Labor Union Blog

With the nation’s economy sinking deeper and deeper into recession and more and more workers losing their jobs, Senate Republicans are playing a partisan game of ideological chicken over President Obama’s economic recovery package. They appear to be saying, “Give us even greater tax cuts for big business and millionaires, or we will do all we can to kill this bill.”

Says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in a statement this afternoon:

Hardworking families across America are losing their jobs, their health care, their homes and their pensions. They desperately need an economic recovery plan that directly and quickly stimulates the economy—not a continuation of the failed policies of the past that gave tax cuts to millionaires. The future of our nation’s middle class isn’t a blue issue or red issue—it’s a jobs issue, plain and simple, and we need more of them fast.

It is time for those who are attempting to obstruct real change to step beyond ideology and partisanship and to think about the families and communities that need help now.

Senate debate on the bill is expected to last for several more days as Republicans offer a series of amendments that not surprisingly reflect the same failed polices that drove the economy into its steepest decline since the Depression—policies that voters soundly rejected in November.

Says Sweeney:

This past election offered voters a clear choice. President Obama strongly advocated a new direction that would help working families, including creating jobs with direct spending to repair our crumbling infrastructure, producing green jobs while addressing climate change and providing universal health care.

Voters overwhelmingly chose Obama and voted for policies that will help working people, create jobs and rebuild the middle class. They rejected special favors for moneyed interests and tax breaks for multinational corporations—and the Senate should, too.

The House passed its version of the recovery package last week.

Our continuing series examining health care reform proposals, issues, opinions and surveys today takes a look at what the public thinks about the private insurance industry.

And it’s not good news for the big for-profit corporations that are doing their darndest to roadblock meaningful reform. Two recent polls show the public is not buying what the private insurance industry is peddling.

The AFL-CIO has not endorsed a specific plan but has established certain principles around which any plan should be built (click here for more details). One of the key elements must be a public health insurance plan option—such as the one President Obama is proposing as an alternative to private insurance. The insurance companies and right-wingers have teamed up to try to kill such a plan and convince the public it would drive up their costs, limit coverage and leave millions uninsured.

A large majority of those surveyed told Lake Research Partners that a public health insurance plan option might just be the medicine needed to shape up the private, for-profit insurance industry and improve its performance.

The Lake survey found:

• 62 percent of respondents believe a public health insurance plan option would spend less on profits and administration and force private insurers to compete. But only 28 percent believe the insurance industry’s claim that such a plan would be a “big, government bureaucracy.”

• 60 percent believe that if private insurers are really more efficient than government, as they claim, then they wouldn’t have any trouble competing with a public health insurance plan option. Only 23 percent buy the industry’s assertion that a public health insurance option would have an unfair advantage over private plans.

• Only 27 percent believe the claim that a public health insurance option will cause millions of people to be dumped from their private coverage, and just 26 percent believe such a plan will force people into lower-quality care, including rationing and long waits.

Meanwhile, a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health shows most people say it’s time for the government to tighten up the rules on how private health insurance companies do business.

One of the major complaints working families have expressed about the private insurance industry is its nearly universal refusal to cover anyone with a “pre-existing condition.” But the Kaiser/Harvard survey found that 72 percent of respondents favor requiring insurance companies to cover those with prior illnesses, even if it means healthier customers have to pay higher premiums.

Also, 65 percent are in favor of a government rule limiting insurance companies’ administrative costs, while 62 percent say the government should cap insurance company profits.

The Kaiser/Harvard findings show that the private, for-profit insurance industry’s years-long campaign to paint a government role in health care reform as a deadly intrusion on the sacred and “efficient” free market—remember “Harry and Louise”—isn’t working like it used to.

The public once may have bought that argument against government regulation, but the tide is turning. A majority, 51 percent, say there is too little government regulation of health care costs, twice as many as say there is too much government regulation. You can bet there will be a ferocious campaign by the private insurance companies and big health care corporations to fight any regulation of costs. We’ve got a lot of work to do to counter that.

Click here to read what a group of small business owners have to say about a public insurance plan option as part of health care reform. Click here to take a look at proposals by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) calling for a single-payer system and recommendations from Health CEOs for Health Reform.

Click here to read about University of California professor Jacob Hacker’s call for creation of a public health care insurance plan as an option for workers and families who either have private insurance coverage or no coverage at all.

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lia href =http://www.laborradio.org/node/10428Workers To Deliver 1.5 Million Employee Free Choice Act Petition Signaturesa//li
lia href =http://www.laborradio.org/node/10429More Buyout Offers For 91,000 UAW Members At Chrysler And GMa//li
lia href =http://www.laborradio.org/node/10430United Steel Workers Reach Tentative National Oil Pattern Agreementa//li
lia href =http://www.laborradio.org/node/10431New York Implements More Strict Lay-Offs And Plant-Closing Lawa//li
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pIn New York, businesses with 50 or more full-time workers will have to give 90 days notice if they plan to make mass-layoffs, close plants, or relocate. The new law went into effect on February 1 making New York’s law stricter than the federal law which requires 60 days notice. The federal law only affects businesses with 100 or more full time employees. The New York State Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act one of the strictest employment notification laws in the country. Employers who violate the law can fined $500 a day and forced to by back pay and benefits./p

pBy Doug Cunningham/p
pThe United Steel Workers union reached a tentative agreement that sets the national pattern for 30,000 USW-represented oil workers. USW President Leo Gerard says the union withdrew proposals on process safety because the oil companies weren’t willing to work with the union on safety. No details on the tentative agreement were released, pending review by USW members./p

pTens of thousands of UAW members will be presented buyout options from two of the big three U.S. automakers. Jesse Russell reports:/p
pAutomotive News reported Monday that two U.S. automakers are offering new incentives to employees in an attempt to reduce labor costs. GM is offering $20,000 in cash and a $25,000 new vehicle voucher to employees who are willing to quit. GM will also likely offer early retirement to workers with 10 years of service over the age of 50. Chrysler is also considering options to buyout employees. The offer could likely include a cash buyout offer of $50,000 and a $25,000 vehicle voucher for eligible retirees and a $75,000 cash buyout for workers not eligible for retirement./p

pBy Doug Cunningham/p
pWorkers and their unions on Capitol Hill today are delivering 1.5 million petition signatures in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. The labor law reform would make it easier for workers to choose to form or join unions free of employer intimidation. Josh Goldstein is with American Rights At Work. /p
p[Josh Goldstein]: “Voters spoke on November 4th for change and for change for America’s workers. The Employee Free Choici Act is part of that. Now we have a president and vice-president who not only support the legislation but while they were senators were co-sponsors of the bill in the Senate. And we have larger majorities in both the House and Senate who support the legislation.”/p