Alliance for Retired Americans - Friday Alert, May 6, 2011

May 06, 2011

May is Older Americans Month

Honoring the contributions of older Americans across the nation, President Obama proclaimed the Older Americans Month theme this year is “Connecting the Community.” The President acknowledges how social media and new technology allow seniors to remain actively engaged in their communities and connected to their far-away friends and families well into their later years. The proclamation also relates to seniors’ health care.
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TWU Video Shows Strength of Pa. Rally

by Mike Hall, May 6, 2011

Earlier this week 5,000 workers from dozens of unions marched on the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg to let Gov. Tom Corbett (R) know his budget is an attack on workers and communities. Said Gordy Moretton of Transport Workers (TWU) Local 2009:

The governor wants to make cuts to services that everyday people need. We need to stop this attack on the middle class.

Check out this TWU video for a great wrap up of the rally and click here to read more from the TWU blog.

Taxing Family Health Care for Deficit Reduction is Wrong

by Mike Hall, May 6, 2011

More than 156 million Americans get their health care coverage through their employers. Employer and most worker contributions to health insurance premiums are excluded from workers’ taxable incomes.

Even after health care reform is fully phased in, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that nearly 160 million people will hold employer-sponsored insurance plans.

But recent proposals—under the guise deficit reduction—have called for ending or reducing that exclusion. The most recent came from last year’s budget deficit commission report that calls for a cap on the premium tax exclusion before eliminating it entirely.

A new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) finds that the cap would impact almost all family health plans by 2018, including “middle of the road” plans—not just high-cost plans. Not only would taxing the plans encourage employers to drop coverage, it would also lead to less comprehensive care for working families.

The report “Reducing the federal deficit by increasing households’ risk: Phaseout of tax exclusion for health insurance premiums leads to less health and financial security,” also finds that despite claims by its backers, the tax cap and eventual complete exclusion won’t lead to reduced health care costs, just reduced health care coverage for working families.

Removing the tax exclusion has the potential to create a financial hard­ship for many working families, particularly those who rely on comprehensive coverage to cover costs of their se­rious illnesses. It is equivalent to a cut in benefits, a cut in total compensation, and a shift of risk onto workers. While it is touted as a cost-containment mechanism, the tax ex­clusion may simply lower health care usage, not prices, and actually increase total health costs for chronically ill people who go without cost-effective treatments.

Click here for the full report.

This Money Trail Leads Straight to Prisons—Private Ones

by Mike Hall, May 6, 2011

After the November elections, with its raft of new Republicans in governors’ seats and in control of state legislatures, we’ve seen many of those states implement a corporate agenda that includes attacks on workers rights, new corporate tax cuts and privatization of state services.

Some of the biggest privatization prizes are state prison systems. A new report from AFSCME follows the money from corporations to the lawmakers who are now pushing lucrative prison privatization contracts in several states.

According to, “Making A Killing: How Prison Corporations Are Profiting From Campaign Contributions and Putting Taxpayers at Risk,” the three largest private prison companies are The GEO Group, Inc., Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), and the Management & Training Corporation (MTC). Each election cycle, according to the report, these corporations

pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into the campaigns of governors, state legislators, and judges, in the hopes f advancing their political agenda—establishing more private prisons and reducing the number of public ones.

November’s Republican victories provided the private prison industry with new friends on the state level.

The upshot is a broad network of powerful private prison companies and pro-privatization legislation and budget initiatives linked by thousands of dollars in political donations to the party in power. This year, the industry is betting on these newly-elected allies to deliver the contracts they were losing under former state leadership.

Here are two examples from the report.

Florida: The Miami Herald reports that since 2001, the Florida GOP has received more than $1.5 million from the two largest prison contractors and their affiliates. Over two thirds of that total can be traced to the GEO Group of Boca Raton, which manages two of the state’s private prisons. The Florida Senate is now pushing to outsource corrections facilities to private companies in 18 additional counties.

Texas: In Texas, private prison companies and their PACs have given over $130,000 to candidates for public office since 2006. Texas has more privately operated correction facilities than any other state in the country. Harris County—the most populous county in the state—is now deliberating a plan to privatize the state’s largest jail.

The AFSCME report also points out that private prisons “routinely experience more inmate escapes and higher rates of violence due to chronically lax security and poorly trained minimally paid staff.” It also notes that there is no

conclusive evidence showing that private prisons save states money. Policy Matters Ohio, a state think-tank whose report on prison privatization was released earlier this year, stated: “While debate over prison privatization has been heated and divisive, there is little or no consensus on whether it actually saves money…” In fact, in some cases, the opposite is true.

