Stupid Policy, Stupid Politics

Shit on Labor? Why Not? It's something this Administration seems to do for fun:

WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama is risking a revolt within his own party as he presses ahead on a free trade agreement with South Korea, setting the stage for a showdown after November legislative elections.

Organized labor, a critical support base for Obama's Democratic Party, and several Democrats have already vowed to fight the deal which they say would hurt workers.

"To try and advance the Korean FTA when so many workers are still struggling to find work would simply move our economy backward," said Representative Louise Slaughter, a Democrat who leads the powerful Rules Committee.

The deal would be the largest for the United States since the the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico in 1994.

This was a deal negotiated by Bush and has the same problems found in the rest of the NAFTA style trade agreements. Some of the details:

Foreign Investor Rights. The investment chapter still affords foreign investors greater rights than those enjoyed by U.S. investors. Not one word was changed in the Korea FTAs’ foreign investor chapters that promote off-shoring, and subject our domestic environmental, zoning, health and other public interest policies to challenge by foreign investors in foreign tribunals. The Korea FTA also allows challenges by foreign investors in foreign tribunals of timber, mining, construction and other concession contracts with the U.S. federal government.

Food Safety Provisions. The amended text does not address limits on imported food safety and inspection. These FTAs still contain language requiring the United States to accept imported food that does not meet our safety standards.

Procurement Provisions. The Korea FTA procurement rules subject many common federal and state procurement policies to challenge in trade tribunals and directly forbid other common procurement policies. These procurement rules continue the NAFTA/CAFTA ban on anti-off-shoring and Buy America policies and expose U.S. renewable energy, recycled content and other environmental safety requirements to challenge.

Agriculture Provisions. The text does not address the problems in the NAFTA-style agriculture trade rules that have simultaneously undermined U.S. producers’ ability to earn a fair price for their crops at home and in the global market place. Multinational grain trading and food processing companies have made enormous profits while farmers on both ends have been hurt. Continuing this model is projected to increase hunger; illicit drug cultivation; undocumented migration; and continue the race to the bottom for commodity prices, pitting farmer against farmer and country against country to see who can produce food the cheapest, regardless of standards on labor, the environment or food safety.

Access to Medicines. While the amended text of these FTAs removes the most egregious, CAFTA-based, provisions limiting the access to affordable medicines, the text still includes NAFTA provisions that undermine the right to affordable medicines for poorer countries contained in the WTO’s Doha Declaration.

Obama has always been a fan of this broken model of trade, so him pushing these agreements isn't a surprise. And his Administration has shown multiple times that he doesn't give a shit about going against labor in a legislative fight.

But just like the way his Administration has embraced the deficit fetishists, Obama has once again endorsed the always elusive dumb policy/dumber politics combo. Not only is the NAFTA model of free trade a disaster, but it's extremely unpopular with voters! Not to mention it's going out of the way to pick a fight with union members, who will be even less likely to turn out to work for Democratic campaigns.

The 2010 midterms might have been bad without this stuff, but the Administration seems to be going out of it's make sure it's a slaughter.

Real Talk for the White House

Jane Hamsher had the best response to yesterday's bullshit:

Labor is not your bitch, and their money isn’t yours to direct. They’re supposed to take what, another six years of black eyes from Blanche Lincoln just because you say so? If their $8 million buys derivatives legislation and limits the damage that the Masters of the Universe can do to the world economy in the future, it’s not only a bargain, it also means that a bunch of nurses and janitors have done more to rein in the banks than you and your entire pack of servile, visionless Wall Street lackeys has done since you took office.

Boom.

White House Declares War On Labor

Senator John Boozman, get used to hearing it.

I know I'm often mad when I write on this blog, but reading this from Ben Smith of Politico honestly made me want to throw my computer through the television and go to bed:

A senior White House official just called me with a very pointed message for the administration's sometime allies in organized labor, who invested heavily in beating Blanche Lincoln, Obama's candidate, in Arkanas.

"Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members' money down the toiled on a pointless exercise," the official said. "If even half that total had been well-targeted and applied in key House races across this country, that could have made a real difference in November."

While Labor "flushed away" money by supporting challenging someone who opposed their agenda, the Obama Administration was wisely spending the Democratic National Committee's resources to nominate an unelectable Republican.

As the AFL CIO said in a statement a few minutes ago, organized labor exists to support the interests of their members, not for the benefit the Democratic party or the Obama Administration. The next time they stick up for our issues will be the first, so if Obama's concerned that we aren't clapping loud enough when you give us the excise tax, eliminate the public option and don't push the Employee Free Choice Act, I don't know what to say.

Eddie Vale of the AFL-CIO is last night's real winner with this brilliant response the the White House:

"We are not an arm of the White House or the DNC or a political party," said AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale. "We work on issues. And if we feel like someone is standing up for working families, we support them, and if they don't, we won't support it. In the past, people would have assumed that was talk, but now we have backed that up with action."

