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The surprise announcement from the Obama administration that it will delay for one year penalizing employers that do not offer health coverage to their workers is the latest capitulation by the White House to big businesses that want to shirk their responsibility to help pay for health insurance. But the decision leaves huge unanswered questions about whether health coverage for uninsured workers will also be denied.
Yesterday, the Treasury issued a notice delaying for one year, until 2015, the requirement that employers of more than 50 full-time employees (three percent of all employers) report on whether they offer health coverage to their employees. The Affordable Care Act requires that these employers pay penalties when they do not offer qualified coverage or when their workers access coverage through the new health care exchanges. The Treasury’s notice does not change the legal requirement that employers provide coverage,
» Read more about: Christmas in July: Big Companies Get Obamacare Reprieve »
The New York Times recently characterized the economic recovery that officially began in 2009 as a “golden era for corporate profits.” Indeed, corporate profits doubled between 2008 and 2011 and reached a record high.
However, these increased profits have fueled inequality and come at the expense of worker compensation. Profits are now a larger share of total national income, and wages and benefits are a smaller share than at any time since the 1960s. Over the last four decades productivity gains have overwhelmingly accrued to business and not labor. The Economic Policy Institute calculates that between 1973-2011 productivity increased by 80 percent, but median hourly compensation by only 11 percent.
The recovery has not lifted up those at the bottom of the income distribution, nor has it increased opportunity for the middle. According to the Women’s Foundation of California, one in three families in the state (with family members reporting a combined work effort of 39 or more weeks annually) are the working poor who earn less than $45,397 a year.
The Supreme Court’s activist conservative majority, in a 5-4 vote on June 25, threw out the provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act which required states and localities (mostly in the Old Confederacy) to clear any changes in electoral law with the federal Department of Justice. The argument was that the criteria and standards used by Congress were obsolete. Congress is invited to revise them, but of course everyone (including the justices) knows that this Congress is too gridlocked to agree on anything of the sort.
But, to paraphrase the old saying, when the Court gives you lemons, make lemonade. As the Court’s opinion affirms, conditions surrounding voting in this country are now radically different than they were in 1965. The old Democratic Solid South with legal discrimination against African American voters has been replaced by a Republican hegemony that is adapted to black voting. At the same time,
Twice in the last five days, President Barack Obama referred to divestment — the controversial strategy to bring about social change by pressuring corporations to behave more responsibly.
On Tuesday, Obama mentioned divestment during a major speech at Georgetown University outlining his plan to address climate change. And on Thursday, at a press conference in Senegal, Obama recalled his involvement during college in the anti-apartheid movement, which relied heavily on divestment to push companies to boycott South Africa until it dismantled its racist system.
Was the one-time student activist signaling his support to the current generation of campus radicals who are calling on universities to divest from energy companies that promote fossil fuels? Was the former community organizer embracing the movement to dump stock holdings in order to compel corporations to be more socially responsible?
“I’m here to enlist your generation’s help in keeping the United States of America a global leader in the fight against climate change,”
The battle over immigration reform is often about economic fear — fear that immigrants are hurting the economy for native born Americans. But that fear is based on several economic myths:
Myth One: Immigration reform will strain already overburdened government safety net programs like Social Security and Medicare.
Wrong.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office finds that immigration reform will actually reduce the budget deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars.
Why is that? Because while they seek citizenship, undocumented workers will be required to pay into Social Security and Medicare even though they won’t be eligible for them.
They’re also younger on average than the typical worker, so even when they’re citizens they’ll be paying into Social Security and Medicare far longer.
Myth Two: New immigrants take away jobs from native-born Americans.
Wrong again.
» Read more about: Immigration Myths: Three Wrongs Don’t Make a Right »
The victory in the state Assembly was a narrow one, but a victory nonetheless for Governor Jerry Brown and opponents of California’s troubled enterprise zone program. The zones reward companies with $750 million in annual tax breaks for relocating their businesses to depressed parts of the state – and for replacing their workforces with newer, usually lower paid ones. Thursday, the Assembly approved a bill already passed by the state Senate that would radically overhaul the program.
