, nothing in their proposed legislation addressed fixing those market places. Clearly, this was a cynical manipulation. In the first place, Republicans objected to the rules that standardized health insurance policies, providing the information to make market-based comparisons in buying health insurance. A market cannot function efficiently if consumers do not have the information to compare products. Consequently, Republicans insistence on destroying that market information will make the problems of the exchanges worse. Second, shrinking the public health coverage that Medicaid expansion provided will make the insurance markets less efficient because fewer healthy people will be able to afford health insurance, leaving more people with poor health or pre-existing health issues seeking private health insurance. This will make pricing in the exchanges uncertain, but certainly higher for people who do not have employer-provided health insurance—a group that is growing.
Republicans proved there is no market-based solution to fixing the ACA. It already was a damaged proposition precisely because it sought a market-based solution to something that was inherently a public good.
Since the Republicans did not address the shortcomings of the ACA, one can only conclude the intention was a giant tax cut for wealthy Americans. Further, in a nation where income inequality is at a crisis level, exacerbating income inequality by piling even more money on the entitled rich will hurt economic growth, a point well documented by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Monetary Fund.
The only solution to fix the shortcomings of the ACA is a public good approach. The most efficient way to do health insurance is not through an analogy to state-based automobile insurance mandates because, ultimately, automobiles are a private good and people can opt out of owning a car. Instead, health insurance is like Social Security. Because becoming unhealthy is a universal risk, and because people having health insurance provides so many public benefits, it is best provided as a public good like Social Security and Medicare. The only issue for debate is what form the public good should be funded and care allocated.
The ACA slowed health care cost escalation; in no small part by redefining the market for health care away from the top 20% of income toward the middle. By expanding the demand, the price point in delivery shifted. Making health care a true public good would help the United States achieve the lower per capita health expenditures of other advanced economies who treat health as a public good.
The stinking elephant in the room is an undying faith in the private marketplace. This will continue to be an ever-growing problem. When 10% of the people hold half the income in the nation, those 10% will be consuming more than half of everything produced in the United States. That does not matter that much if they are buying half the Cadillacs, but it does matter when it is half the health care, half the housing and half the education. A nation so lopsided is one that will not, and cannot, develop. Just look at the problems to be solved in Mexico and Turkey, the nations we are approaching.
Kenneth Quinnell Mon, 06/26/2017 - 11:41Join Culinary Workers in Nevada in Asking Sen. Heller to Oppose Medicaid Attacks
Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and community partner PLAN (the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada) released a new video asking Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) to protect Medicaid. The video tells the stories of 10 Nevadans who are on Medicaid and what the program means in their lives. They are urging Heller to oppose attempts to strip Nevadans of the health care they not only have a right to, but which enables them to experience the freedom that other Americans enjoy.
Local 226 members in Las Vegas have been dedicating their lunch breaks to make hundreds of calls to Heller's office to urge him to do the right thing.
Local 226 Secretary-Treasurer Geoconda Arguello Kline said: "Sen. Heller must stand up for the working families who toil every day to make ends meet and do everything they can to provide for their families. We will hold Sen. Heller to his word—everyone should have access to health care—and that means voting against any bill that will result in anyone losing coverage."
If you are one of Heller's constituents in Nevada, call 702-388-6605 and ask him to do the right thing.
Kenneth Quinnell Mon, 06/26/2017 - 09:56Bergen County Freeholders Pass Pro-Worker Resolution in Support of Nabisco Workers
On June 14, the Bergen County Board of Chosen Freeholders, led by Freeholder Vice-Chairman, New Jersey State AFL-CIO labor candidate and Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 164 brother Thomas J. Sullivan, passed a resolution authorizing support for working people at Nabisco and the protection of American jobs.
This resolution requests that Nabisco reverse its decision to outsource jobs and prevents the sale of any made-in-Mexico Nabisco products at county-sponsored events. The resolution also prevents purchases of made-in-Mexico Nabisco products with taxpayer dollars and asks the public to avoid buying those products until Nabisco reverses its anti-worker policy. This policy directly impacts our Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) brothers and sisters in the Fair Lawn, New Jersey, factory, one of the few remaining Nabisco factories that, through their union, enables workers to make a decent living and contribute to their community.
The New Jersey State AFL-CIO would like to extend our deepest gratitude to Local 164's brother, Thomas Sullivan, and all the freeholders who were instrumental in passing this resolution. Brother Sullivan’s work once again proves that electing labor candidates empowers workers and raises awareness of pro-worker policies in the workplace, in communities and in government.
Kenneth Quinnell Mon, 06/26/2017 - 09:00What is Medicaid?
It may be America’s biggest health plan, covering more than 70 million people, but many people do not know what Medicaid is. Here's what you should know:
Every State Has a Different Name for Medicaid: One reason few people know Medicaid itself is that each state runs its own plan and typically does not include Medicaid in its name. If you live in West Virginia, for example, you might know it as Mountain Health Trust or WV Health Bridge. In Ohio, maybe you participate in the Buckeye Health Plan or another managed care program paid for by Medicaid.