"Is the lesson they are taking out of tonight that they can go after labor and anonymously trash us and we will put our tail in between our legs and slink home? That ain't happening," Vale added.

Driving home the point that the White House was cravenly hiding behind the cloak of anonymity in their attacks, the AFL-CIO spokesman signed off the conversation with the following: "My name is Eddie Vale of the AFL-CIO and I'm proud to fight for working families and I don't hide behind anonymous quotes."

So, Senior White House Official who was so courageous that they anonymously fires off a gloating email to multiple journalists, from the bottom of my heart: Fuck off.

Have fun with Blanche Lincoln, Arlen Specter, Joe Lieberman and Douche bags you've seem to enjoy coddling. The age old question in the Labor movement is "which side are you on" and if we've learned nothing else tonight, you've made it pretty clear where you stand.

Rich Trumka: Beast

Reading things like this make me like AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka even more than I already do:

A more contentious moment came during a gathering of union leaders in mid-January. By that point, the president's preference for a tax on high-cost health care plans was well known. But he had done little to temper labor's protests. The friction was obvious. Not only would the tax hit negotiated union contracts, Obama himself had launched blistering attacks on the proposal when it was part of Sen. John McCain's platform in 2008. (Axelrod would tell associates it was the campaign ad that tested best with voters).

On January 11, the president brought a group of more than a half-dozen union presidents to the White House to remove any lingering doubt. "There will be an excise tax," he declared, according to one attendee.

"I'm committed to doing it," another attendee had him saying. "And I need you guys to be on board."

The crowd wasn't sold. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, seated across from the president, shot back that the tax was "bad policy and bad politics" pointing to the percentage of middle-class workers (even the non-unionized) who would be hit. Anna Burger, the executive director of union campaign arm, Change to Win, brought up Deb Lovell, a state worker in New Hampshire and wife of a chronic myelogenous leukemia patient, who despite earning $30,000-a-year salary would see her health care plan taxed under the proposal.

The President conceded that taxing people like Lovell was not the design and promised to look into Burger's point. But he continued pitching the tax as necessary for keeping health care costs under control. "He was persuaded to do health care, I believe, by Peter Orszag [the budget director], not Ted Kennedy [the moralist former Senator]," is how one White House ally put it.

Trumka refused to let the argument go, pushing back on Obama point by point. Several people briefed on what happened said that after the discussion ended other union leaders told Trumka that he came off as "disrespectful" to the president. To which he replied: "If telling him the truth is disrespectful, then I have to be disrespectful."

At an impasse, Obama scheduled a meeting for the next day with the same group. But in this one, his deputies would lead the conversation, and union staffers were not permitted to attend (the White House thought that staffers would expand the conservation to topics beyond the excise tax). This didn't diminish the fireworks. As Jason Furman, the White House economist and excise tax booster, continued to push the proposal, Trumka reached a tipping point. "Don't fucking bullshit me," he demanded.

It takes tremendous courage to stand up to the president of the United States, especially when he's an ally that you helped elect. Although we didn't win the fight, I'm extremely encouraged that things at least got that heated. It's kind of comforting to hear that some of the people involved in the debate were as angry as I was at the time.

Why Didn't Unions Prevent The Mine Disaster?

Rush Limbaugh: (via Work In Progress)

Was there no union responsibility for improving mine safety? Where was the union here? Where was the union? The union is generally holding these companies up demanding all kinds of safety. Why were these miners continuing to work in what apparently was an unsafe atmosphere?

(Mind Explodes)

In case you were also wondering where the union was: (Think Progress)

There’s a simple reason the union didn’t protect the miners: the Upper Big Branch Mine, like nearly all of the mines under Massey CEO Don Blankenship’s control, is non-union. In fact, the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) “tried three times to organize the Upper Big Branch mine, but even with getting nearly 70 percent of workers to sign cards saying they wanted to vote for a union, Blankenship personally met with workers to threaten them with closing down the mine and losing their jobs if they voted for a union.”

Blankenship rose in Massey’s ranks by breaking its union mines in the 1980s. Blankenship said then that busting unions is “invaluable” to profits, as non-union companies can “sell coal cheaper and drive union coal out of business.”

Union mines have a significantly better safety record than non-union mines especially for major disasters, as union miners can refuse unsafe work and report dangerous conditions without fear of retaliation. In addition to preventing Blankenship-style intimidation, the proposed Employee Free Choice Act would increase whistleblower protections for non-union and union workers alike. Under Blankenship’s direction, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Mining Association have spent millions to oppose passage of such legislation for worker rights, comparing it to a “firestorm bordering on Armageddon.”

