Labor Union Blog

Following two days of intense negotiations at the White House, union leaders believe they are on the verge of winning significant improvements for working families in the pending health care reform legislation. 

In a conference call this afternoon with leaders from AFL-CIO unions, Change to Win unions and the National Education Association (NEA), AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told reporters the final health care bill he expects to emerge is ”a milestone.” 

“We’ve been fighting for health care for over 60 years, and we are on the threshold of a significant achievement….But we don’t look at this as the end of the fight, but another step in the quest for real reform.” 

The discussions with the White House envision major changes for all working families in the excise tax that the Senate bill imposes on high-cost health care plans, including: 

• Raising the threshold at which family plans are taxed from $23,000 to $24,000 in 2013 for all working families, with annual increases of Consumer Price Index plus one. The threshold for single plans will be $8,900. (Taft Hartley plans will be considered at the family rate.)
•  Raising the threshold on plans further if health care costs grow faster than expected from 2010-2013.
•  Exempting dental and vision costs beginning in 2015, which could raise the threshold as much as $2,000.
•  Raising the threshold for plans that have significant numbers of women and/or older workers.
•  Preserving the original Senate proposal to raise the threshold for plans with workers in high-risk professions, affecting more than 9 million workers.
• Preserving the original Senate proposal that would raise the threshold for plans with retirees age 55 and up.
• Providing transitional relief for employers and workers to adjust to the tax.
• Temporarily raising the threshold for high-cost states, affecting more than 38 million workers. 
• Providing a five-year transition window for state and local employee plans and plans negotiated through collective bargaining agreements before they are subject to the tax, as typically is done when federal laws affecting workers are enacted so that agreements will not have to be renegotiated. 
• The ability for bargaining plans to go into the exchange in 2017.

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said: 

The progress we’ve made bolsters our belief that a nation as great as America can provide health care reform without unfairly penalizing our working families in the process. 

There are several other areas still to be resolved before a final bill is achieved, including employer responsibility to pay a fair share of health care costs. As Trumka said today: 

We’ve seen tremendous progress over last couple of days, but we are continuing the fight to increase our priorities in the health care reform bill.

Lede: A new government-wide union coalition formed this week will advocate for federal workers. Doug Cunningham has more on the story.

By Doug Cunningham

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After striking a deal with the White House and congressional Democrats regarding a reduced excise tax in the health care bill, labor leaders held a conference call to express their support. AFL-CIO Richard Trumka ran the call and he said the union mothership would be willing to put its weight behind the health care bill, but he acknowledged the fight isn’t over:

[Trumka:] A long fight, not over yet, but we’ll continue to encourage Democrats in the House and Senate to support a bill that makes quality healthcare more affordable and more accessible for all working people.

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The AFL-CIO is calling for the United States and the entire international community, including the global union movement, to “do our utmost to aid our Haitian sisters and brothers in their moment of extraordinary need.”

You can help Haitian workers in distress by donating to the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center’s Earthquake Relief for Haitian Workers’ Campaign. Click here to make a donation and here to learn more about how the center is working to help Haitian workers. (More donation options below.)

In a joint statement, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler and AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker called on Congress to grant humanitarian relief in the form of temporary protected status to Haitians who are in the United States.

It would be inhumane to send people back to a country utterly incapable of taking care of its own population. 

Read the entire statetment here.

The Solidarity Center is sending a delegation of Haitian labor activists living in the Dominican Republic to Port-au-Prince to assess the situation. The center also is working with unions in the Dominican Republic to establish a donation center with nonperishable goods that will be shipped to their Haitian trade union counterparts. 

The three AFL-CIO leaders urged the union family to provide in-kind assistance to the relief effort. Unions have been called to support and assist the Haitians as we wrote about here, and we will update union actions as we hear about them. Most recently:

• Members of the AFL-CIO Maritime Trades Department unions are crewing ships, including the USNS Comfort that will provide aid.
• The South Florida AFL-CIO is collecting donations of water, nonperishable food items, cleaning supplies and over-the-counter medications to ship to Haiti. The collections are being accepted at the Longshoremen (ILA) Local 1416 union hall at 816 N.W. 2nd Ave. in Miami. The labor council has secured a ship and is looking for volunteers to load containers of the donated goods for shipment. Volunteers should call 305-593-8886. You can send monetary donations made out to Catholic Charities or Operation Helping Hands and send or drop them off at the South Florida AFL-CIO, 2500 N.W. 97th Ave., Suite 201, Miami, FL 33172.

 To learn about what some other unions are doing to provide aid to Haiti, click here.

