Labor Union Blog

The longer that congressional Republicans roadblock health care reform, the more it is going cost the American people–and the bigger the bite health care costs will take out of a reeling economy. 

A new poll by Buck Consultants shows that costs for all type of plans–from PPO’s to high deductible plans–will jump by 10 percent to 11 percent this year. As the health care blog, Health Populi writes:

The double-digit cost increases that Buck Consultants expect are over twice the rate of general inflation in the U.S. expected in 2010. Thus, the marketplace isn’t nearly moderating health costs on its own without the influence of health reform.

Buck Consultant’s 21st National Health Care Trend Survey was conducted  among 108 insurance organizations in the second half of 2009. Plans included Aetna, CIGNA, Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans, Kaiser Permanente, United HealthCare, and other plans. The plans surveyed represent 78.2 million covered consumers.

Diabetes is a growing global epidemic, yet one of the earliest ways to detect diabetes can be excluded by some states under Medicaid. Jesse Russell reports:

Podiatry is defined as an optional service under Medicaid. Due to the omission podiatrists have been pushing Congress to make sure the profession is covered under any health care bill that might make it to the President’s desk. Dr. John Mattiacci is Temple University’s Dean of the School of Podiatry. He explains that podiatrists are often the first line of detecting the early onset of diabetes.

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By Doug Cunningham

For going on six months now a small group of Staten Island tugboat workers have been on strike in New York. The main issue is manning of the boast – the Kosnac company wants fewer workers on the tugs, the union says smaller crews aren’t enough to do the work and makes the work more dangerous. Bill Harrigan is President of Local 333 of the international Longshoremen’s Association. He says a tugboat worker was recently killed on the job doing a task that should have used two workers.

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By Doug Cunningham

In Washington D.C., a local employment stimulus bill was introduced in the D.C. city council Tuesday. The DC Employment Act would require government-assisted projects to hire a substantial number of D.C. residents. It’s backed by the construction trade unions and could pass as soon as April. Jim Lowery is Business Agent with International Union of Elevator Constructors Local 10.

[Lowery]: “We’re trin’ to get a project labor agreement for everything being built with D.C. money to try to get some of the D.C. residents to work. There’s a large unemployment in Washington.”

As Congress considers new jobs legislation, a new poll shows a large majority of the public supports the basic provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  

The latest CNN poll, taken in mid-January, shows four of five Americans (80 percent) favor government spending on roads and bridges, and 83 percent approve of aid to unemployed workers. Seven in 10 support the idea of spending some of the stimulus money on tax cuts, and 62 percent think it’s a good idea to increase spending on mass transit projects. Check out the poll results here.

And there is growing evidence that the stimulus strategy is working. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the administration’s economic stimulus program created nearly 600,000 jobs in the past three months of 2009.

Many of those jobs were created as workers were hired to rebuild our nation’s infrastructure and work on jobs that need to be done, both key elements in the AFL-CIO’s five-point plan to create jobs.

The Obama administration also has adopted another of the AFL-CIO proposals: to create jobs by using some of the remaining bank rescue money to help community and local banks lend to small businesses on Main Street.   

Traveling in New Hampshire today to push his campaign for more jobs, President Obama announced a proposal to use $30 billion in funds from the bank bailout program, the Toxic Assets Relief Program (TARP), for small businesses. The proposal would use some remaining TARP money to invest in community banks to encourage them to lend to small businesses.

Workers across the nation understand the need to create jobs and are rallying behind the AFL-CIO plan. Says Christie Brady, a member of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 934 in Kingsport, Tenn. (see video above):

It’s been a very devastating turn of events for a lot of people here in Tennessee [with] plant closings and everyone who has been affected by the closings….We need to get more jobs brought back here for our people.  

While the stimulus package seems to be working, it is not enough alone, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said. Speaking on “Bill Moyers Journal” recently, Trumka said there is a lot of anger and frustration in the country and the best way to address that anger is a jobs bill.

We lost 8 million jobs, plus we have 2 million that we needed for growth. So, we’re 10 million jobs in the hole. In order to do that, it’s going to take more than a little stimulus package or a little jobs bill.