With that said, it's pretty awesome that Rush backhandedly acknowledges the need for unions. Between this and his love of Costa Rica's government run health care, I'm glad to see he's coming around!

Best Labor Dispute Ever

In light of the recent tragic mine disasters in West Virginia and China's Shanxi province, which JJ expanded into an entire post about American worker safety, I figured it's worth noting that not all labor disputes have such menacing overtones.

As many as 800 workers in Copehagen's Carlsberg brewery left work earlier this week after management decreed that they would no longer be able to drink free beer on the job. Previously given up to THREE FREE BEERS during non-lunch work hours, now Carlsberg factory workers can only drink their free beer at lunchtime.

The nerve of those fat cat bosses!

Workplace Deaths Are A Tragedy, But Hardly Uncommon

There was an massive explosion in a West Virginia mine that killed 25 miners last Monday.

As more details emerge about the conditions of the mine and the mining company's safety record, it doesn't paint a pretty picture: (Think Progress)

Since 1995, Massey’s Upper Big Branch-South Mine has been cited for 3,007 safety violations. Massey is contesting 353 violations, and 127 are delinquent. [MSHA]

Massey is contesting over a third (34.7%) of the 516 safety citations the Upper Big Branch-South Mine received in 2009, its greatest count in the last 15 years. [MSHA]

In March 2010, 53 new safety citations were issued for Massey’s Upper Big Branch-South Mine, including violations of its mine ventilation plan. [MSHA]

Massey is now contesting $1,128,833 in fines for safety violations at the deadly Upper Big Branch-South Mine, with a further $246,320 in delinquent fines:

Over $2.2 million in fines have been assessed against Massey’s Upper Big Branch-South Mine since 1995, with $791,327 paid. Massey is contesting $1,128,833 in fines. Massey’s delinquent fines total $246,320. [MSHA]

Massey is contesting $251,613 in fines for citations for Upper Big Branch-South Mine’s ventilation plan. [MSHA]

As if that wasn't bad enough, the CEO of Massey Energy sounds almost cartoonishly evil in his willingness to ignore safety regulations:

The country’s highest-paid coal executive, Blankenship is a villain ripped straight from the comic books: a jowly, mustache-sporting, union-busting coal baron who uses his fortune to bend politics to his will. He recently financed a $3.5 million campaign to oust a state Supreme Court justice who frequently ruled against his company, and he hung out on the French Riviera with another judge who was weighing an appeal by Massey. “Don Blankenship would actually be less powerful if he were in elected office,” Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia once observed. “He would be twice as accountable and half as feared.”

Over the two years through 2001 Massey was cited by West Virginia officials for violating regulations 501 times. Its three biggest rivals, mining twice as much coal in the state as Massey, were cited a collective 175 times. [CEO Don] Blankenship says Massey is unfairly targeted by regulators.

“We don’t pay much attention to the violation count,” he says.

As upsetting as this is, it is nothing new for the coal industry, or as was pointed out by Laura Clawson, many other workers throughout the county. As stunning as this figure may be, an average of 16 workers die on the job each day in the United States:



The reason for such an appalling numbers of workplace deaths is not a mystery. The fines and punishments that follow on the job deaths are so minuscule that corporation would often rather pay the fine than worry about implementing safety regulations that could have saved lives.

There will always be Don Blankenships out there willing to risk the lives of others in order to turn a bigger profit. Unless we make rules that force those bad actors out of the equation, it's only an incentive for them to keep up their dangerous practices and continue to risk the lives of their employees in the process.

Steps Toward a Functioning Government

A functional Labor Board! Recess appointments that didn't include Republicans! Man, David Broader is going to be pissed:

Today President Obama announced a series of recess appointments, including – count ‘em – two seats on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Both appointees, Craig Becker and Mark Pearce, are Democrats nominees. A third nominee, Brian Hayes, a staffer for Senator Mike Enzi, was left behind to be voted on by the Senate.

The NLRB is the federal agency that oversees the laws relating to union organizing, and for more than two years, the NLRB has had just two of its five members. Those two members – one Democrat, one Republican – have had to set aside hundreds of cases on which they could not agree in anticipation of at least a third member. On the cases the two NLRB members have decided, anti-worker advocates contested the validity of those decisions all the way up to the Supreme Court this week. While discussing the extended NLRB vacancies, Chief Justice Roberts asked, “And the recess appointment power doesn’t work why?”

I didn't have my hopes up that this would go through only because Obama seems to care a lot more about the optics of things like recess appointments than I do. Thrilled to be wrong.

It should also be that both nominees are extremely qualified, and were only blocked because of their belief that unions had a right to exist, making them card carrying Marxists in the eyes of the modern day Republican party. There's simply no middle ground with these people, and it's nice to see Obama acknowledge this fact with some hardball every now and then.