 Donations also may be made to:

•  Partners in Health: www.pih.org/inforesources/news/Haiti_Earthquake.html or send your contribution to Partners In Health, P.O. Box 845578, Boston, MA 02284-5578.
• Doctors Without Borders: www.doctorswithoutborders.org or call toll free at 1-888-392-0392. USA Headquarters 333 7th Ave., 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10001-5004. 
• American Red Cross International Response Fund: www.redcross.org/org or call toll free at 1-800-REDCROSS or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish). Contributions also can be mailed to American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013 or to your local American Red Cross chapter (specify if you want to make sure your donation will benefit Haiti).
• RN Response Network: www.NationalNursesUnited.org.
• United Way Worldwide Disaster Fund: https://volunteer.united-e-way.org/uwwwdisaster/donate/ or mail checks with the fund reference to United Way Worldwide, P.O. Box 630568, Baltimore, MD 21263-0568.

Those interested in providing volunteer assistance should contact the Center for International Disaster Information, at http://www.cidi.org/.

The National Labor College (NLC) today announced plans to enhance its online education service to bring high-quality degree programs to union members and their families.

Tentatively named the College for Working Families, the program will combine the advantages of online learning with the resources of unions to provide programs specifically suited to the needs and interests of union members. Working adults will be able to build on their prior training and experience through the program.

 AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who chairs the National Labor College Board of Trustees, also announced the selection of The Princeton Review Inc. and its subsidiary, Penn Foster Education Group, as the college’s partners to create the College for Working Families.

Says Trumka:

Expanding good jobs is a top priority for the AFL-CIO and to achieve this, workers’ skills and knowledge must match the role of employers in a changing job market. This new online education venture demonstrates our strong commitment to playing a significant role in ensuring that quality education for America’s workers and their families remains affordable and accessible.

Labor College President William Scheuerman says the National Labor College is impressed with Penn Foster’s expertise in providing high-quality student services and support, which is essential to the success of the program.

“It is critical that the American workforce can be successfully educated and retrained without driving tuition costs beyond the point of affordability,” said Michael Perik, president and CEO of The Princeton Review.

We are confident that, through this partnership, we can help ensure that the students who enroll in the College will have a successful learning experience and will contribute in important ways to the growth of the American economy.  

Next week, the U.S. Senate will vote on legislation that a few years down the road could slash Social Security and Medicare benefits without any further debate or consideration by Congress.

The so-called Entitlement Reform Commission is the creation of Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who plan to offer an amendment to create the commission to debt ceiling legislation.

This special appointed commission would supposedly create a blueprint to reduce the deficit by cutting vital government programs, including Social Security and Medicare. But under the Gregg-Conrad scheme, the panel’s recommendation would be “fast tracked” with no amendments allowed, just an up-or-down vote, and that, says the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM), is a process

designed to minimize Congress’ role in making these vital decisions. Or as some might argue, to provide political cover for those decisions.

In a new video, the group says backers of the commission have one goal in mind:

cutting these vital programs beyond what Congress has ever allowed, without a single congressional hearing. Without a full debate on the floor of Congress, no amendments, no give and take.

In a recent Huffington Post column, Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), writes:

Current and near retirees will badly need their Social Security after the Wall Street boys’ machinations destroyed their home equity and retirement accounts. The vast majority of middle-income families will have very little other than Social Security to support them in retirement.

Baker, the NCPSSM and others point out that the Social Security did not contribute to the nation’s current economic woes and has been a lifeline for millions during this crisis. In a letter signed by the AFL-CIO, the Alliance for Retired Americans and more than two dozen other groups, the Leadership Council of Aging Organizations (LCAO) writes:

Social Security is not a part of the deficit problem nor is it part of an “entitlement crisis.” Its cost is projected to consume only 6.2 percent of GDP by 2030 and to remain slightly below that level for 50 more years.

Even as the banking and financial systems threatened to collapse, Social Security continued to provide a reliable economic lifeline to millions of children, disabled workers, retired workers, and spouses (including widowed and divorced spouses) dependent on those benefits. These benefits helped to offset lost earnings and stimulated the economy by maintaining purchasing power.

In December, 30 national groups, including the Campaign for America’s Future and the AFL-CIO, strongly urged Congress to oppose creation of such a commission.

Those supporting this circumvention of the normal process have stated openly the desire to avoid political accountability. Americans—seniors, women, working families, people with disabilities, young adults, children, people of color, veterans, communities of faith and others—expect their elected representatives to be responsible and accountable for shaping such significant, far-reaching legislation.

Read the full statement here. For more information, visit NCPSSM’s blog, Entitled to Know.

U.S. Senate candidate Martha Coakley addresses Massachusetts AFL-CIO members.

Working families in Massachusetts are mobilizing for a huge get-out-the-working family-vote drive for Tuesday’s special U.S. Senate election where Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley is running for the seat left vacant by Sen. Edward Kennedy’s death last year.

As Robert Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, says, “This election has been all about working families.”