Although the vote was 54-16, passage required a two-thirds vote, since it amended a tax law; four Republican Assemblymembers joined 50 Democrats in voting for AB 93. The legislation now goes to the governor for his signature.
According to the Los Angeles Times’ Marc Lifsher, “Brown’s proposal, the centerpiece of his economic development strategy, all but eliminates the power of the state’s 40 locally controlled enterprise zones and replaces the program with a broader,
» Read more about: Enterprise Zone Bill Goes to Governor’s Desk »
Wednesday’s Supreme Court rulings on same-sex marriage represented a major victory in the battle for social justice. But the Court stopped short of proclaiming same-sex marriage a basic right. It left it to the states to determine whether gay Americans have the same right to marry as their straight counterparts.
This is the same logic — states’ rights — that allowed the Court this week to weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965, essentially giving states permission to discriminate against Blacks and Latinos in gerrymandering electoral districts and erecting obstacles to voting. Soon, we’re likely to see a number of Republican-controlled states, including Texas, redraw legislative boundaries to make it harder for minority candidates and white liberal candidates backed by minority voters (such as Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis, who courageously waged a filibuster this week to protect women’s reproductive rights) to win public office and to change state laws to make it harder for people to vote.
» Read more about: What the Supreme Court Didn’t Do for Marriage Equality »
David Acosta, a leader in the fight to improve warehouse working conditions, is back to work today. David was fired from his job as a forklift driver at a critical Walmart-controlled warehouse in Mira Loma, California at the end of May for allegedly violating a safety policy. David and his coworkers fought back against his unfair dismissal and retaliation by the warehouse operator, Schneider Logistics, for helping expose wrongdoing at the warehouse.
David is a lead plaintiff in a massive federal lawsuit that exposed millions of dollars in stolen wages. The lawsuit, of which Walmart, Schneider and the temporary staffing agencies that employed warehouse workers are defendants, helped end decades-long scheme to defraud workers.
“We know that Walmart is in control and now we will know the extent of their involvement to defraud workers,” Acosta said of the lawsuit.
In October 2011, workers who were jointly employed at the Walmart warehouses by Schneider Logistics,
For days before Thanksgiving, 2009, Santa Ana winds had been blowing up ash and dust from the massive Station Fire that recently burned north of Los Angeles. The scorching, high-pressure weather system seemed a suitable climate for L.A.’s financial meltdown as the city entered the third year of America’s recessionary slump. Inside City Hall on that Wednesday before the holiday, government representatives and members of the news media listened to the testimony of a man who was on his way to becoming one of Los Angeles’ most powerful figures. He was only 40, held no elective office and had started his job as the City Administrative Officer just three months before.
Yet on this Thanksgiving eve Miguel Santana held the rapt attention of the City Council and journalists as he delivered shocking news: Los Angeles faced an imminent shortfall of $98 million and, based on his projections, the city could be burdened by a $1 billion debt by 2013.
» Read more about: L.A. Budget Czar Miguel Santana’s Shaky Math and Polarizing Ideology »
The immigration reform bill likely to pass the Senate this week will pick up a few more votes because it commits the government to building a longer fence. Thanks to a Republican amendment, workers will erect an additional 700 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.
But if we’re going to build a fence, is that really where it should go? If we have apprehensions about our neighbors to the south, are those the neighbors — and is that the south — that really present the United States with its most difficult problems?
By now, even the economics profession concedes that our openness to the developing world — call it the Global South — has played a role in depressing the incomes of U.S. workers. And depressed they are: Hourly wages fell 3.8 percent in the first quarter of 2013, the biggest drop since the government began measuring in 1947.