Obama Endorses RI's "Fire All Teachers" Plan

I'm sure that having no teachers will turn around those dipping test scores:

In the middle of the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression, more than 90 dedicated professional educators find themselves put out into the street. On Feb. 23, the Central Falls, R.I., school trustees fired the entire teaching staff of Central Falls High School, supposedly because of declining test scores at the school, which is located in Rhode Island’s smallest and poorest city.

In all, 93 persons were put in the street—74 classroom teachers, plus reading specialists, guidance counselors, physical education teachers, the school psychologist, the principal and three assistant principals. Negotiations over ways to improve the school between teachers and the school superintendent broke down when school officials insisted that teachers add new duties, some without any extra pay at all.

In a rally before the trustees meeting, some 500 union members and community supporters called on the board to reconsider its decision. Rhode Island AFL-CIO President George Nee told the crowd:

This is immoral, illegal, unjust, irresponsible, disgraceful and disrespectful. What is happening here tonight is the wrong thing and we’re not going to put up with it.

Busloads of teachers from across the state came to show solidarity with the Central Falls teachers. Julie Boyle, an English teacher at another high school, told the Providence Journal:

I think the real goal is to bust the unions. Sometimes a teacher is the only touchstone in a student’s life. I’m sad for the students who will lose their touchstones.

Again, regardless of how you feel about different approaches to education reform, I'm still not sure at what point firing all the teachers starts to look like a sensible idea. I'm sure all the replacement teachers with no experience that fill EVERY POSITION IN THE SCHOOL will have no problems learning how to be a full time teacher while improving the declining test scores that the superintendent was so upset about.

Well, the good news is that the Bush Era is over, and organized labor worked so hard to elect someone who would speak out against this kind of nonsense:

President Obama voiced support Monday for the mass firings of educators at a failing Rhode Island school, drawing an immediate rebuke from teachers union officials whose members have chafed at some of his education policies.

Speaking at an event intended to highlight his strategy for turning around struggling schools by offering an increase in federal funding for local districts that shake up their lowest-achieving campuses, Obama called the controversial firings justified.

. . .

Meanwhile, state and local education officials received some high-powered support of their own, when U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan weighed in, saying he “applauded” them for “showing courage and doing the right thing for kids.” [...]

“This is hard work and these are tough decisions, but students only have one chance for an education,” Education Secretary Duncan said, “and when schools continue to struggle we have a collective obligation to take action.”

Obama has yet to see any significant push back from labor on almost anything, but this has to cross some sort of line. This isn't indifference, this is lending backing to a worldview that doesn't believe organized labor has a right to exist.

As Michael Whitney points out, it's also good to line this up with how Obama has treated the fuck ups in the financial sector:

School is under preforming?
Obama: Firing all the teachers is an appropriate solution.

Recklessness on Wall Street that tanks the entire US Economy?
Obama: Everyone keeps their jobs, works hard behind the scenes to protect their bonuses.

This is truly shameful, and fairly shocking that he would go out of his way to applaud it. If I wanted a union buster in the White House, I would have voted for Hillary Clinton.

A Disastrous Year For Labor

Harold Meyerson on the first year of the Obama Administration for Organized Labor:

For American labor, year one of Barack Obama's presidency has been close to an unmitigated disaster.

Labor's primary priority -- the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) -- died when the Democrats lost their 60-vote majority in the Senate. Labor's normal priority -- a functioning National Labor Relations Board -- also seems out of reach, with Republicans on Tuesday blocking the appointment of Obama nominee Craig Becker (that's why Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown scurried down to Washington last week to take his seat). Other key legislation for which labor has lobbied, including health-care reform and financial regulations, languishes in the Senate.

For the unions, the Senate's inability to pass EFCA is devastating and galling. Democratic senators had developed a compromise proposal that would have jettisoned the controversial "card check" process -- by which unions could be organized without a secret ballot -- in favor of expediting the election process (so that management couldn't delay for months, or even years, employees' votes on whether to unionize) and stiffening the penalties for violating the rules that govern election conduct.

The compromise had a shot at winning all 60 Democratic votes. The unions, which spent more than $300 million in the 2008 elections on Democrats' behalf, wanted a vote on EFCA last year, but Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asked them to wait until health reform had passed. (Their requests for confirmation votes on NLRB appointees were similarly delayed.)

As much as Obama and the Senate Democrats seem to get aroused at how far they can throw their biggest allies under the bus, I'd always figured they'd throw them a bone here and there out of self preservation. Well, they haven't even done that, and they'll reap the rewards of that strategy this fall:

Union leaders warn that the Democrats' lackluster performance in power is sapping the morale of activists going into the midterm elections.

"Right now if we don’t get positive changes to the agenda, we’re going to have a hard time getting members out to work," said United Steelworkers International President Leo W. Gerard, in an interview.