Medicaid is for People Struggling to Make Ends Meet: Whatever your state calls Medicaid, it is the health plan that provides access to health care for people struggling the most to make ends meet. States generally determine the rules for who qualifies, but all states provide Medicaid for some low-income people, families and children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with disabilities. The federal government pays most of the cost of benefits, with states covering the rest.
More People are Eligible Because of Obamacare: Under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, states can expand who qualifies to include all adults who have low incomes (that is, below 138% of the federal poverty level). This year, for example, a single person with household income less than $16,643, or a family of four with income less than $33,948, would be eligible for Medicaid in Nevada. Thirty-one states and Washington, D.C., have expanded coverage in this way, resulting in 11 million more people getting health insurance they otherwise could not afford.
Benefits to Meet Personal Needs: Each state’s Medicaid plan pays for health services you usually think of when it comes to health insurance: things like doctor visits and hospital stays. These plans also can pay for other important services that other health insurance plans do not. Here are some examples of things you might not expect:
- Help at home for children with special care needs, such as those with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy and autism, and for their parents.
- Funding for schools throughout the country to provide services to Medicaid-eligible children and hire school nurses, counselors and speech therapists.
- Nursing home care for seniors and people with disabilities.
- Help with basic daily activities to enable people with disabilities, including seniors, remain in their own homes and communities.
Jackie Tortora Fri, 06/23/2017 - 16:06
Tags: Medicaid
What You Need to Know About the Senate Health Care Bill
This week, Senate Republicans unveiled their vision for health care in America. We won't spend much time going over numbers and percentages (you can read that here), but here is what you need to know right now about this bill. It will:
1. Make millions of working people pay more for less care
2. Tax your workplace plans if you get decent health coverage at work
3. Give massive tax breaks to wealthy corporations and CEOs
4. Take away health care from millions of working people
5. Drastically cut Medicaid, which provides vital services for a large group of Americans.
There isn't a lot of time to stop this complete hijacking of our health care.
Call your senators today and every day to demand they vote "no" on a bill that takes away our health care: 1-888-865-8089. Tell your friends to call too.
Jackie Tortora Fri, 06/23/2017 - 12:41
Why Working People Benefit from Apprenticeship Training
There is a distinct difference between a job training program and an apprenticeship, and leaders in the labor movement are spreading this message.
“Apprenticeships are comprehensive experiences, where individuals not only learn a skill, they practice and develop that skill in conjunction with the needs of the business community, while earning a fair, living wage,” said Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Rick Bloomingdale. “Any job training program that does not involve businesses and industry, a decent living and solid instruction, fails in comparison. Highly skilled manufacturing jobs are the future, and apprenticeship programs are an essential part of filling those jobs.”
Representatives from industrial labor unions, manufacturing employers, state labor federations, state and federal labor agencies, and education and workforce and development advocacy groups met earlier this week in Oakwood, Pennsylvania, to discuss state and national efforts to bolster apprenticeship programs.
Apprenticeship training programs mean working people who participate in them learn the latest technologies and skills, and also learn how to stay safe on the job. “Embracing and developing these training programs will modernize systems and procedures to improve productivity and safety,” said Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga.
The event was co-hosted by the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO and the Ohio AFL-CIO.
Jackie Tortora Thu, 06/22/2017 - 12:00Tags: Apprenticeships
Why Do We Need Medicaid?
Like many Americans, you may have parents or other loved ones in nursing homes because they require around-the-clock care.
Nursing-home care is expensive, typically $80,000 per year for a semiprivate room—far more than the income of a typical senior. Medicare generally pays only for short-term nursing-home stays. Yet only about 1 in 10 people 65 and older have private long-term care insurance to cover nursing-home costs. For a great many people, that insurance is too expensive.
Medicaid is the one thing people can count on when their money has run out. Losing that coverage, as could happen to some people if congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump succeed in gutting Medicaid funding to pay for tax cuts for corporate CEOs and the wealthiest 1%, would force working people to make impossible choices about how to care for their parents and other family members when they can no longer care for themselves.
This is just one reason why Medicaid matters to working people and their families. Consider a few other impressive Medicaid facts and think about what would happen to you, your family, your friends and your community without it:
- Medicaid helps seniors and other people with significant disabilities stay in their homes and communities, instead of being forced to go to nursing homes.
- Medicaid guarantees more than 30 million children access to medical care.
- Nearly 5 million children with special care needs, such as Down syndrome, cerebral palsy and autism, are covered by Medicaid and other public insurance.
- Medicaid pays for half of all childbirths in the United States.
Watch the video above reminding all of us why Medicaid is so important to working people, and why slashing Medicaid’s federal funding by half to pay for huge tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%, CEOs and corporations is so wrong.
Jackie Tortora Fri, 06/16/2017 - 12:54
Tags: Medicaid
Tell the Labor Department Not to Repeal the Persuader Rule
The Labor Department issued a proposal on Monday that would rescind the union-buster transparency rule, officially known as the persuader rule, designed to increase disclosure requirements for consultants and attorneys hired by companies to try to persuade working people against coming together in a union. The rule was supposed to go into effect last year, but a court issued an injunction last June to prevent implementation. Now the Trump Labor Department wants to eliminate it.
