Haiti is a scene of unimaginable devastation and human tragedy today.

Please do all you can to help Haitians survive Tuesday’s massive earthquake by donating to one of the service organizations at right.

I know this is a tough time for many of you. But we show our true character by helping those in greater need than ourselves even when it is hard.

Union members and other working family activists are the most giving, selfless people I know.

Can the people of Haiti count on you today?

Thousands of Haitians may have died, and no one knows how many remain trapped in rubble. Haiti, already the poorest nation in this hemisphere, desperately needs medical services, food, water, shelter—everything.

Please do your part by making a donation today to one of the organizations at right. Just click to give.

Thank you for your life-saving generosity.

In solidarity,

Arlene Holt Baker
AFL-CIO Executive Vice President

Don't tax our health care!

The Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders will be having discussions during the next few weeks to iron out differences in the health care reform bills that have been passed by the House and Senate.  

These bills contain many important features that have long been supported by the UAW, including provisions that will:

• Extend affordable health care coverage to most Americans.
• Prohibit abusive practices by insurance companies, such as denying coverage to individuals because of pre-existing conditions.
• Contain health care costs by reforming provider payment and delivery practices, and by establishing exchanges to facilitate cost effective coverage for individuals and small businesses.
• Help employers and Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Associations (VEBAs) continue coverage for pre-Medicare retirees.

The UAW and our progressive allies believe it is critically important that Congress act now to enact health care reform legislation that includes these key provisions.

At the same time, we believe it is essential that health care reform be financed through progressive measures that require employers and wealthy individuals to pay their fair share.  We continue to strongly oppose the dangerous provisions in the Senate bill that would impose an excise tax on health care plans.  This would force many plans to eliminate benefits and increase co-pays and deductibles for working families.

Call Congress Wed., Jan. 13: (877) 323-5246

Please call your representative and senators to send them a loud, clear message that we want Congress to act now to pass health care reform legislation.   But we also want Congress to reject the Senate provision that would impose an excise tax on health care plans.  

You can use the following toll-free number to place your calls:  (877) 323-5246.    

The labor movement is organizing a national call-in day for Wed., Jan. 13. So it is especially important that we help generate phone calls on that day.

Thanks in advance for your efforts.

Spins Of The Week

Rewarding Failure
Source: Public Citizen, Rewarding Failure

In a stunning report that will give every fired Joe and failed small businessman pause, a new Public Citizen review shows that the CEOs of 10 failed Wall Street firms were paid an average of $28.9 million per year in the years leading up to the Wall Street meltdown.

"Fat cat compensation has nothing to do with good corporate performance," said Public Citizen President Robert Weissman about the report entitled Rewarding Failure. "These CEOs were exorbitantly compensated for driving their companies off the cliff. At a minimum, Congress must ensure that corporate leaders are paid for long-term performance, not short-term illusions."

With Wall Street compensation slated to top $150 billion this year it looks like little has changed with the tails you win, heads you win culture on Wall Street. The House recently passed a bill giving shareholders a "say on pay." Now it's time for responsible shareholders to step up and clamp down for the good of us all.

The latest on California politics and government

A USA Today analysis finds that the stimulus is working and is having "a significant impact on the economy." A survey of 33 states and Puerto Rico found that 338,000 jobs have been created or saved so far this year.

LEARN WorkFamily - The Labor Project for Working Families has launched a FREE online labor education and resource network - LEARN WorkFamily (www.learnworkfamily.org) - to help unions build family-friendly workplaces.  This unique resource network features the nation's only online database of contract language on work family issues such as family leave, childcare, elder care, flexible work options, adoption, bereavement leave and much more.  Register now for FREE at www.learnworkfamily.org to use the online contract language database.  For more information, email info@working-families.org or call (510) 643-7088. 

The House is expected to take up legislation reported by three committees that would:

-- Ensure that 97 percent of Americans have health insurance coverage.

-- Provide subsidies to ensure that coverage is affordable for working families.

-- Require employers to contribute to the cost of coverage.

-- Guarantee individuals choice of health care plans and physicians.

-- Prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions, or from charging exorbitant premiums to individuals who are sick or older.

-- Establish a public plan option to provide competition for private insurance companies, thereby holding down costs.

-- Lower health care costs by eliminating the hidden tax of "uncompensated care," and by reforming the delivery of health care and provider payments.
 