“There’s no use pretending any longer.”

The biggest threat, of course, is apathy from a Democratic constituency that has a history of mobilizing for elections.

"You're just not going to be able to go to our membership in the November elections and say, 'Come on, let's do it again. Look at what the Democratic administration has done for us!'" Gage said. "People are going to say, 'Huh? What have the Democrats done for us?'"

See unlike the corporate front groups that fund the other side's political work, unions are made up of living breathing people that need to be given reasons get off their ass and campaign. Things like "we passed the Lilly Ledbetter Act"(something even zombie Clinton could have done) and "we didn't fuck you over as hard as John McCain would have" aren't really going to cut it. So keep at it guys, not only are you screwing over the working class but you're insuring your own demise in the process.

I'd me more than happy to watch a Democratic bloodletting in November if I thought there was the slightest chance that the party learn the right lesson from it. They never do though, and the media will write about how Blanche Lincoln lost because she spoke nicely about the Kenyan usurper and Harry Reid lost because he pushed too hard to enact a progressive agenda.

I know this may sound pretty dire, but watching these people make the same mistakes over and over again doesn't exactly inspire hope. And when you imagine some generic Scott Borwn looking Republican running a faux populist campaigns based on Obama's ties to Wall Street, it's enough to make you wanna throw up.

Obama's Excise Tax Betrayal

The excise tax is billed as a tax on the health care plans of high income individuals, when in reality it will be a sizable tax increase for a large number of middle class Americans. The worst part, as Bob Herbert explains, that the real design isn't to raise money off the tax, but to cut health care coverage:

The tax would kick in on plans exceeding $23,000 annually for family coverage and $8,500 for individuals, starting in 2013. In the first year it would affect relatively few people in the middle class. But because of the steadily rising costs of health care in the U.S., more and more plans would reach the taxation threshold each year.

Within three years of its implementation, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the tax would apply to nearly 20 percent of all workers with employer-provided health coverage in the country, affecting some 31 million people. Within six years, according to Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation, the tax would reach a fifth of all households earning between $50,000 and $75,000 annually. Those families can hardly be considered very wealthy.

Proponents say the tax will raise nearly $150 billion over 10 years, but there's a catch. It's not expected to raise this money directly. The dirty little secret behind this onerous tax is that no one expects very many people to pay it. The idea is that rather than fork over 40 percent in taxes on the amount by which policies exceed the threshold, employers (and individuals who purchase health insurance on their own) will have little choice but to ratchet down the quality of their health plans.

One fifth of middle class households, those who have employer based health care. Who are these people?

By and large those with employer based health care are union members, the same people responsible for electing Barack Obama president.

They supported Barack Obama because of speeches like this:

Union members all over the country (such as myself) mobilized using that line of attack to convince their members who were unsure about voting for Barack Obama that it was the right thing to do. No one put their ass on the line more than Richard Trumka, whose speech about Obama and Race might have made a bigger impact at swaying the demographic of white middle class voters than any other during the campaign.

In return for all that hard work electing him president, President Obama decides to make everyone who campaigned for him on that line of attack to be a liar:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama signaled to House Democratic leaders Wednesday that they'll have to drop their opposition to taxing high-end health insurance plans to pay for health coverage for millions of uninsured Americans.

In a meeting at the White House, Obama expressed his preference for the insurance tax contained in the Senate's health overhaul bill, but largely opposed by House Democrats and organized labor, Democratic aides said. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private.

We voted and worked our asses off for Barack Obama's policies, and instead we got Joe Lieberman's health care plan, payed for with John McCain's tax on the middle class.

This fight isn't over yet, and organized labor still has its biggest card to play. Opposing this bill would be a real act of courage, and I hope that the new AFLCIO President Richard Trumka has what it takes to do what's right. Unless labor stands up to this type of betrayal, there's no reason President Obama or any other politician won't repeat this cycle again and again.

Change Comes to the Labor Department

Having a Secretary of Labor that actually believes in labor laws is already having an impact:

Soon after she became the nation's labor secretary, Hilda Solis warned corporate America there was "a new sheriff in town." Less than a year into her tenure, that figurative badge of authority is unmistakable.

Her aggressive moves to boost enforcement and crack down on businesses that violate workplace safety rules have sent employers scrambling to make sure they are following the rules.

The changes are a departure from the policies of Solis' predecessor, Elaine Chao. They follow through on President Barack Obama's campaign promise to boost funding for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, increase enforcement and safeguard workers in dangerous industries.

Solis made a splash in October when OSHA slapped the largest fine in its history on oil giant BP PLC for failing to fix safety problems after a 2005 explosion at its Texas City refinery.