Click here for the full report and check out this report from the Teamsters (IBT) on the move to privatize prisons in Florida.

Guide Lists Worker-Friendly San Francisco Restaurants

by James Parks, May 6, 2011

Young Workers United (YWU) members issued their second annual edition of “Dining With Justice,” which highlights food establishments that follow labor laws and treat their employees with dignity and respect.

The San Francisco-based group released the updated guide on May Day, as members participate in May Day marches in support of workers’ rights.

Because of the recession, restaurant owners and managers have a greater incentive to increase profits by cutting corners with food quality, health and safety and labor rights, YWU says.

As a result, most restaurant workers have been victims of wage theft. They may not receive overtime pay or breaks, or are forced to work off the clock. Workers have been increasingly apprehensive of speaking out about work grievances, fearing job loss and prolonged unemployment.

YWU presented awards to restaurant owners who care not only about the food they serve but also the people they employ. To determine the winners, YWU surveyed workers and employers in 35 restaurants in a variety of price ranges throughout San Francisco.

Check out the “Dining With Justice” guide here.

Ohioans Protest Kasich Budget, Build Support for S.B. 5 Repeal

by Mike Hall, May 6, 2011

More than 3,000 Ohio workers, students and other activists rallied outside the state Capitol in Columbus to protest Gov. John Kasich’s (R) budget, which makes drastic cuts to education and public services, privatizes state services and gives tax breaks for businesses and the wealthy—including a repeal of the state’s estate tax on large estates.

They also used the event to gather signatures to put on the ballot a repeal of Kaisch’s Senate Bill 5 (S.B. 5) that eliminates collective bargaining rights for public employees.

Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga says Kasich’s budget “is less about balancing our budget and more about a partisan political agenda…we will certainly see the loss of jobs for Ohio’s middle class.”

Kris Harsh, state coordinator for Stand up for Ohio, said between the passage of S.B. 5 and Kasich’s budget, more jobs and more of the middle-class in Ohio will erode.

We’re talking about destroying up to 50,000 jobs. And the budget pulls over $2 billion from public education and ignores closing any tax loopholes. We’re calling for a more balanced approach to solve Ohio’s budget problems.

Kasich claims his budget provides “a tool box” for cities and towns to solve their financial problems. But in a column today in the Youngstown Vindicator, Janetta King, president of Innovation Ohio, says Kasich’s budget is a:

shell game in which the state simply passes the buck to local jurisdictions and taxpayers…Gov. Kasich’s tool box holds a chainsaw for cutting local services; a hammer for beating public employees; and a screwdriver to use on local taxpayers.

The rally was organized by Stand Up for Ohio and We Are Ohio.

Report: Wage and Hour Law Enforcement Is Lax

by James Parks, May 6, 2011

While 45 states and the District of Columbia have minimum wage laws, that does not mean they are followed or enforced, according to a new report released by the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia University Law School.

The first-of-its-kind nationwide study found that enforcement is lax in many states, in part because of a lack of funds and also an unwillingness to use every available weapon to ensure compliance.

Among the study’s key findings:
•While the number of low-wage workers actually rose in 2009, funding for wage enforcement decreased as governors and state legislators looked to balance state budgets in the recession.
•Wage and hour enforcement varies widely among the states. Some state labor departments have comprehensive mandates, which include oversight of child labor, worker training and employment discrimination. But Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida have no state agency that enforces wage and hour standards. Workers in those five states must rely on the federal government or private lawyers to seek back wages.
•A majority of states do not fine or penalize employers who violate wage and hour laws. So employers have little incentive to obey wage and hour laws if the only repercussion for violating them is to have to pay wages owed in the first place.

As the study’s authors warn:

Without meaningful enforcement by state regulators, some employers will simply disregard their legal obligations if doing so allows them to save time, money or effort, putting the majority who wish to abide by the law at a significant competitive disadvantage. This creates a regulatory race to the bottom by states as they seek to compete to attract businesses.

Read the full report here.

Lion TV Recognizes WGAE

by James Parks, May 6, 2011

Lion Television has agreed to recognize its employees’ choice of the Writers Guild of America, East, (WGAE) as its bargaining representative.

The nearly 100 Lion producers, associate producers, researchers and writers, who work on such shows as “Cash Cab” for Discovery Network, “Megadrive” for MTV and “History Detectives” and “America Revealed” for PBS, voted in December for WGAE. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) certified the results this week.