-- Provide assistance to employers and Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Associations (VEBAs) to help them continue coverage for early retirees.

-- Improve Medicare's prescription drug coverage for retirees.

-- Pay for health care reform through progressive taxes, NOT by taxing workers' health care benefits.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) has reported a bill similar to the House legislation.   

The UAW and a broad coalition of progressive organizations are strongly supporting the House health care reform bill and the bill reported by the Senate HELP Committee.  These bills would provide enormous benefits to working families, including UAW members:

-- Workers would no longer have to fear the loss of health care coverage if they are laid off or their employers go bankrupt.

-- Coverage for retirees would be strengthened and made more secure.

-- Individuals would be protected from discriminatory practices by insurance companies.

-- Health care costs would be lowered significantly, so premiums, copays and deductibles do not continue to escalate faster than wages.

Not surprisingly, insurance companies and various right-wing groups are mounting a campaign to block health care reform.  To counter their dishonest, disruptive scare tactics, UAW activists need to join with our progressive allies in sending a strong message to members of Congress that NOW is the time to pass genuine health care reform.

Please contact your representative and senators right away by calling: (877) 264-4226.

Urge representatives to vote for the House health care reform bill that has been reported by three committees.  Tell senators to support the legislation reported by the HELP committee.

Thanks for your efforts on this critically important issue!

230 Economists Voice Support for Employee Free Choice

The Employee Free Choice Act is absolutely necessary to help workers rebuild the economy, according to a statement signed this week by 230 economists from top institutions in 33 states.

The economists point to the erosion of working family incomes as a key factor in our economic crisis—and the need for the freedom of workers to bargain collectively, without fear of management abuses, as key to recovery. "As economists, we believe this is a critically important step in rebuilding our economy and strengthening our democracy by enhancing the voice of working people in the workplace," the statement said.

Visit http://tinyurl.com/nm3kr7 to learn more.

Over the last two weeks, thousands of workers across the state have taken action to call for the end of these unfair giveaways that would make a handful of wealthy companies that much richer at the expense of working families. More than 1,000 workers participated in demonstrations, 1,100 signed the petition, 700 joined the Facebook group and 650 sent letters to their legislators.

Additionally, 80 organizations have expressed their support to shut down these tax giveaways and use the money to save jobs and vital services. The San Jose Mercury News, Riverside Press-Enterprise, Marysville Press-Democrat, Sacramento Bee and San Diego Union-Tribune have all run editorials and opinion pieces calling for the end of the corporate tax loopholes.

Check out the news coverage at http://tinyurl.com/l9phq8 

This week, President Obama kicked off his campaign to reform our nation’s broken health care system. According to the latest AFL-CIO health care survey, more than half of the 23,000 respondents said they cannot get the health care they need at prices they can afford, a third report having to forego basic medical care because it costs too much, and 43 percent of those who have health insurance still can’t get the care they need at prices they can pay.

“Accessibility for all, high quality care and affordability are the building blocks of a new health care system for America,” said AFL-CIO’s Arlene Holt Baker at the national health care reform rally yesterday in Washington DC.  “We demand no less, we will tolerate no less, we will accept no less.”

Learn more about why we need real healthcare reform now at http://tinyurl.com/kkbz3u

This week, the LA County Federation of Labor released a new video featuring compelling and eloquent testimony of veterans and the challenges they face in finding good jobs after they leave the service. Most are earning less now than they were during their time in the military.

In the video, the veterans call on Senator Dianne Feinstein of CA to support The Employee Free Choice Act, which would give them the right to join a union in the same way they joined the military - with their signature.

See the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76T9fUoHxTU 

FUNDING F-22 'NONSENSE': In a briefing to reporters yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the efforts in Congress to restore funding for the F-22 fighter jet "a big problem," and labeled the argument that the elimination of the program will threaten national security as "nonsense." Gates's statement came after the House Armed Services Committee approved $396 million to continue the production of the F-22 on Wednesday, over the Defense Department's objections. Gates originally proposed ceasing production of the F-22s at the current 187 planes, but Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA), among other conservatives, argued that the elimination of the planes would cause the loss of thousands of jobs. However, this is unlikely; the F-22 is just one of many projects that thousands of defense industry employees work on. The Republicans' demand for the planes is also hypocritical, as Paul Krugman noted, because "the very same Republican congressmen who were denouncing the stimulus, saying government spending never creates jobs" are now saying that "cutting defense spending costs jobs." Conservatives also argue that de-funding the F-22 would weaken national security.Yet, not a single mission flown in Iraq or Afghanistan has used the F-22 and the planes have become increasingly costly to operate.