Yesterday’s historic Supreme Court rulings supporting marriage equality marked an important step forward for justice for all workers. Labor unions in California and across the nation have been strongly united for marriage equality for years. In fact, the California Labor Federation and 50 other labor organizations signed on to an amicus brief in support of marriage equality back when the challenges to Prop 8 first began nearly five years go.
Tim Paulson of the San Francisco Labor Council, which was one of the most vocal parties to the amicus brief, celebrated the announcement, which happens to coincide with the 43rd annual San Francisco Pride celebration that kicks off this weekend.
Here in San Francisco, where it all started, workers are celebrating this great civil rights victory. As we say, “an injury to one is an injury to all.” Now all of our LBGT members and their partners can be treated with equal respect.
» Read more about: Labor Pride: Unions Celebrate Marriage Equality Ruling »
(Editor’s Update: Luke Dowling’s June 25 piece below references Governor Jerry Brown’s proposal to restructure California’s controversial enterprise zone program. Last night the state Senate approved Brown’s initiative to transform the program. The next move rests with the Assembly, which is considering a Brown-backed measure that would create an alternative to the program.)
The fight over California’s enterprise zone program continued last Friday when John Burton, chairman of the California Democratic Party, proposed a measure for the November 2014 ballot which would give voters the power to eliminate the zones.
This proposal echoes concerns contained in Frying Pan News reporter Gary Cohn’s exposé of the rampant exploitation of the enterprise zone program. These zones are intended to foster the creation of jobs in economically distressed areas of the state by providing financial incentives to companies to move to those areas.
» Read more about: State Senate Approves Enterprise Zone Overhaul »
Reactions to the Supreme Court’s ruling Tuesday that halts the use of a key provision in the landmark Voting Rights Act (VRA) included disappointment, motivation to continue community organizing and a sense that it was fair.
The Associated Press and Equal Voice News collected comments from elected officials and community leaders, who work directly on voter engagement issues and in key states affected by the Supreme Court’s decision.
President Barack Obama:
“I am deeply disappointed with the Supreme Court’s decision today… Today’s decision invalidating one of its core provisions upsets decades of well-established practices that help make sure voting is fair, especially in places where discrimination has been historically prevalent.”
Scott Douglas, executive director of Greater Birmingham Ministries in Alabama:
“Our deepest concern is that if a state like ours had the gall to pass voter suppression and racially-discriminatory laws under the scrutiny of Section 5 of the VRA,
» Read more about: Reactions to High Court’s Voting Rights Act Ruling »
Business groups and their political allies have consistently attacked the idea of a minimum wage ever since President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed it during the Depression to help stimulate the economy. And yesterday — the 75th anniversary of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which FDR signed on June 25, 1938 to establish the minimum wage as well as the eight-hour day, paid overtime and child labor protections — their contemporary counterparts are still at it.
A recent report by the National Employment Law Project and the Cry Wolf Project, Consider the Source: 100 years of Broken Record Opposition to the Minimum Wage, chronicles the history of unchanging sky-is-falling rhetoric by business interests opposed to minimum wage laws.
Even today, business groups and their political allies still complain that the minimum wage violates employers’ freedom to set pay levels, forces business firms to cut jobs or even file for bankruptcy,
» Read more about: Raising the Minimum Wage for the Most Good »
The fight over California’s enterprise zone program continued last Friday when John Burton, chairman of the California Democratic Party, proposed a measure for the November 2014 ballot which would give voters the power to eliminate the zones.
This proposal echoes concerns contained in Frying Pan News reporter Gary Cohn’s exposé of the rampant exploitation of the enterprise zone program. These zones are intended to foster the creation of jobs in economically distressed areas of the state by providing financial incentives to companies to move to those areas. However, a study by the non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California found that “enterprise zones have no statistically significant effect on either business creation or employment growth rates.”
Moreover, Senator Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) called the enterprise zones “the most abused program I’ve seen,” adding that they amounted to little more than “a big-industry, big-business tax grab.”
