Chart of the day.

Via AFL-CIO NOW...


Quite a coinkydink, huh?

Chart of the day.

Via AFL-CIO Corporate Watch...

Signs of the times.

OWS, via AFL-CIO Now...


Clear enough?

"Think about it…"

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka...

"...Bank of America, which makes about $1 billion a month, announces it’s going to charge customers $5 a month to use their own money to shop with their debit cards. Mind you this is the financial giant that paid its global banking and markets president nearly $30 million dollars last year—and this year turned around and announced it’s going to fire 30,000 workers!"

Almost makes me wish I had some money in Bank of (their) America so I could close the account and send 'em a cut up card.

If you've got some money in Bank of (their) America, why don't y'all do that for me? I bet you're eligible for membership in some credit union or another.

Wonder where the money went?

The AFL-CIO has a notion...

While 25 million unemployed and underemployed U.S. workers are drowning, CEO pay skyrocketed by 23 percent, for an average salary of $11.4 million in 2010, according to the AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch. Released today, data compiled at PayWatch also show CEOs have done little to create badly-needed jobs, instead sitting on a record $1.93 trillion in cash on their balance sheets.

I think they're on to something.

Half a loaf?

Maybe so. The health insurance bill passed by the House isn't the bill I'd like to see, and as I expected, isn't one that's going to do a great deal for me. Being required to purchase insurance that I can't really afford and that, because of likely co-pays and deductibles, I can't really use, isn't anything like the single payer plan I've been advocating for decades. Still, as The Littlest Gator says...

I know we had some bad defeats in this. I know they beat up on women as usual, I know it is not single payer, I know that the "robust" public option is not going to be robust enough. But let's just remember-- WE GOT RID OF PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS! If nothing else were to have passed, this alone, this one thing, is going to save lives, heartache, family homes, family savings. Just that one change.

Nope, it's not the bill I would have written, but it will save lives. It's not the bill the AFL-CIO would have written either, but they're on board because…

It will end the national scandal of medical bankruptcy—the number one cause of personal bankruptcy—by eliminating lifetime caps on insurer payments and limiting annual out-of-pocket costs. Medical bankruptcies affect up to 4,000 families every day in the United States—and 78 percent of them are fully insured.
· It ends abusive insurance company practices, including the denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions and “rescissions”—the practice of canceling coverage when patients file claims.
· It provides subsidies to help middle-class and lower-income families afford coverage.
· Through an exchange, it offers people a wide range of choices of insurance, including a public health insurance option that competes with private insurers.
· It narrows the “donut hole”—the gap in Medicare coverage for prescription drugs.
· It creates incentives to increase the number of doctors and boosts funding for community health centers.
· It allows young people to be covered by their parents’ insurance up to age 27.
· It creates a new fund to help employers give health coverage to early retirees.
· It provides for efficient, computerized medical records and other tools to streamline medical care and increase quality.
· It cuts costs to the federal government as well as to families, reducing the deficit by more than $100 billion over the next 10 years—thanks, in part, to the existence of a public health insurance option, which lowers costs across the system.
· Ad it’s fairly funded—through employer responsibility and a surtax on the very highest earners, not a tax on middle-class health benefits.

It's also not the bill that the Human Rights Campaign might have introduced either, but they, too, find enough right to get over whatever's wrong, citing important gains for the LGBT community...

· Health Disparities - the bill specifically designates LGBT people as a health disparities population, opening up health data collection and grant programs focused on health disparities related to sexual orientation and gender identity. With collection of data and funding of research, we can better address the specific health issues facing LGBT people.
· Unequal Taxation of Domestic Partner Benefits - the bill ends the unfair taxation of employer-provided domestic partner health benefits, incorporating the language of the Tax Equity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act. Without this tax penalty, more people will be able to afford employer-provided coverage for their families, and more companies will be able to offer these important benefits.
· Early Treatment for HIV under Medicaid - the bill also incorporates the Early Treatment for HIV Act, which allows states to cover early HIV treatment under their Medicaid programs, instead of withholding treatment for Medicaid recipients until they develop full-blown AIDS, This will dramatically improve the quality of life for low-income people with HIV, as well as saving taxpayers money and reducing the transmission of the virus.
· Comprehensive Sex Education - the bill provides funding for comprehensive sex education programs that focus not only on abstinence, but also reducing teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. After more than $1 billion wasted on failed and discriminatory abstinence-only programs, this funding will provide youth, including LGBT students, with the tools they need to live healthy lives.
· Non-discrimination - the bill prohibits consideration of personal characteristics unrelated to the provision of health care. HRC worked with a coalition of civil rights groups to develop and lobby for this language and we believe it will help protect LGBT people from discrimination in the health care system, where there are currently no federal protections for our community.