We wrote about this rule last year. Repealing the union-buster transparency rule is little more than the administration doing the bidding of wealthy corporations and eliminating common-sense rules that would give important information to working people who are having roadblocks thrown their way while trying to form a union.
AFL-CIO spokesman Josh Goldstein said:
The persuader rule means corporate CEOs can no longer hide the shady groups they hire to take away the freedoms of working people. Repealing this common-sense rule is simply another giveaway to wealthy corporations. Corporate CEOs may not like people knowing who they’re paying to script their union-busting, but working people do.
If the rule is repealed, union-busters will be able to operate in the shadows as they work to take away our freedom to join together on the job. Working people deserve to know whether these shady firms are trying to influence them. The administration seems to disagree.
A 60-day public comment period opened Monday. Click on this link to leave a comment and tell the Labor Department that we should be doing more to ensure the freedom of working people to join together in a union, not less. Copy and paste the suggested text below if you need help getting started:
“Working people deserve to know who is trying to block their freedom from joining together and forming a union on the job. Corporations spend big money on shadowy, outside firms that use fear tactics to intimidate and discourage people from coming together to make a better life on the job. I support a strong and robust persuader rule. Do not eliminate the persuader rule.”
Kenneth Quinnell Thu, 06/15/2017 - 11:22Union Member and Public School Teacher Reflects on Opportunities DACA Has Provided
This post originally ran in 2015.
This week marks the five-year anniversary of President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, an important time to mark the contributions of DACAmented workers to our communities and our economy. DACA has allowed hundreds of thousands of aspiring Americans and union members to live and work without fear in the United States. The labor movement reiterates unwavering support for the expansion of these much-needed deferred action programs. The following blog from Maria E. Dominguez, a first-grade bilingual teacher from Austin, Texas, demonstrates just how valuable these programs are.
On the third-year anniversary of President Barack Obama’s DACA program, I can’t help but reflect on how DACA has changed my entire life, both professionally and personally. After being granted DACA, I had the opportunity to pursue my life dream of being a public school teacher. Thanks to DACA I am able to serve my community as a first-grade public school bilingual teacher. In addition, I was able to obtain a driver’s license and travel within the United States. Another one of my dreams came true when I was granted advance parole with DACA and, in July of 2014, I traveled to my hometown in Guanajuato, Mexico, after more than 20 years. I saw my grandmother, cousins and other relatives who I had not seen in decades. It was an incredible experience for my whole family.
Many of my students’ parents would be eligible and should be applying for the new Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) program today, if it were not being obstructed in the courts. Even though I work with very young children of immigrants, some of them understand their parents’ situation and are frightened to talk about it due to the very real threat of retaliation or deportation. I hope someday my students and their parents can live without fear and proudly say that they also have benefited from deferred action and gained work authorization. I know it would make an incredible difference in their families’ lives, just as it has for mine.
As a member of Education Austin and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), I have been granted the opportunity to work with the immigrant community—in particular, undocumented youth. I have volunteered at the citizenship drives offered by Education Austin and at DACA forums and clinics held in partnership with University Leadership Initiative in Austin, Texas. I have helped U.S. residents fill out their citizenship applications and DREAMers fill out their DACA application as part of my commitment to Education Austin and AFT. I also have worked with community leaders to bring essential information to the parents at my school for the first time. In March, I attended the AFL-CIO’s We Rise initiative training for union members in Washington, D.C. It showed members how to begin implementing DACA and DAPA educational forums and clinics at their locals. I also have participated in conferences with AFT that focus on immigration and how we as members can work with our locals to help our community. Finally, I have shared my knowledge and my personal story as a DACAmented teacher during educational forums and teacher conferences because I believe in the power of collective action.
I could not do what I do every single day in the classroom if it were not for President Obama’s executive action on immigration. I only wish that Republicans in Congress would muster the same political courage to address our broken immigration system. DACA works, and I’m a testament of that, but it only covers a small portion of our population. It is a small fight that we won, but we need to keep working in order to see a bigger change that can benefit others who will not qualify for DACA or DAPA. We must keep fighting because there are people trying to push us back, as we see in Texas with the injunction. So we cannot give up. Even though we might only see small steps now, I know that if we keep working, we’re going to see a huge change that will benefit everyone. Immigration should not be used to score cheap political points. We’re talking about people’s lives—people like me, who want nothing more than to contribute to our communities. Join me today and call for a permanent solution to our broken immigration system. Our families and our communities can’t wait.
Editor's Note: During the AFL-CIO's We Rise initiative training in Washington, D.C., Dominguez said she benefited from DACA, to which AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka responded, "No, we benefited from you," to a roomful of enthusiastic applause. Read more at NBC News.
Kenneth Quinnell Thu, 06/15/2017 - 08:35Tags: DACA