Burton is not the only high-profile California Democrat to come out against the zones —
» Read more about: John Burton Measure Would Eliminate Enterprise Zones »
My friend, mentor and colleague, Rev. James Lawson, calls our economic system “plantation capitalism.” Lawson was the nonviolent strategist for Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement and the key figure in the desegregation of Nashville. His reference, of course, pulls forward the image of enslaved field workers in the Old South.
The image chafes in my mind. Yes, slavery, but today’s workers are not slaves. They are not the landless peasants or sharecroppers that emancipated slaves were forced to be. They are not the low-level, below-the-standard-wage employees that Southern blacks became when they migrated to the steel cities of the North. They are not second-class citizens isolated into segregated neighborhoods and limited to menial jobs.
Except, there is a growing body of evidence showing that this is exactly what a majority of workers of all colors is becoming. Between 1965 and 2011, while the top 10 percent gained an inflation-adjusted annual income increase of $116,000,
(The following post about the Netroots Nation conference, recently concluded in San Jose, California, first appeared on JesseLuna.com and is reprinted with permission. Jesse Luna is a communications specialist with SEIU Local 721.)
The labor message was strong at the Netroots Nation 2013 conference. There was a consistent message across sessions and activities, a strong focus on the rise of what is being called “Alt Labor” and there were some good worker actions. Labor must be a part of the progressive movement.
Sessions and Activities
It was common to have pro-union voices at the different sessions and even during the activities. During a taco truck lunch event, several elected officials took to the microphone and spoke about the need to raise the minimum wage. Two young people also spoke about their experiences working at fast food places, the low wages and poor working conditions there.
Fifty years from now, when people want to know what relationships between women and men were like in 2013, they’d be well advised to watch the new Richard Linklater film, Before Midnight. This is the third installment in a film series that follows the relationship of a young French environmentalist (Julie Delpy) and an American writer (Ethan Hawke). In the first film, Before Sunrise, they meet on a train while they are in their 20s and spend a chatty, romantic night together in Vienna. In the second, Before Sunset, they reconnect nine years later in Paris as 30-somethings and rekindle the connection. And in Before Midnight, after another nine years, they are a couple with 7-year-old twins vacationing in Greece.
The first two films are dreamily romantic and enticing to watch. The beauty of the location cities is matched by the beauty of the pair’s budding relationship.
Image source: Center for Popular Economics
When Peter Drucker was writing about executive compensation in the 1970s, his purpose was to puncture some of the myths about it. Executives, Drucker pointed out at the time, weren’t getting paid as much as people seemed to think. At most companies, the ratio of CEO pay to average employee pay was less than 25-to-1, while most Americans erroneously believed it to be 50-to-1 or 100-to-1.
But that would all change in the following decades. Today, the CEOs of the largest U.S. companies make 354 times more than the average rank-and-file worker. At some companies— including Abercrombie & Fitch, CBS and Nike—the ratio is in excess of 1,000 to 1. (See this chart from Bloomberg for details.)
As far as Drucker was concerned, this sort of pay structure was absurd. “It is surely not professional altogether for people who are employees and not “owners” to pay themselves salaries and bonuses greatly in excess of what their own colleagues,
Representative Paul Ryan is back to his old tricks, demonizing people who rely on government to improve their lives. This week, his target was food stamp recipients.
He’s already come out in favor of $20 billion in cuts that will throw an estimated two million children, elderly, and disabled Americans off food stamps. But now Ryan — the millionaire Wisconsin Congressman who was Mitt Romney’s VP running mate last year — is pushing an amendment to eliminate food stamps for people who have $2,000 in savings, or a car worth more than $5,000.
The Congressional Budget Office found that this would throw 1.8 million people off of the program. The Hill reported, “Most of these would be low-income seniors and working families with children. These families typically live paycheck to paycheck. Denying them the ability to save for emergencies, such as fixing a car,