Labor Union Blog

In a nationwide mail ballot completed yesterday, members of the Screen Actors (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) overwhelmingly approved new three-year contracts with the advertising industry. The new agreements cover performers working in commercials made for and reused on TV, radio, the Internet and new media.

The unions estimate the contract will raise members’ earnings by more than $108 million over the three-year agreement. The deal also establishes a first-ever payment structure in commercials for the Internet and new media. The new payment structure goes into effect in the third year of the contract.

SAG President Alan Rosenberg said:

I am pleased that SAG and AFTRA were able to work together to reach an agreement that will benefit actors who work in the advertising industry.

The pact with the Association of National Advertisers and the American Association of Advertising Agencies goes into effect retroactively to April 1, 2009, and expires March 31, 2012.

AFTRA President Roberta Reardon said:

These new agreements provide significant increases in payments to working performers now—a major achievement in a severely depressed global economy—and the contracts will guarantee our continued participation in this important area of work as it evolves in response to consumer tastes and trends affected by the changing landscape of digital technology.

The tentative agreement was reached March 31, and ballots were mailed to members on April 30.

Sue-Anne Morrow, SAG chairwoman of the SAG-AFTRA Joint Commercials Negotiating Committee, says the contract shows that SAG and AFTRA members “have enormous power when we negotiate jointly and it put us in a great position from day one.”

Achieving a minimum for ads made for the Internet and new media was a huge win. It was time to insist that actors be paid fairly for their exposure in these developing areas and members clearly approved through their overwhelming votes to ratify.

A new U.S. Senate resolution demands that a public health insurance option be included in health care reform legislation now being developed behind closed doors in the Senate Finance Committee.

A public insurance plan option for workers and families who either have private insurance coverage or no coverage at all is one of the AFL-CIO’s key health care reform principles. It has been vigorously attacked by the private insurance industry and most congressional Republicans.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), along with 27 co-sponsors, introduced the resolution yesterday. The resolution says such a plan would allow

those Americans who have become unemployed, live in rural and other traditionally underserved areas, or have been unable to attain affordable health insurance would benefit from consumer choice.

The Senate resolution follows calls last month from four prominent House caucuses to include a public plan option in health care reform legislation. In a letter to President Obama and Senate and House leadership, the leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Black Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus and the Asian Pacific American Caucus wrote:

Our support for enacting legislation this year to guarantee affordable health care for all firmly hinges on the inclusion of a robust public health insurance plan like Medicare.

Tell us what you think should be included in comprehensive health care reform. Take the 2009 Health Care for America Survey. The survey gives you the opportunity to make your voice heard and help shape health care reform to meet the needs of working families.

The U.S. Congress took a step forward toward a national policy that helps clean up the environment and create good green jobs, but there is still work to do, union leaders say today.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act, which passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday, would set a national ceiling on greenhouse gas emissions and let polluting industries buy and sell credits to meet it. This “cap-and-trade” system would limit harmful human-generated emissions and, hopefully, speed up development of renewable energy sources, create green jobs and help reduce our dependence on oil.

 AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says the bill, as currently marked up, “makes significant, job-creating investments, while attempting to minimize impacts on existing workers.”

 The AFL-CIO supports cap-and-trade legislation that takes a balanced approach towards an economy wide-program and prevents foreign competitors from getting advantages over American companies. 

But at the same time, Sweeney called on Congress to continue to improve the bill:

Congress should continue to improve the legislation. We recommend that the Energy Information Administration (EIA) do a full economic analysis before the bill is voted on and make the results available to members and the public.

Addressing the issues of climate change and energy policy is of immense importance.  We must do it properly to prevent harmful effects on America’s workers.  

Mine Workers (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts praised the bill for recognizing the key role that coal mining can play in the nation’s energy future. 

Coal is America’s most abundant energy resource. We have more coal than any nation on earth. As the debate over climate change has evolved over the past two decades, we have not only insisted on the preservation of coal mining jobs, but argued as well for the essential part that coal plays in sustaining our national economy and ensuring our independence from foreign oil.

Meanwhile, Blue Green Alliance Executive Director David Foster calls the bill, introduced by Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.), “a positive step toward ensuring that the U.S. addresses its climate and energy challenges while shifting to a clean energy economy that provides good jobs in green manufacturing and skilled construction trades.”

