Register Now to Take Back the American Dream
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Join progressive activists from around the nation to map out strategy to Take Back the American Dream and rebuild America’s struggling middle class. The annual conference (formerly known as the America’s Future Now conference) is set for Oct. 3-5 in Washington, D.C. Click here to register.
With the floodgates of corporate campaign cash flung open and a tea party-dominated conservative movement doing violence to the fundamental pillars of middle-class prosperity, the promise of the American Dream is under threat as never before.
But as the grassroots uprising in Wisconsin, the battles in Ohio and other states and this summer’s actions show there is a growing energy and counterweight to battle this extremist and corporate attack on middle-class jobs and dreams.
At the conference, sponsored by Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) and co-sponsored by Rebuild the Dream, MoveOn.org and Change Nation, activists, local volunteers, students, teachers, unions and community groups will come together to find ways to revitalize the economy, build jobs, change communities and harness the grassroots energy.
House Passes Tough Financial Reform Bill
The U.S. House of Representatives today took a big step toward reforming the risky and reckless practices on Wall Street that created the global financial crisis. By a 223-202 margin, lawmakers passed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 (H.R. 4173), a package of reforms that would help protect Americans from a laundry list of practices from predatory lending to unregulated derivatives.
Introduced by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, the bill is the most sweeping overhaul of the financial industry in more than 70 years. It would create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) to enforce consumer protection and civil rights laws that existing federal regulators have largely ignored. It also would provide increased transparency and regulation in financial derivatives such as those that brought down AIG and helped create the housing bubble.
Bill Would Create Agency to Protect Consumers from Big Banks
The global financial meltdown demonstrated how vulnerable workers and consumers are to abuses in consumer lending practices and Wall Street’s recklessness. A package of reforms now on the House floor would help protect Americans from a laundry list of risky Wall Street practices from predatory lending to unregulated derivatives.
In a letter to House members, the AFL-CIO urged lawmakers to pass the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 (H.R. 4173). The letter said, in part:
The bailouts of major banking institutions reinforced the idea that workers and consumers must fight for protections they rightly deserve. Once signed into law, this package of reforms will work together to address the plethora of causes from predatory lending to unregulated derivatives that led to last year’s meltdown.
‘Say on Exec Pay’ Bill Advances in House
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A key congressional committee took another step toward reforming the way Wall Street works yesterday. By a vote of 40-28, the House Financial Services Committee approved H.R. 3269, the Corporate and Financial Institution Compensation Fairness Act. The act would help end the excessive compensation practices that encourage executives to take excessive risks that ultimately hurt employees, shareholders and taxpayers.
The bill would give shareholders a “say on pay” and allow them a nonbinding vote on executive pay. It also would require that independent directors from outside of management serve on compensation committees.
Says committee Chairman Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.):
This bill is the first step toward comprehensive financial regulatory reform. I look forward to having this bill on the House floor soon, and I also look forward to changing the status quo.
Employment Non-Discrimination Act ‘Long Overdue’
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), introduced today by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), is “common sense legislation [that] would bar discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and expression…it is urgently needed and long overdue,” says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
Click here to read Sweeney’s full statement.
World Bank Scuttles Anti-Worker Index
The World Bank’s decision to revise the controversial labor-market ratings in its flagship publication, Doing Business, is long overdue and a “significant step” in the right direction, global union and political leaders say.
Every year, the World Bank rates nations based on criteria that in principle rank countries’ “ease of doing business.” The bank measures 10 separate indicators. But unions, academics and activists have criticized Doing Business as a one-sided publication, focused almost exclusively on a narrow “private investor” perspective, with little regard for social impact.
Boston-Area Congress Members Back Employee Free Choice Act
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| U.S. Reps. Barney Frank, Stephen Lynch and Mike Capuano joined Greater Boston Labor Council President Lou Mandarini and Vice President Patricia Armstrong in supporting the Employee Free Choice Act. |
Richard Rogers, executive secretary-treasurer of the Greater Boston Labor Council, reports on the campaign to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
Union members from the Boston area met with members of Congress yesterday to press for quick action on the Employee Free Choice Act, a critical bill to restore workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.
U.S. Reps. Barney Frank, Michael Capuano and Stephen Lynch attended the meeting at Plumbers and Pipe Fittters Local 12 in Dorchester. Some 75 union leaders and activists of the Greater Boston Labor Council took part, as all three members of Congress publicly pledged their support for the Employee Free Choice Act, the first viable effort to reform America’s broken labor laws in over a generation. (U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, another Boston-area member, also is a supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act.)