There's going to be a lot more to do - including moving the discussion from insurance to care - as we go forward, but first, let's get this done. It's worth doing, no matter what it doesn't do. It's not time to stop, but this is a place to start.

From the "Just the facts" file.

Because info is ammo. Via the AFL-CIO blog...

Profits at the 10 largest public ally traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent between 2000 and 2007.

Good news…

…from Georgia.

The AFL-CIO is launching a major effort over the next three weeks to help Democrat Jim Martin best Sen. Saxby Chambliss in the GA Senate run-off. The group will drop a new mailer to 81K union voters and begin a "wide-scale" ground campaign.

I'm sure that mailer will give many Georgians valuable information about Saxby Chambliss, but you can't get everything about Saxby Chambliss into one little brochure. Some people with questions about Saxby Chambliss will probably look for Saxby Chambliss information on the internet, perhaps by searching for Saxby Chambliss on the Google. Helping people curious about Saxby Chambliss get the best possible Saxby Chambliss search results is a patriotic obligation to our fellow citizens down south.

This too...

"The truth is that if John McCain were any closer to big business he'd be listed on the New York Stock Exchange."

Richard Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO

Heh™.

A disappointing endorsement.

The NEA/WEA endorsement of Dave Reichert seems, on the surface, to be a payback for the Sheriff's pre-election shift on their legislative agenda. After compiling a 50% record by the NEA's measure in 2005-2006, he was awarded an A grade in 2007, voting in favor of 9 of the NEA's 13 targeted votes. And yes, an A for 69% does sound like either serious grade inflation since my undergraduate days or a distressfully weak curve.

Of course, judging a member of Congress like Reichert by his final passage votes is problematic in the first place. As Daniel Kirdorffer's exhaustive analysis of Reichert's legislative history on six key votes (including three the NEA credits him for getting right) demonstrates, Reichert is given license to follow the political wind on final passage time and again in return for his reliable efforts to weaken progressive legislation in committee and participate in Republican procedural obstructionism.

It's worth noting the issues where Reichert and the NEA diverge, too. They're not inconsequential. They include Medicare and Head Start funding, organizing and collective bargaining rights and merit pay. Part of the NEA has always been a little uncomfortable with the "labor union" tag, but they represent teachers across the nation as a collective bargaining unit and they have a history of pitched organizing battles with rivals like the AFT (AFL-CIO). How they grant their highest grade to a Congressman with a record of opposition to basic rights to organize and bargain collectively is something of a mystery.

Likewise the Head Start issue. Though Reichert bravely lined up with 380 other members of the House to vote for final passage of H.R. 1429, his efforts to weaken the legislation went beyond the committee room and onto the House floor itself - as the NEA's own legislative ratings show. As on so many issues, he's a friend of education when it doesn't count.

Of course, there's a larger context in which Reichert's record can be viewed, one that's relevant to the NEA's role as the collective bargaining agent for so many teachers in so many places. There's the 54% rating from the AFL-CIO in 2007, up from 23% in 2006, another impending election comeback. Here in my local school district, teachers work side by side with support staff represented by the Service Employees International Union. Reichert's made some gains there, going from a 0% record in 2005 to 52% in 2007. Again, nothing seems to focus Reichert's attention like an impending hanging election.

To their credit, neither the AFL-CIO nor the SEIU have been fooled by these latter-day kind-of conversions. They're both firmly in the Darcy Burner camp (along with the American Federation of Teachers.) The NEA/WEA may be hedging their bets, rewarding Reichert's marginal improvement with an endorsement in hopes of future favors if he should squeak through in November, knowing that a Burner victory will insure a progressive pro-education voice and vote regardless of their actions. It's a somewhat shameful explanation (can you spell 'betrayal,' brothers and sisters?) but about the only honest one save unforgivable ignorance.

Hat tip to Project Vote Smart for the issue ratings.