Garnering less attention, she just finished hiring 250 new investigators to protect workers from being cheated out of wage and overtime pay. She also started a new program that scrutinizes business records to make sure worker injury and illness reports are accurate. And she is proposing new standards to protect workers from industrial dust explosions -- an effort the Bush administration had long resisted.

As you'd expect, people that have been exploiting the lack of a functioning labor department are less enthusiastic:

Some business groups say they prefer a more cooperative approach between government and businesses -- what the Bush administration called "compliance assistance."

"Our members are concerned that the department is shifting its focus from compliance assistance back to more of the 'gotcha' or aggressive enforcement first approach," said Karen Harned, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business' small business legal center.

Other business leaders point out that the rate of workplace deaths and injuries actually fell to record lows in the previous administration, while the agency also helped employees collect a record amount of back pay for overtime and minimum wage violations. Chao has claimed that success was the result of cooperating with businesses to help them understand the myriad regulations.

Keith Smith, a spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers, said his members "want to build upon that progress and recognize what's working."

Ahh, the good old days! Things were working so well:

The business lobbyists' reaction to Solis' tenure is unsurprising, given the fact that her predecessor's Labor Department spent eight years "walking away from its regulatory function across a range of issues, including wage and hour law and workplace safety." The Government Accountability Office found that under Chao, the agency "did an inadequate job of investigating complaints by low-wage workers who alleged that their employers were stiffing them for overtime, or failing to pay the minimum wage." In one survey, 68 percent of low-income workers reported a pay violation in the previous week alone.

Following how terribly they've handled major legislation, it's easy to forget the very real positives that come from having a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President. Making vital government institutions functional again is no small feat. And while that sounds like a low bar, it's important to remember what monsters governed us for the last 8 years. Undoing their damage isn't easy, and it's as important as any of the other things Obama has on his plate.

AFL-CIO Comes Out Against Liebercare

Not pleased with the Senate's bullshit:

The labor movement has been fighting for health care for nearly 100 years and we are not about to stop fighting now, when it really matters.

But for this health care bill to be worthy of the support of working men and women, substantial changes must be made. The AFL-CIO intends to fight on behalf of all working families to make those changes and win health care reform that is deserving of the name.

The absolute refusal of Republicans in the Senate to support health care reform and the hijacking of the bill by defenders of the insurance industry have brought us a Senate bill that is inadequate: It is too kind to the insurance industry.

Genuine health care reform must bring down health costs, hold insurance companies accountable, assure that Americans can get the health care they need and be financed fairly.

That’s why we are championing a public health insurance option: It is the way to break the stranglehold of the insurance industry over consumers that has led to double digit premium increases virtually every year.

Employers must pay their fair share.

And the benefits of hard-working Americans cannot be taxed to pay for health care reform—that’s no way to rein in insurance companies and it’s the wrong way to pay for health care reform.

Those are the changes for which we will be fighting in the coming days.

The Senate bill does some good things: It will provide health insurance to 30 million more Americans and provide subsidies to low income individuals and families. Benefits will have to meet minimum standards and insurance companies will no longer be able to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions or impose lifetime or unreasonable annual limits. The bill also includes some relief for plans with early retirees as well as delivery system reforms that may lead to lower costs over the long haul. And Senate leaders have made a commitment to close the Medicare prescription drugs donut hole which is so costly to seniors.

But because it bends toward the insurance industry, the Senate bill will not check costs in the short term, and its financing asks working people and the country to pay the price, even as benefits are cut.

The House bill is the model for genuine health care reform. Working people cannot accept anything less than real reform.

The language is intentionally vague, because it would be difficult for them to oppose the bill with all of the resources they invested in electing Obama. Not sure how far this will go, but any pushback from an institution this large is a positive.

Labor Considers Cutting Off the Douche Caucus

Something that should have happened a long, long time ago:

Organized labor, still battling to stop plans to pay for health care through taxing expensive plans -- but unwillin to flatly oppose reform -- will consider a plan to reduce its contributions to Democrats who don't side with them on the issue, a labor source said.

The federation's executive council will meet Monday in Washington to consider, among other things, "how to hold politicians more accountable to the workers that helped elect them," the source said, outlining a threat aimed primarily at the Blue Dog Democrats considering voting against a health reform package.

"One of the options is cutting off contributions to politicians who aren't supporting the issues that workers care about," he said.

The suggestion is based on a Sheet Metal Workers' decision to stop giving money to politicians in favor of dedicating it to the issue campaign for health care legislation.

As someone who works in organized labor, Labor's allegiance to the democratic party regardless of their actions has always driven me insane

This a good start, but at the end of the day, organized labor's value is not in the monetary contributions they make. Unlike organizations like the Chamber of Commerce that are bankrolled with corporate cash, unions represent millions of actual people, who knock on doors, make phone calls and turn out the vote. A much stronger stand is threatening to withhold endorsements, which would stop electoral work, and put lots of shitty congressmen and senators out of their jobs.