WGAE Executive Director Lowell Peterson says:

We welcome the Lion employees into our creative community, where they will join thousands of other members who do some of the best work in television, film, radio, and digital. We are pleased that Lion respects their decision to become part of the Writers Guild and we look forward to a long and productive relationship.

WGAE also recently won the majority of votes in two other NLRB elections at Atlas Media Corp. and ITV Studios.

European Unions Shine Spotlight on Georgia’s Attacks on Workers

by James Parks, May 6, 2011

Representatives of trade union organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from across Europe are meeting in Brussels today to discuss serious violations of human and workers’ rights by the government of Georgia.

Among the countries of the former Soviet Union, only in Georgia has the once government-dominated union federation reformed and become a truly free trade union federation. However, since 2008, the Georgian government has waged a wholesale and vicious attack against the Georgian Trade Union Confederation (GTUC) and many of its affiliates.

The country’s labor laws were gutted in 2006. Meant to attract investment, the new code leaves workers and trade unionists with few rights on the job in law or in practice. For example, in the public sector, the government has blocked dues deductions from union members to the unions, starving the organizations of funds. The government has installed police watchdogs in schools and intimidated union representatives and teachers, all while promoting a fake, government-controlled union and encouraging or threatening members of the legitimate union to disaffiliate.

As a result of Georgia’s anti-worker actions, the AFL-CIO filed a petition with the U.S. Trade Representative to remove trade benefits for Georgia.

“Ten years ago we witnessed in the post-Soviet union area the same brutal union busting as we now see in Georgia,” says Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

Georgia is seeking to become a member of the European Union. But workers say behind then country’s façade of democracy and economic growth lie a growing number of human rights violations and total disregard and ignorance of health and safety issues.

GTUC President Irakli Petriashvili says:

European decision makers should not have any illusions that behind the democratic façade there is a government that is devoted to busting the democratic values and interests of workers. We cannot accept the increasing insecurity and lack of rights and the fact that workers are risking and losing their lives at work and that their organizations are being attacked by the authorities.

New Jobs Numbers Send Mixed Message

by Mike Hall, May 6, 2011

The nation’s unemployment rate jumped to 9 percent in April, up from March’s 8.8 percent, according to the latest government figures. But the monthly payroll survey shows the economy added 244,000 jobs, the largest monthly gain in five years.

Economists say the more reliable economic health indicator is the payroll survey and today’s number is relatively good news, but still far from what’s needed to put Americans back to work at pre-recession levels. Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:

The monthly job growth is welcome news, but the economic recovery and job market remain fragile.

He adds that proposed deep federal budget cuts and continuing job losses in state and local government:

could jeopardize prospects for sustained job growth, given ongoing weakness in the housing market, high levels of consumer debt, and weak income growth for the middle class.

Young people (24.9 percent), African Americans (16.1 percent) and Hispanics (11.8 percent) continue to suffer the highest jobless rates.

Job gains were spread across industries, including retail (57,000), hospitality and leisure (46,000), health care (37,000), manufacturing (29,000), management and technical services (11,000), mining (11,000) and computer design (8,000).

Today’s numbers follow yesterday’s announcement from the Labor Department that the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week rose to the highest level in eight months. In addition, gas prices are soaring and food prices are climbing.

While working families face increased economic pressure, U.S. corporations are raking in record profits. Figures released yesterday show that in 2010, the 500 largest U.S. corporations saw their profits rise by 81 percent—the third largest gain in the history of the Fortune 500. Says Trumka:

This could not be a clearer reminder that for a handful of Americans, times have never been better, while for most of our country, joblessness and economic insecurity are becoming the new normal.

He says lawmakers should be taking every necessary step to create good jobs now to address economic inequality and insecurity, including investing in infrastructure and job creation, insisting that corporations and the super-wealthy pay their fair share of taxes and improving rather than cutting the social safety net of Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.

Instead we see state and national politicians doing everything they can to destroy jobs, heighten economic insecurity, and transfer more of our country’s wealth to the richest Americans. The House Republican budget proposal would cost about 900,000 jobs in 2012, 1.3 million jobs by 2013, and 1.7 million or more jobs by 2014. It would constitute the single largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in U.S. history.

It’s Time for Investors to Weigh In on Refinery Safety

Gary Beevers, United Steelworkers (USW) international vice president for Oil Bargaining, sends us this report. Beevers has extensive experience negotiating with major oil companies with the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Union (OCAW).