Yesterday, President Obama released the details of his fiscal year 2011 budget. To help pay for the job-creation programs to put Americans back to work, Obama proposes ending the Bush tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.

We extend middle-class tax cuts in this budget, we will not continue costly tax cuts for oil companies, investment fund managers, and those making over $250,000 a year. We just can’t afford it.

The budget also includes a new initiative to crack down on businesses that misclassify their employees as independent contractors in order to evade their responsibilities as employers—also known as evading taxes, among other dodges employers get away with as part of their independent contractor scam.

It’s only fair, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:

Wall Street and the super rich—who have benefited for years from the Bush economic policies—should pay their far share of the bill to rebuild the economy that they destroyed.

Click here to read his entire statement on the budget.

Darn shame those firms and folks perched high up on the economic ladder might have to pitch in a bit to help the rest of us struggling to keep a grip on the middle-class rungs.

Here’s some budget reaction from other union leaders.

Fire Fighters (IAFF) President Harold Schaitberger says the funds proposed for several grant programs that help communities and states to provide adequate fire and emergency rescue and response staffing, “stands in sharp contrast to the previous administration, which proposed zero funding,” and even tried to kill one of the central programs. Click here for more.

The budget goes a long way to take care of the nation’s retires with increased staffing at the Social Security Administration and a boost in funding at the Veterans Affairs says AFGE President John Gage. On veterans, Gage says:

With an increase in funding of 20 percent since 2009, and with advanced appropriations, the 2011 budget honors veterans by fortifying the world-class medical care they deserve.

While commending the increase in funding as ”essential and necessary for strengthening of our nation’s regulatory agencies,” including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Gage says the proposed 2011 1.4 percent federal pay raise “will do nothing to close the remaining pay gap between federal and non-federal salaries.” Click here to read his entire statement.

The union-environmental coalition, the Blue Green Alliance, says the budget “lays the foundation” for transitioning to a “clean economy that will put Americans back to work.” The group’s Executive Director David Foster says:

This budget includes investments in green jobs training, weatherization and retrofit programs to expand energy efficiency, greater deployment of broadband, smart-grid technologies, high-speed rail and transit, as well as expansion of the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit, all of which are crucial to establishing the United States as a global leader in clean energy technologies. The U.S. cannot afford to sit on the sidelines as other countries take the lead in the race for clean energy jobs.

Some 540 workers were locked out of the giant Rio Tinto Borax mine in Boron, Calif., Jan. 31 after the workers, members of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 30, unanimously rejected the company’s latest contract offer. The company shut off further contract talks and brought in replacement workers.

The mine is the largest open-pit mine in the Golden State and the second largest borax mine in the world. Many of the town’s 2,000 residents work at the mine, which has been a key contributor to the town’s economy.

Jim Freeman, a 31-year veteran at the mine, told the Los Angeles Times.

I think the company had the impression we were going to roll over and let them feed us the poison.

London-based Rio Tinto employs some 720 people in Boron, paying between $12 and $35 an hour, according to the union. The mining giant operates on five continents and reported $2.5 billion in net earnings for the first half of 2009.

Yet Rio Tinto, which says it lost 25 percent of its share of the global borax market, is demanding the right to hire more nonunion workers and to change the seniority system.

On the local’s website, workers say they are determined to fight for their rights and the rights of working people.

While Rio Tinto has shown that they don’t care for us and our communities, we’re more determined than ever to stand up and see this thing through. Too many people in America are losing good jobs and working harder, while big companies make billions and don’t play by the rules. That’s why we’re taking a stand in Boron, not just for ourselves and our communities, but for everyone in America who’s fed up with corporate greed and a system that doesn’t protect hard-working families.

Union spokesman Craig Merrilees says:

Rio Tinto wants to take good full-time jobs and replace them with part-time, temporary positions that pay little or no benefits, and make it impossible for working families to survive.

People here are tough and willing to see this through to the end. It’s not just about Rio Tinto but all the companies doing this to people across the country. In this little town people are drawing the line.