White House Angered by Support For Obama's Health Care Plan

Just a reminder that the Administration understands how to apply pressure, it's just that they never seem to do it to the right people:

McEntee led workers in chanting a barnyard epithet to describe Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus’s health care bill, which would levy a new tax on expensive health care plans. He published an op-ed in U.S.A. Today warning, in terms that could be used against Democrats in the midterms, that the plan could tax the middle class and cost workers their health care. And he blew off a plea from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and published an open letter promising to “oppose” legislation that contained the tax – published over the objections, several labor officials said, of other union presidents whose names appeared on the letter.

"We have had just about enough of his gratuitous slaps,” said a senior White House official Friday, calling the politically charged language “outrageous and unacceptable” from an ally — even from one that had, the official noted, devoted substantial resources to health care efforts.

“He’s doing his members a real disservice,” said the official, who said that while all other labor leaders had been careful to keep their opposition to elements of health care proposals modulated and largely inside the tent, McEntee was “beyond the pale.”

And just what exactly is "outrageous and unacceptable", "doing his members a disservice" and "beyond the pale"?

Expecting President Obama to fight for Candidate Obama's health care plan.

Jon Walker:

Looking back at Obama’s campaign health care plan, it is shocking how many promises he broke without a fight. Obama promised:

• A new national health exchange open to all Americans
• A new public plan available to all Americans to compete with private insurance
• An employer mandate to provide health insurance
• A minimum medical loss ratio for insurance companies
• To allow people to import cheaper drugs from Canada or Europe
• To repeal the ban that prevents the government from directly negotiating with drug companies

Note none of these promise are part of the Senate Finance Committee bill. Obama has made no effort to fight for the inclusion of some of these (public option, employer mandate, minimum medical loss ratio) and months ago even made secret deals vowing to actively work to kill drug re-importation and direct drug price negotiation.

During the election Obama actively campaigned against two policies. One was the individual mandate favored by Hillary Clinton (and the health insurance industry) and the other was a tax on employer-provided health insurance which was also supported by John McCain. These two issues are now part of the Baucus bill. Since taking office, Obama has spent dramatically more time and political capital fighting hard to include these two provisions that he opposed than he has spent trying to include top progressive/labor union priorities that he supported, like the public option.

And in a double whammy, during a series of secret back room deals (breaking his promise for complete and open transparency) he has promised different industries he will actively oppose the very ideas he once claimed to champion, drug re-importation, and direct drug price negotiation.

The question is who is gratuitously slapping whom? Is it the Obama administration, which with repeated broken promises stabbed labor unions in the back? Or is it McEntee for simply calling bullshit when he sees it?

Gerry McEntee and the rest of the progressive community are fighting for Barack Obama's Health Care Plan.

What plan is Barack Obama fighting for?

Blanche Lincoln 2010: Can't Someone Else Do it?

Apparently the senator from Arkansas has been watching some Simpsons Reruns:

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Sen. Blanche Lincoln says business and labor groups, not lawmakers, should be the ones to work out a compromise on a union organizing bill.

Lincoln said that she still opposes the Employee Free Choice Act and doesn't think the legislation should be considered while lawmakers are dealing with health care and other issues. Business groups have opposed the act because it would allow employees to unionize by signing cards instead of holding secret ballot elections.

Democratic lawmakers are working on a compromise version of the bill that may remove the so-called "card check" provision. Lincoln said any compromise would need to come from business and labor groups.

Lincoln spoke at the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries of Arkansas annual meeting in Little Rock.

Clearly big business will "come together" with organized labor and restore the same rights that they have methodically destroyed from existence over the past 30 years. I actually heard Senator Lincoln say this same thing during a lobby visit several months back and assumed she was just rambling. Nope, apparently she really is so clueless that decided to make this idiocy one of her main talking points on the Employee Free Choice Act.

And aside from the mind blowing stupidity of that comment, there's nothing like a LAWMAKER deciding that she isn't in the business of MAKING LAWS. With firm convictions like this, how can she lose?

Labor Day

As Tom Morrello reminded me yesterday, it's also important to remember that we celebrate labor day in September because Grover Cleveland was worried a holiday in May would rile up people's emotions about the Haymarket Massacre.

It's also worth noting that the Haymarket riot started as one of many nationwide rallies in support of super radical and anti-business 8 hour work day.

Got Bashing Unions on the Mind, David?

Questions related to unions from a 20 minute segment on this Sunday's Meet the Press:(via Media Matters)

GREGORY: The legacy costs, meaning all of the costs associated with union employees, part of the United Auto Workers, is just a huge issue for General Motors. The government report indicates that in order to pay those retired auto workers, GM has to produce an extra 900,000 cars every year. What is the message to the union now? Doesn't it have to be "those days are over"?