Martha Coakley has a proven record of fighting for working families, including vigilantly enforced prevailing wage, overtime, employee misclassification, and independent contractor enforcement laws in order to ensure that an honest day’s work would result in a fair paycheck with real benefits.

Coakley supports the Employee Free Choice Act and rebuilding the nation’s economy with job-creating legislation. But in an echo of the Bush-Cheney era, her opponent Scott Brown strongly opposes the workers’ rights bill, health care reform and believes the answer to the economic crisis is more tax cuts for the wealthy.

Here’s a hard-to-believe fact, but one that shows just how out of touch Brown is. He doesn’t think the recession, the financial meltdown or the housing crisis was caused by failed policies, including Wall Street deregulation. “We had plenty of regulations,” he says.

Kennedy’s widow, Victoria Kennedy, is urging voters to back Coakley,

so we can continue the agenda that Ted made the fight of his life—reforming health care, ensuring equality and justice for all, protecting our seniors and rebuilding our economy so everyone can prosper.

If you live in Massachusetts, or neighboring Connecticut, New Hampshire or Rhode Island, and would like to volunteer at phone banks this weekend, call any of these numbers: 978-766-0705; 508-450-3238; or 781-775-0268.

Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

This Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, more than 400 union activists will remind the nation that without economic justice, King’s vision is unfulfilled. During the annual AFL-CIO King Day celebration in Greensboro, N.C., Jan. 14-18, union members will call on the White House and Congress for meaningful jobs creation policies.

They will discuss the course of the civil rights struggle from two key perspectives. On Jan. 16, participants will honor the four trail-blazing students whose sit-in at the Greensboro Woolworth’s lunch counter 50 years ago ignited a nationwide effort that resulted in the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The next day, Thomas Perez, assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights, will speak on civil rights priorities in 2010.

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker and AFGE President John Gage will address the delegates. Rebecca Blank, undersecretary for economic affairs at the U.S. Commerce Department, will speak about the importance of the 2010 census.  

Community service is a major portion of each year’s celebration, putting into action the union values of collective assistance for those in need. This year, participants will sort and distribute donated goods to local homeless shelters.

A town hall meeting on the jobs crisis Jan. 15 will highlight the need for economic justice, and participants will discuss the AFL-CIO’s five-point plan to save and create millions of jobs in the next year, especially in the nation’s most distressed communities where the population is primarily people of color. Activists will spend much of the day before the town hall meeting in workshops discussing the impact of the jobs crisis on people of color and the potential opportunities in a new green economy.

In addition to the celebration in Greensboro, working Americans around the country will hold roundtables, marches and rallies to remind their lawmakers that King’s vision for the nation included not only civil rights but also an economy that served all Americans—a vision that is far from fulfilled.

The union movement is mobilizing its members to provide assistance and calling for a massive global relief effort. You can help Haitian workers in distress by donating to the Solidarity Center’s Earthquake Relief for Haitian Workers’ Campaign. Click here to make a donation and here to learn more about how the center is working to help Haitian workers.    

The TransAfrica Forum, a longtime ally of the union movement, also suggests donations to two organizations already providing aid on the ground in Haiti: Partners in Health (click here to donate) and Doctors Without Borders (click here). 

Here are what some unions are doing:

• More than 3,400 registered nurses from across the United States responded in less than one day to the call by National Nurses United (NNU) to provide assistance in Haiti. Now the RNs are issuing an urgent appeal for the public to support these efforts with donations of funds to support travel costs and medical supplies on their upcoming emergency nursing mission. Click here to sign up to volunteer or donate or call 1-800-578-8225.
• The United Steelworkers (USW) announced the union will donate $20,000 from the union’s Humanity Fund to assist with emergency aid in Haiti.
• Screen Actors (SAG) President Ken Howard urged SAG members to “give whatever you can to the charity of your preference in support of the Haitian earthquake relief effort.” Numerous SAG members, including Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, have pledged their support to victims of the earthquake. Jolie, 34, has served as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations since 2001.
• The Transport Workers launched a “humanitarian relief effort” to support Haiti and the Haitian people. You can send your donation payable to the TWU Disaster Relief Fund, c/o Transport Workers Union, 1700 Broadway, 2nd Floor, New York, N.Y. 10019, Attn: John O’Donnell.
• Search-and-rescue teams from Fairfax County, Va., and Los Angeles County, Calif., made up of members of Fire Fighters (IAFF) locals 2068 and 1014, are already in Haiti to aid in the rescue efforts. Other teams are likely to follow.
• Many of the employees who will provide direct assistance to the Haitians in the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are AFGE members.

Meanwhile, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has called for a major international mobilization of humanitarian and reconstruction assistance to Haiti. The ITUC says union members from the Dominican Republic, Haiti’s neighbor, are preparing to cross into Haiti to join the emergency assistance effort. Read the ITUC statement here.