Archive for January, 2008
Bush Set to Cut Medicare, Medicaid
Some 47 million people in this country have no health insurance. The baby boom generation is approaching retirement. Health care costs and premiums are soaring. And employer-provided health benefits are harder than ever to come by—for both current workers and retirees.
But rather than strengthen the programs the aging U.S. public increasingly depends upon—Medicare and Medicaid—Bush wants to slash these programs—$91 billion over five years for Medicare and $14 billion for Medicaid.
21st Century U.S. Slavery: Immigrant Farm Workers
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Although slavery was officially banned in the United States more than 130 years ago, some immigrant workers who pick the crops that end up on our dinner tables still are enslaved.
Earlier this month, federal officials in south Florida arrested Antonia Zuniga Vargas on a 17-count indictment, charging her with conspiring to make money off workers from Mexico and Guatemala, forging documents and committing identity theft. Vargas, along with five other co-defendants, is connected to a business operation in Immokalee, Fla., allegedly created to hold workers in involuntary servitude and peonage.
Breast Cancer Killing U.S. Women Unable to Afford Health Care
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There are many people suffering—and dying—in this nation from lack of health care, and Rachele Huennekens, AFL-CIO Media Outreach fellow, describes how this nation’s growing health care crisis affects women.
Amy, a woman in Pennsylvania, prays for good health. Without health insurance, prayer is her option.
I’ve decided that the next time a lump is found I will NOT be getting the mammogram. I can’t afford it. I pray nothing bad ever happens to my family or myself.
This situation may be much more common among working women today than we realize. Amy, who submitted this story to the AFL-CIO-Working America 2008 Health Care for America Survey, is among thousands of working people across the country who have shared their experiences with America’s broken health care system on the site.
Leading Economist: Stimulus Package Just the Beginning
Even as the Senate takes up the $150 billion House-passed economic stimulus bill, a leading economist says much more will be needed to address the fundamental problems of the U.S. economy.
Robert Kuttner, author of Squandering of America, says:
The weak dollar, the risk of rising inflation, the reality of global warming and the need to pull the economy out of the most serious credit crisis since the 1930s will take the kind of activist government not seen in 40 years. To reverse the 30-year trend of increasing inequality and insecurity, and to repair the deep damage to the financial system, Roosevelt-scale remedies and Roosevelt-style ideological clarity will be required: serious public regulation and serious public outlay.
7 Years of Bush: The Walls Came Tumbling Down
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The economy is not the only thing crumbling around President Bush. After years of near neglect, so is the nation’s infrastructure.
He admitted Monday in his State of the Union address that there is “real concern” about the economy. But just as he did in his economic stimulus proposals, he made no mention of the nation’s deteriorating roads, bridges, dams, water and sewer systems.
Ed Wytkind, president of AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department (
TTD), says Bush once again:
failed to provide leadership regarding our nation’s crumbling transportation infrastructure, for the eighth time in a row.
The Minneapolis bridge collapse in August was a horrific and vivid example of our infrastructure’s state of disrepair. How many bridges have to fall down before we make our transportation infrastructure a priority?
With Edwards Out, ‘Which Candidate Will Speak for Working Families?’
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Former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), who announced today he will suspend his campaign for president, had earned the endorsement of three AFL-CIO affiliated unions: the Mine Workers (UMWA), the United Steelworkers (USW) and the Transport Workers (TWU).
Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts says the other candidates will need to work hard to fill the gap left by Edwards’ departure.
Without Sen. Edwards in the race, we wonder about several things: Which candidate will now take up the cause of the millions of working families who have been so callously pushed aside by the current administration? Which candidate will speak so eloquently about the clear link between rebuilding the middle class and restoring the right to organize?
At the University of California, Low Pay for Workers, Big Bucks for CEOs
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Several thousand patient care workers at University of California (UC) medical centers and thousands of other UC service workers are paid significantly less than workers at other hospitals and universities in the state. But top executives recently pocketed big raises and bonuses, according to a new report.
The Center for Labor & Community Research and The Partnership for Working Families report finds that the UC workers, members of AFSCME Local 3299, are paid about 25 percent less than the “market rate” for similar workers in their communities.
Senate Needs to Extend Unemployment Insurance, Food Stamps in Stimulus Package
A stimulus package is a good first step toward alleviating the nation’s multipronged economic crises. But the $150 billion economic stimulus package passed by the U.S. House this week is lacking two critical items: extension of unemployment insurance and expanding food stamps.
A new report by industry research firm Moody’s Economy.com agrees with many economists in finding both would provide the “biggest bang for the buck” to the economy. The AFL-CIO’s short-term stimulus plan released Jan. 18 also calls for extending the number of weeks job seekers receive unemployment benefits and expanding food stamp coverage. Another key point in our plan is fiscal relief for state and local governments to avoid the economically depressing effect of tax increases and budget cuts.
Defense Workers Win Battle for Bargaining Rights
An arduous four-year battle by U.S. Department of Defense employees turned into victory this week with the help of the Democratic majority in Congress: The employees at Defense will keep their bargaining rights and retain their civil service rights to appeal major disciplinary actions.
After the Republican-led Congress refused to block the Bush administration’s anti-worker National Security Personnel System (NSPS), which took away workers’ bargaining rights, the United Department of Defense Workers Coalition (UDWC) continued the fight to restore workers’ rights. Members of the coalition, made up of the 36 unions that represent Defense Department workers, helped get out the vote to ensure a Democratic majority in Congress and that majority restored the Defense workers’ collective bargaining rights as part of the Defense authorization bill. President Bush signed the bill Monday.
A Look at John McCain and a Bye, Bye to Rudy
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In last night’s Florida Republican primary, Arizona Sen. John McCain won with 36 percent of the vote. But although McCain has been in the national eye for nearly a decade, since his first failed presidential run in 2000, most people still know little about his positions—except that he wants to commit the United States to seemingly endless years of war in Iraq.
In a time of economic uncertainty, McCain told the Chicago Tribune that managing the economy isn’t his strong suit.
The issue of economics is something that I’ve really never understood as well as I should.
Later confronted with his own quote about his weakness on economic issues, he denied and evaded ever saying it.