[...]

GREGORY: Well, let's talk about how you can do more. How many union jobs are there in a typical factory for General Motors that have nothing to do with producing an automobile?

[...]

GREGORY: But in some factories, you have a shop steward who's responsible for appointing -- whether it's a civil rights chief or an education person -- these are all union jobs that don't have anything to do with producing the car.

[...]

GREGORY: You have told health-care managers and executives over 65 that they no longer get health-care benefits. They have to revert at that point to Medicare. Is it time for union workers to accept that same limit?

[...]

GREGORY: But do you think that's the kind of cut that the union should have to accept?

[...]

GREGORY: Do you really expect this president, given how strongly supported he is by the unions, do you really expect him to take a step that would hurt the unions?

Questions about GM's refusal to make fuel efficient or environmentally friendly cars, and the role that played in the company's downfall?

Follow up question on why CEO Fritz Henderson feels comfortable taking a 1.3 Million dollar salary at a company about to go bankrupt?

Heckuva job, David!

Heckuva Job, Arlen!

And just like that... the fight to pass for the Employee Free Choice Act just got exponentially more difficult:

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) just dealt a big blow to the labor movement by announcing publicly that he would support a GOP filibuster of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), unions' No. 1 priority for this year and a subject of intense lobbying on both sides of the aisle.

"My vote on this bill is very difficult for many reasons," Specter said in a Senate floor speech, minutes after the news was broken by the Washington Independent. "It is very hard to disappoint many friends ... who are urging me to vote their way."

But Specter affirmed that he would join his fellow Republicans to block cloture on EFCA, effectively dooming the union-organizing bill's chances of becoming law in its current form. The Pennsylvania senator, who faces a tough re-election challenge from the right, was the only GOPer to support breaking his party's filibuster on EFCA when it last came up for a vote two years ago.

The evolution of Specter's positions on the bill are just about as openly politically calculated as you can get. Specter was a Cosponsor of the bill who voted for cloture when the it came up in 2007. Since Specter is a Republican, he faced immense pressure to switch sides on the matter, and yesterday he finally caved, just about ending all hopes of the bill's passage.

The only (and I mean ONLY) positive to take from this, was that while he thought he was pulling some sort of cunning political move, voting no on EFCA should end Specter's career as Senator in 2010. Specter won his primary in 2004 by 2 points over his ultra conservative challenger, Club for Growth president Pat Toomey. Well, Toomey's running again in 2010, and Specter is less popular now than he ever was among Pennsylvania Republicans. A poll released the same day as the EFCA announcement(amazing coincidence!) showed incumbent senator trailing Toomey by 14 points. But if Specter was foolish enough to think that screwing over his state's workers at the last minute would be enough to save him, he's got another thing coming:

Conservative groups and politicians, far from won over by Specter’s announcement, continue to hammer away at the embattled Senator, suggesting that his abrupt move on EFCA will do little or nothing to reduce his vulnerability to a primary challenge from the right.

For instance, Specter’s announcement drew only mockery and scorn from former GOP Rep. Ernest Istook, the chair of the anti-EFCA group Save Our Secret Ballot.

“Specter enjoys being the center of attention,” Istook said. “There has probably been more money spent to influence his vote on this issue than on any other vote, from any other senator, at any other time. He wants to continue enjoying the attention and the fundraising opportunity.”

Doug Stafford of the anti-EFCA National Right to Work Committee added in a statement that Specter’s move should be “viewed with some skepticism,” adding that other labor-oriented proposals championed by Specter remain “totally unacceptable” and will enable “Big Labor to corral more workers into forced unionism.”

Specter’s potential primary challenger, Club for Growth president Pat Toomey, has kept up the attacks, blasting Specter’s vote for the “big government stimulus bill” and dismissing Specter’s opposition to EFCA as merely the result of “a threat in the Republican primary.”

It's not like this was Specter's only choice. He could have backed Employee Free Choice, run as an independent with Labor's support and easily won re-election. Instead he chose to screw over the working class, and then be unceremoniously dumped on his ass by the people he was desperately trying to appease. Karmic Justice, I guess.

Which Side Are You On?

Hope you like primaries!

The battle begins: We now have our first Congressional Democrat who has openly confirmed that he’ll vote against the Employee Free Choice Act — and the Service Employees International Union is blasting him for it and vowing a public campaign against him.

This is significant — it’s a harbinger of the intramural wars that lie ahead and an indication of what the big unions will do to discourage moderate Dems from breaking ranks and opposing the measure, which is labor’s top priority.

If a politician won't back the Employee Free Choice Act, then they should not receive union support, under any circumstances. Good to get this message out early as possible to other blue dogs/jackasses in the senate.

If you're a Democrat and you don't support the Employee Free Choice Act, you get a primary.

Seems like a plan to me.