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No Holds Barred

05/24/2009 - 1:00pm

Richard

Anyone with an interest in seeing the Employee Free Choice Act pass—heck, anyone who cares about the American middle class—should read a study published last week by the Economic Policy Institute and American Rights at Work.

Read full story

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Screw That Bulb:

05/29/2009 - 7:06am

Screw That Bulb: How GE Is Plugging Into the Green Movement to Move Jobs and Advanced Technology to China

Save the environment … or save a U.S. job?  That’s the choice General Electric is forcing on U.S. consumers and its own workers. 

GE is promoting new, energy saving light bulbs known as compact fluorescents, or CFLs.  These bulbs last longer and use less energy than the typical incandescent bulbs found in most U.S. homes – but can cost up to 10 times the price.   GE is asking consumers and its employees to sign a pledge to “go green” and start purchasing the CFL light bulbs, which are imported from China.  The problem is that each pledge leads to the loss of jobs in U.S. lighting plants.  GE is actually asking workers in its lighting plants to pledge to put themselves out of a job!   As a company, General Electric is synonymous with the light bulb: Thomas Edison’s incandescent bulbs built GE into the global corporation it is today.  But if GE has its way, it will no longer manufacture light bulbs in the United States.  Since 1980, employment in GE lighting has dropped by 68%.  If everyone switched to the Chinese-made CFL bulbs, all U.S. plants would close.   But it doesn’t have to be this way.  The growth of “environmentally sustainable technology” was supposed to be a breakthrough on par with the discovery of incandescent bulbs.  Green manufacturing was supposed to stimulate our economy, not lead to further deindustrialization.  Cutting-edge products like the CFLs should lead to more jobs and profits.  GE is making the profits … but it is sending the jobs to China, a country known for exploiting workers and polluting the environment.   GE supported a European Commission ban on Chinese-made CFLs … so CFLs bought in Europe are manufactured in Europe.  But GE is refusing to invest in advanced technology for its U.S. plants so workers here can have a future too.   Please join with us, the workers at GE lighting, to ask GE to manufacture green in U.S. plants, so we all can benefit.  We shouldn’t have to choose between a clean environment or a pink slip for American workers.  Sign our petition today. 

LABOR -- RIGHT-WING CORPORATE FRONT GROUP LAUNCHES 'NEWS' SITE TO SMEAR EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT:

 Last Friday, the Workforce Fairness Institute launched EFCA Wire, "a new 'news' site that's totally devoted to making the case against" the Employee Free Choice Act. As The Progress Report has noted, the Workforce Fairness Institute is nothing more than a corporate front group "founded by several longtime Republican operatives," and likely funded by anti-EFCA giants like Wal-Mart and Home Depot. In a recent interview with Fox News's Glenn Beck, one of those operatives -- former Bush and McCain advisor Mark McKinnon -- pushed the line that Employee Free Choice removes the secret-ballot option, a claim that even the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board has begrudgingly admitted is false. Therefore, it's no surprise that EFCA Wire's main purpose is to promote yet another lie. According to the Washington Post's Greg Sargent, the site will place "a particular emphasis on the damage [the Employee Free Choice Act] would allegedly do the economy." But estimates by the Economic Policy Institute show that Employee Free Choice would actually lead to higher wages, better benefits, and a more productive economy. On its first day, EFCA Wire's blatant dishonesty was already apparent. One prominently placed link boasted, "The Hill: 74% Oppose EFCA." However, The Hill was merely reporting on an anti-EFCA ad touting such skewed numbers. In fact, the most recent Gallup polling reveals that 53 percent of Americans support a law to "make it easier for unions to organize workers" -- which is exactly what the Employee Free Choice Act does.

L.A. County Federation of Labor Launches On-Line Directory of Services by Union Employers
LA Labor 411, a collaborative project of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO and Senders Communication Group, today announced the launch of the on-line version of its guide to Southern California union goods and services. Coming on the heels of its print version launch last summer, the on-line version of the directory will make the listings for companies and organizations more accessible to everyone wanting to patronize union-related products/services and union-preferred vendors. READ MORE >>