By tackling these challenges together, we can make job creation and environmental integrity the two keys to our country’s future prosperity.

The Blue Green Alliance is a national partnership between labor unions and environmental organizations dedicated to expanding the number and quality of green jobs in the United States.

As part of the national campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act, the AFL-CIO’s Stewart Acuff has been traveling the country to get out the message and help unions mobilize. On his recent trip to Indiana, he got a chance to debate with one of the bill’s most prominent opponents—Randel Johnson, a vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—at the Indiana University law school. It was a great opportunity to explain why we need new law to protect workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain.

Acuff tells the powerful story of rising worker productivity that hasn’t been matched by improvements in wages. Instead, workers face rising heath care costs and economic insecurity, which have led to unsustainable debt, the collapse of purchasing power and, ultimately, the current economic crisis. What happened, Acuff asks, to cause this imbalance?

There has been a systematic, strategic assault on workers, on unions and on the freedom to form unions and bargain collectively. We’re the only democracy in the world today where workers do not have the fundamental freedom to form unions and bargain collectively.

They have the freedom, guaranteed in the law, if they’re willing to risk their car, their house, their livelihood and their job. Last year more than 29,000 workers were retaliated against or fired for trying to exercise that legally protected union activity. Our law has no teeth: 40 percent of all the workers who jump through all the hoops to form a union will never get a first contract, will never get the fruit of collective bargaining.

Union members in Milwaukee rally for Employee Free Choice.

Acuff vividly describes how this dynamic has kept workers from achieving a better life for themselves, their families and their communities, and why we need the Employee Free Choice Act to turn the economy around and let workers get a fair share of the prosperity they create. You can watch the whole debate online. Check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 as well as the question-and-answer sessions 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Workers’ freedom to form unions continues to receive strong support from a broad array of allies, including small business owners, civil rights activists and scholars in the academic community. In The Missoulian, University of Montana assistant professor Daisy Rooks writes a great op-ed about why she supports Employee Free Choice. Rooks recognizes the decline of the ability to form unions, and the inadequacy of current law to protect workers, and notes:

I see this as problematic not only because it has contributed to the decline of the middle class, but because it has left many workers without a real voice at work, which studies show is just as important to workers as wages and benefits.

Many workers, knowing that the law will not protect them and that the employer holds all the power in the workplace, decide not to risk asserting their collective voice. This is a tragedy for workers who want to work together to raise their wages, better their working conditions and improve their company. But it is also a tragedy for American democracy.

James Nelson, a small business owner in Louisiana, agrees that Employee Free Choice is critical to a strong, fair economy:

The simple fact is that folks need to have a choice. If they decide that there’s a majority that wants to create a union, I think they should be able to do so without being harassed. A lot of people talk about how it’s going to affect the economy, but what I believe is that if people are making more money, they’re going spend more money. The Employee Free Choice Act will give people an opportunity to better themselves, to have a better job with better pay.

So far, more than 17,000 people have taken the AFL-CIO’s 2009 Health Care for America Survey and nearly 5,000 have told us their personal stories of struggles with the nation’s broken health care system. There’s still time for you to take the survey and tell your story.

Meanwhile, there are new developments in the fight to win health care reform—or, in the case of corporate health care interests and their allies, defeat health care reform.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wants the U.S. Department of Justice to launch an anti-trust investigation into the health insurance industry.

• “Harry and Louise”—the health insurance ad campaign against health care reform in the 1990s—may be reborn in North Carolina.
• Robert Borosage warns that health insurers and “Big Pharma” are ready “to scare the hell out of Americans.”
• The Alliance for Retired Americans says don’t forget Medicare in the reform debate.
• Union Plus has a new program to help working families faced with big hospital bills.

Now, here are a few voices from the Health Care for America Survey.

In Illinois, Geri writes at our health care survey that after her husband lost his job, and just days before his COBRA coverage was exhausted, he was diagnosed with cancer and the couple was forced to find private insurance to cover the treatment costs when the COBRA coverage ran out.

