Channel: Legislation & Politics
Working America, Union Members Deliver for Health Care Reform
 |
||||
|
||||
In Louisiana, Maine, North Dakota, Delaware, Arkansas and Indiana this week, Working America members and union volunteers are sending a message to their senators: You need to pass real health care reform.
Working America and union members delivered thousands of handwritten letters to senators in these key states. On Tuesday in Louisiana, Wednesday in Arkansas and yesterday in four other states, these activists brought more than 15,000 letters to their senators in support of health care reform that expands coverage, doesn’t raise costs for middle-class families because it doesn’t tax their benefits and includes a public health insurance option to help hold insurance companies accountable.
You can join the fight and demand a Senate debate on health care reform here.
Join Tweet-a-Thon and Expose the Chamber of Commerce Friday
 |
||||
|
||||
Get set to join a tweet-a-thon Friday, at 10 a.m. EST, to help launch the #notmychamber campaign spearheaded by the worker advocacy group, American Rights at Work.
If you are on Twitter, starting at 10 a.m., sign the organization’s “Not My Chamber” act.ly petition at http://act.ly/1cc or by tweeting: RT @araw petition @chamberpost: The U.S. #Chamber doesn’t represent me. It’s Not My Chamber! http://act.ly/1cc #notmychamber (RT to sign!)
If you don’t use Twitter (and can understand nary a word of the previous paragraph), you can sign the “Not My Chamber” pledge here: www.notmychamber.org. Already, 20,301 people and 3,102 business owners have signed the pledge.
Without Jobs, the Nation’s Future Circles the Drain
 |
|
After he was elected AFL-CIO president in September, Richard Trumka traveled around the country on a listening tour. Here’s one story he heard, which he described this week as the AFL-CIO, along with several key allies, launched a jobs initiative to help get our nation back to work.
Last summer at an event in Ohio, I met a young woman who is facing this crisis head-on. Lacey, who is not yet 20 years old, wants to become a teacher. But after her dad’s factory closed and he was laid off, she had to put off her hopes of attending college to help her parents keep a roof over their heads. Lacey took a job in a school cafeteria—until the state budget got cut, and she got laid off, too.
After months in which she and her father were both searching for jobs, Lacey said she felt lucky to find a part-time fast food job that pays half of what the cafeteria paid. Lacey has more unemployed friends than friends with jobs, and, like a third of workers her age, she’s still living with her parents. Here’s what Lacey said to me that day:
I wanted to be a teacher to help children get the education they need to get ahead. But now I feel like I’m just going backward myself. I’m really scared for the kids my age. We want to work. We need jobs.
Senate Health Care Bill: Moving in the Right Direction
 |
||||
|
||||
Today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) officially released the Senate’s version of health care reform legislation, a major step toward the health care reform bill America has been waiting for. The first vote to begin debate on this historic bill could happen as soon as Saturday.
It’s an improved bill from the one passed by the Senate Finance Committee last month. It still falls short of an ideal bill but, like the one passed by the U.S. House earlier this month, it greatly increases coverage, helps make health insurance more affordable and includes a public health insurance option to compete with insurance companies.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says Reid has shown courage and leadership in bringing a good bill to the full Senate. Trumka says the bill is a step in the right direction, because it would cover 31 million people, control costs, include a public option and cut $127 billion from the deficit in the first decade. Trumka notes that unfortunately, while many of the bill’s financing mechanisms are fair, it is still partially funded through a tax on health benefits.
Gone with the Wind: Blowing U.S. Tax Dollars Off Shore
It turns out a Texas windmill farm developer’s request last month for nearly half a billion in stimulus funds to create 2,000 jobs in China doesn’t rank first on the audacity scale.
Shockingly for American taxpayers, and sadly for the staggering 10.2 percent of Americans who are unemployed, it doesn’t even rank second.
That’s because Washington already has doled out hundreds of millions in stimulus funds to foreign renewable energy firms. Of the $1.05 billion in clean energy grants awarded by Washington, D.C., $849 million—84 percent—went to foreign wind companies, according to an analysis by Russ Choma of the Investigative Reporting Workshop. He wrote:
The cash grants were given for the installation of 1,763 megawatts of capacity—1,566 installed by foreign companies. Using the Renewable Energy Policy Project’s own numbers, as many as 4,500 manufacturing jobs may have been created overseas.