A little after midnight on Good Friday last year, a heat exchanger on a naphtha hydrotreater unit at the Tesoro oil refinery in Anacortes, Wash., catastrophically failed. The unit exploded, setting off a blast that shook homes five miles away and igniting a fire that could be seen anywhere in Anacortes. Three oil workers died in the blast; four others died at the hospital from injuries sustained in the accident.

The Washington State Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) said the explosion was preventable. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) reported that Tesoro failed to adequately maintain the nearly 40-year-old heat exchanger and that microscopic cracks had built up, making a rupture possible.

Companies need to “make the investments necessary to ensure safe operations,” said CSB Chair Rafael Moure-Eraso to the press.

Companies that continue to invest in safety and recognize its importance will reap benefits far into the future.

L&I Director Judy Shurke told reporters, “The bottom line is that this incident, this explosion and these deaths were preventable,” as she cited the company for 44 safety violations and issued a record $2.39 million fine. (Tesoro is appealing the fine.)

The Anacortes explosion was certainly not the only accident in the oil sector last year. In just the months of April and May there were 13 fires, 19 deaths and 25 injuries in the oil industry. That includes, of course, the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers and created one of the most devastating ecological disasters in history.

Our union has been working for years to pressure oil refiners to fix serious hazards and take real steps to improve refinery safety. We’ve suggested standards for reporting incidents at refineries to improve transparency and we’ve proposed standards to address fatigue and eliminate excessive overtime caused by companies not replacing a worker assigned to another job duty.

Our members have raised safety issues on the refinery floor, we’ve worked closely with fence line communities that are concerned with refinery safety, and we’ve taken these safety issues to Congress. Now it’s time for investors to weigh in on refinery safety because it impacts the bottom line.

This year, in collaboration with the AFL-CIO Reserve Fund, our union is presenting shareholder proposals at four major refining companies—Marathon, Valero, Tesoro and ConocoPhillips. Our proposal calls on each company to:

Prepare a report, within ninety days of the 2011 annual meeting of stockholders, at reasonable cost and excluding proprietary and personal information, on the steps the Company has taken to reduce the risk of accidents. The report should describe the Board’s oversight of process safety management, staffing levels, inspection and maintenance of refineries and other equipment.

An identical report was filed at Sunoco, but it was withdrawn when the company agreed to fully comply with the request.

Marathon, Valero, Tesoro and ConocoPhillips opposed our resolution. After seven workers were killed, Tesoro said it was committed to safety so a report on their performance wasn’t necessary. Valero said it was already disclosing numbers on its total reportable incident rate (TRIR) so information on process safety, staffing, and inspection and maintenance was unnecessary. Valero also said that publishing a report would be too expensive.

Refining companies usually don’t mind providing the public with data on reportable injuries. The problem is that information provides a deceptive picture of refinery safety. BP’s Texas City Refinery posted an incredibly low reportable injury rate just before the 2005 explosion that killed 17 people and led to the biggest fines in OSHA history. Simply put, reporting slips, trips and falls doesn’t tell us anything about whether or not an explosion is likely to happen.

It’s exactly this type of failed logic that led Transocean to give its executives ”safety bonuses” for turning in the company’s ”best year” in safety in 2010. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, management actually said “…we achieved an exemplary statistical safety record as measured by our total recordable incident rate and total potential severity rate. As measured by these standards, we recorded the best year in safety performance in our company’s history.”

Jon Stewart from “The Daily Show” did a great job capturing the absurdity. He said:

OK, that’s just crazy. You gave yourselves a safety bonus because statistically the Deepwater Horizon explosion, killing 11 people and pumping 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf Coast counts the same as Bob cut his hand on a bolt—it’s just one incident.

It’s worth pointing out that, out of embarrassment, the executives donated their safety bonuses to charities working to clean up the Gulf Coast.

The real information that we need to know—whether or not a refinery is running safely—is the information we asked for in our shareholder resolution: the board’s oversight of process safety management, staffing levels, and inspection and maintenance of refineries and other equipment. To know whether or not there’s a risk of a deadly explosion, we need to know whether or not people at the top level of the company are directly involved in process safety; we need to know how much overtime people are working and what the risk of fatigue is; and we need to know whether or not the company is inspecting and maintaining its refineries.

I honestly don’t know if the bankers and billionaire stockowners care about whether or not oil workers die. But I do know that they care about making money. And blowing up refineries is bad for business. Not only do these accidents lead to months of downtime and cause insurance rates to go through the roof, they’re also bad for the public perception of our industry and drive down investor confidence.

So whether they’re doing it to save lives or just to protect their investments it’s time for investors to weigh in on refinery safety. Their profits, and our lives, depend on it.