Tentative Agreement Reached at GE
After four weeks of tough bargaining, IUE-CWA and the United Electrical Workers Union (UE) late last evening reached tentative national agreements with General Electric (GE).
The four-year tentative pact provides for gains in wages, pension and job and income security. The settlement will be voted on by the union negotiating committees then submitted for membership ratification. Details of the proposed agreement will not be released until later this week.
Ten unions have been bargaining with GE since May 24 as part of a joint union Coordinating Bargaining Council (CBC). The unions represent industrial workers who manufacture everything from jet airplane engines to locomotive train diesels, electrical appliances, small motors and lighting systems.
In addition to IUE-CWA and UE, the CBC includes representatives of the United Steelworkers (USW), Machinists (IAM), National Association of Broadcast Employees & Technicians-CWA (NABET-CWA), UAW, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), Electrical Workers (IBEW), Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA), Plumbers and Pipe Fitters (UA) and the Firemen & Oilers division of SEIU.
’60 Minutes’ Shills for Corporate Tax Breaks
Corporate taxes–or more succinctly corporate tax avoidance–has grabbed some big headlines recently starting with The New York Times report that GE, with worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, didn’t pay a dime of U.S. tax in 2010, but got $3.2 billion tax benefit. All legit and all because of corporate tax loopholes companies like GE have lobbied hard to put in place.
(Wealthy individuals are no slouches at avoiding taxes either–see below.)
That launched a slew of stories on other hugely profitable and tax dodging corporations like Exxon Mobil, Bank of America and Citi Group (click here for a look at the Daily Beast’s gallery of the 15 top “Tax Escape Artists”) that culminated in a “60 Minutes” segment on CBS.
But while “60 Minutes” has been known to take on corporate scofflaws, not so this time. After describing how hundreds of billions of tax dollars have been lost through corporate tax loopholes, the rest of the segment became a platform for corporate mouthpieces to whine about how the so-called “high” U.S. tax rate forced them to move operations, jobs and taxable profits overseas.
In an open letter to CBS, Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United (NNU), called the 60 Minutes segment a “stunning disservice to all the Americans who are harmed by a national budget that is seriously distorted by the failure of so many U.S. corporations to pay their fair share.” Read the rest of this entry »
Health Care Kumbaya
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| Protest against health insurers need to have both a union and community face—like this march both against foreclosures and for the Employee Free Choice Act earlier in March in Lynn, Mass. |
The peasants are filing their pitchforks to a fine point in anticipation of an attack on the palace—and the target of their ire is not what we might have intended. At this critical moment in the health care debate, more than a few working folk are taking a suspicious look at the health care reform efforts of Senate Democrats, President Obama—and their own unions. A headline in my local newspaper, the Lynn Item, helped stir the tempest: “Obama Open to Taxing Benefits to Fund Reform.”
Vincent Panvani of the Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) warns:
If any of these Democratic Senators vote for this, they’ll be out in 2010, and it will be used against Obama….[Y]ou’re taxing the middle class.
Teamsters President James Hoffa calls taxing health care benefits “the poison pill that will kill reform.” The Laborers have attack ads at the ready. And Donna Smith, an organizer and legislative representative for the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) notes that insurance companies continue discriminatory rates for older workers and ongoing rescissions of benefits—that is, targeting people with more than 1,400 medical conditions for “opposition research” investigations so their benefits can be cut off. “Ugly stuff,” she puts it. (At a health care forum in Lynn, Mass., last week, Rep. John Tierney reported that in congressional hearings he asked every insurance company if they would stop these viscous targeted rescissions—each one said “No.”)
10 Reasons to Support the U.S. Auto Industry
Chances are the upcoming holiday get-togethers will provide plenty of encounters with relatives and friends who are against helping out the auto industry. Opponents of a bridge loan have plenty to say. And we should, too. Here’s a quick list of reasons for countering arguments by Uncle CEO and Cousin It.
1. Unlike the taxpayer giveaway to Wall Street, the funds for the auto industry are loans. These loans have to be paid back. The Big Banks who got our $700 billion get to keep it.
2. It’s cheaper to support the auto industry than to let it die. Anderson Economic Group and BBK Ltd. determined that over a two-year period, a $30 billion bridge loan with only half of the amount repaid would result in a $16.4 billion cost to taxpayers in lost sales, taxes and jobs, while a bankruptcy would cost $65.9 billion when costs for pensions, unemployment insurance, loan losses and professional and other fees are added.