Today: National Day of Action to Stop Wage Theft
 |
|
Workers, community leaders and religious activists are holding rallies, prayer vigils and other actions in more than 40 cities around the country today as part of a National Day of Action to Stop Wage Theft.
Wage theft is a national epidemic, which robs millions of workers of billions of dollars they’ve worked for but never seen, says Kim Bobo, executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) and author of the book Wage Theft in America.
During a Capitol Hill press conference this morning, Bobo said:
Too many workers can’t buy a Thanksgiving turkey because employers have stolen their wages. Wage theft is not a small, isolated situation. It’s a national epidemic.
Wage theft affects workers like Cleve Williams, who worked for a city contractor in Cincinnati. Williams told the press conference he was fired after he organized his fellow workers to fight for a living wage. The city’s law required the comapny, which holds a city contract, to pay a minimum wage. But Williams says it took three years to get the wages raised to the legal level.
American Rights at Work Honors Sweeney, Employee Free Choice Champions
 |
||||
|
||||
AFL-CIO President Emeritus John Sweeney received the top honor at last night’s 5th annual American Rights at Work Eleanor Roosevelt Awards for his long-term dedication on behalf of workers’ freedom to form unions.
Business Leaders for a Fair Economy and “West Wing” actor Richard Schiff also were recognized at last night’s event in Washington, D.C., where hundreds of labor activists and our allies gathered to celebrate their outstanding leadership.
Sweeney credited the union members, activists and advocacy groups who make up the coalition for making real progress on the Employee Free Choice Act:
You are the front-line fighters for social and economic justice, working towards a better future for America’s working families.
Speakers noted the tough fight ahead for passage of the bill but said we are closer than ever to passing the Employee Free Choice Act and making sure that the freedom to form a union and bargain for a better life is a reality.
Vote Now for POP Art Winner
 |
||||
|
||||
The art on the left is just one of six fantastic submissions to the Public Option Please (POP) contest, launched earlier this fall to cut through the Washington Beltway “insider” clutter and provide a vehicle for artists to make the moral case for health care reform and promote a public health insurance option as a vital part of health care reform.
You can take part in the contest by helping choose a winner from among the six finalists. You have until midnight tomorrow to make your selection in the contest, sponsored by POP, a non-profit, grassroots organization committed to achieving affordable health care for all Americans. Click here to vote.
The six finalists (click here to see all and vote) were selected earlier this month by a panel of judges, including AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker. The Public Choice Award winner will be announced Saturday along with the several juried prizes chosen by the judges. The winning art works will be featured on posters, T-shirts and stickers.
China and Its U.S. Wind Farm Partner Promise More American Jobs
After a public outcry over China’s plan to seek $450 million in economic recovery funds to build a wind farm in Texas that would create only 30 U.S. jobs, the companies involved are now promising to put more Americans to work.
USA Today reports the companies—a U.S. private equity firm and a Chinese turbine maker—also will build a plant in the United States that will make wind turbines while employing 1,000 people. The companies did not indicate the timeframe for building the plant, which would be one of the biggest in the nation for wind turbines.
Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council, says:
It’s a start, but it just shows how far we have to go [to catch up in the production of wind turbines and other clean-energy products.]
New Polls Show Public Demands a Public Option, and More Health Care News
 |
||||
|
||||
We’re watching closely to see if the U.S. Senate begins its debate on health care this week. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will unveil the Senate bill tonight and we could see the first vote to begin debate as early as Saturday.
As we make some progress in the Senate, however, let’s remember we need to make sure the bill that passes isn’t just reform in name only, but really helps people. That means we need a public health insurance option to compete with insurance companies and keep health care affordable for everyone.
Across the country, people understand that a public health insurance option matters:
- In a new AP poll: 52 percent support a public health insurance option compared with only 35 percent opposed.
- In a new Washington Post/ABC poll: 53 percent support a public option compared with 43 percent opposed.
- And in a new CBS poll, 61 percent of people said they wanted the choice of a public health insurance option.