We had several applications in for private health care for us and our high school son. Even before the cancer diagnosis, we were denied coverage by several companies because we both were taking high blood pressure and cholesterol medication. Once he was diagnosed with cancer, it was impossible to get insurance. We finally got state coverage for us at a cost of over $1,800 per month. Who can afford that when you are unemployed and have cancer?

In Minnesota, Scott and his family are paying for their own health insurance and he tells the Health Care for America Survey that it’s eating a bigger and bigger and bigger chunk of his income.

I currently pay over $800 per month for health care coverage…with $4,000 out of pocket. My wife and daughter both required surgery last year. With premiums and out of pocket, we spent $14,000 plus last year on health care. This is roughly a third of my yearly salary. Wow, three kids need to eat and be clothed but times get tight and credit cards go up because of the huge amounts of dollars I spend on health care.

Breast cancer survivor, Jean, from Texas, was forced pick up much of her treatment bill herself, even though she had health insurance.

The breast cancer was not so traumatic as was the cost NOT paid by the insurance company. People with cancer should not have to worry about cost while trying to stay alive!!! I have never met another cancer survivor who planned on getting cancer but the way the insurance company treats you, as if you planned it.

The experiences of Jean, Scott and Geri show the strangle—hold that private, for-profit health insurance companies have on health care. Schumer and Health Care for America Now! (HCAN) say it’s time for the Justice Department to investigate. A new HCAN report ”shows a startling and consistent absence of competition as the industry consolidates with more mergers and acquisitions>’

Americans pay for this consolidation in the form of higher health plan premiums, surging insurance company profits, and a growing number of uninsured people.

Says Schumer:

The private health care insurance market is in bad need of some healthy competition. A public health insurance option is critical to ensure the greatest amount of choice possible for consumers … If a level playing field exists, then private insurers will have to compete based on quality of care and pricing, instead of just competing for the healthiest consumers.

Click here to read HCAN’s letter to the Justice Department requesting an investigation into the mergers, acquisitions and “the resulting anti-competitive behavior.”

The Washington Post reports that in the spirit of “Harry and Louise”—the phony couple created by the health insurance industry to spread lies and fear to help defeat health care reform in the 1990s—is set to reappear in North Carolina. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina are set to launch a similar misinformation campaign. The main goal? Defeat public insurance plan option. The storyboards paint pictures of months-long waits for care, rationing and other horror stories.

Robert Borosage says that’s all part of the health care industry’s long-time effort to defeat heath care reform and

…scare the hell out of Americans by decrying a “government take over of health care.”

Borosage, president of the Campaign for America’s Future, writes on the group’s blog that the health care industry also has a new tactic-lulling us into believing the industry wants reform. At a recent White House meeting with President Obama, insurers pledged to “do their part” for reform and shave some $2 trillion in health care costs.

This bolstered their argument that while regulation might be in order, we don’t need a public plan like Medicare to provide a choice for businesses and individuals. Give us time to fulfill our promises (and for this reform moment to pass), they argue. If we fail, then consider a public plan (when the president may be less popular and the Congress more conservative).

With Congress heading back home today for its week-long Memorial Day recess, the Alliance for Retired Americans will make sure health care reform stays on lawmakers’ radar. Says Alliance President Barbara J. Easterling:

During next week’s congressional recess, we will be organizing grassroots meetings back home with lawmakers. A recent study found that a 65-year-old couple retiring in 2009 will need $240,000 to cover their health care costs. When you think about all the big companies doing away with retiree health care and the limits on what Medicare provides it makes you very anxious about the future. And what about our children and grandchildren? That is why the national health care debate is so important to retirees.

She called on Congress to allow uninsured 55-64 year-olds to buy into Medicare, reduce the cost of prescription drugs by allowing Medicare to negotiate volume discounts with drug makers and end taxpayer subsidies for the failed Bush-era Medicare privatization experiment, Medicare Advantage.

On the good news front, union members facing steep hospital bills now have a helping hand from Union Plus’s just-announced new program providing a $1,000 Hospital Care Grant to help union families who are saddled with steep hospital bills. The grant, which never needs to be re-paid, helps union families get a handle on household bills and gain some much-needed peace of mind.

The Hospital Care Grants are part of a new $3 million safety net initiative introduced this year by Union Plus to assist union members facing financial hardship during the recession. For information on the grants click here and for more on Union SAFE, click here.