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October 30, 2009National/PoliticalBuoyant Democrats Unveil Health Care Legislation WASHINGTON — House Democrats on Thursday unveiled their bill to remake the health care system and said they had the votes to pass it. But Republicans said gimmicks had been used to hide the measure’s long-term costs. The bill is similar in size and scope to one taking shape in the Senate, where Democrats’ control is more tenuous and the outcome less certain. With introduction of the bill, both houses of Congress are now poised for a momentous floor debate on the legislation, which would guarantee health benefits for millions of people now uninsured. Full text: H.R. 3962--Affordable Health Care For America Act. The Defining Moment O.K., folks, this is it. It’s the defining moment for health care reform. Past efforts to give Americans what citizens of every other advanced nation already have — guaranteed access to essential care — have ended not with a bang, but with a whimper, usually dying in committee without ever making it to a vote. But this time, broadly similar health-care bills have made it through multiple committees in both houses of Congress. And on Thursday, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, unveiled the legislation that she will send to the House floor, where it will almost surely pass. It’s not a perfect bill, by a long shot, but it’s a much stronger bill than almost anyone expected to emerge even a few weeks ago. And it would lead to near-universal coverage. As a result, everyone in the political class — by which I mean politicians, people in the news media, and so on, basically whoever is in a position to influence the final stage of this legislative marathon — now has to make a choice. The seemingly impossible dream of fundamental health reform is just a few steps away from becoming reality, and each player has to decide whether he or she is going to help it across the finish line or stand in its way. Editorial: The House Health Reform Bill The Senate should pay attention to the health care reform bill unveiled on Thursday by House Democratic leaders. The bill would greatly expand coverage of the uninsured while reducing budget deficits over the next decade and probably beyond. It includes a public option that is weaker than we would like, but it still deserves to be approved by the House. The coverage expansions would carry a net cost to the federal government of $894 billion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Yet the bill would generate enough revenue from new taxes and from savings in Medicare to offset that cost and reduce the deficit by $104 billion over the course of the decade. Obama: Stimulus saved 1 million jobs White House officials, under pressure from the economy's continuing job losses, plan to announce Friday that President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan "has created and saved at least 1 million jobs" since he signed it in February. A senior administration official e-mails the details: "Earlier this month, tens of thousands of state and local governments, private companies, colleges and universities and community organizations across the country submitted reports on how they have put Recovery Act funds to work through September 30th. Later today, when these totals are posted, we anticipate that these reports will credit the Recovery Act with directly creating or saving about 650,000 jobs. Because these reports show that less than half of the spending through that date created or saved about 650,000 jobs, they confirm government and private forecaster’s estimates that overall Recovery Act spending has created and saved at least 1 million jobs. Stimulus Fueled Much of Expansion The U.S. economy would have turned in a far worse performance in the third quarter without help from the federal government. Now the question is whether growth can continue without that support. Congress and the White House aren't yet ready to put that issue to the test. On Thursday, the Obama administration endorsed lawmakers' efforts to extend tax credits for home buyers for another five months and to make them available to more people. Even so, for the recovery to continue, "within two years at most, the private economy will have to wean itself off public stimulants and find its own internal sources of energy," said William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former adviser to President Bill Clinton. Baseline Evaluations of All State Plans Coming: Barab Thursday's Capitol Hill hearing about the OSHA report critical of Nevada OSHA gave acting chief Jordan Barab the chance to flesh out his promise of more oversight. He said OSHA will conduct baseline evaluations of all state plans, just as it did with Nevada's. That evaluation produced a report documenting serious shortcomings in the Nevada program, including failing to issue appropriate willful and repeat violations, inspectors who were not properly trained to recognize construction hazards, and lack of follow-up to determine whether hazards were abated. Nevada OSHA is under new leadership that is committed to resolving the concerns raised, the report pointed out. IRS delays retirement age rule for public pension plans WASHINGTON—The Internal Revenue Service has given sponsors of state and local government pension plans a second extension to comply with an IRS rule that defines the “normal” retirement age for a pension plan. In Notice 2009-86 published Wednesday, the IRS said public plan sponsors generally will have until Jan. 1, 2013, to comply with the rules. The IRS originally set a Jan. 1, 2009, effective date, but last year delayed the effective date to Jan. 1, 2011. The IRS said the latest extension is intended to give the agency and the Treasury Department more time to consider comments made by public plan sponsors on the impact of the regulations. … Boeing's S.C. jobs a setback for unions Boeing's decision to open a second assembly line for its 787 jetliner in South Carolina is another blow for organized labor, experts say, signaling that major manufacturers are increasingly willing to look for non-union workforces during a time of economic stress. Chicago-based Boeing said Wednesday that it had picked North Charleston over Everett, Wash., the home of Boeing's commercial aircraft division, because it best fit its production plans for the 787 Dreamliner. Full production of the jet has been much anticipated because it has more than 800 orders and is designed to carry up to 250 passengers. But the Dreamliner, which is assembled from parts made by suppliers around the globe, is two years behind schedule. It has been plagued by production problems and delays, including strikes by union machinists in Everett and other sites in Washington state that forced the company to take costly write-downs as it closed commercial aircraft operations last year for eight weeks. Boeing's move comes at an especially tough time for organized labor in the United States. The car industry is struggling to survive and is wringing historic concessions from its unions. Steel and other industries have restructured their deals with unions, as more manufacturing heads overseas or to "right-to-work" states in the South. "This is the escape from collective bargaining," said Gary Chaison, a labor expert at Clark University. "Boeing is creating its own trend in heavy manufacturing, and more and more manufacturing is going to move south." Related from Associated Press: Soul-searching ahead for Boeing's machinists BP Faces Record Fine for ’05 Refinery Explosion The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will announce the largest fine in its history on Friday, $87 million in penalties against the oil giant BP for failing to correct safety problems identified after a 2005 explosion that killed 15 workers at its Texas City, Tex. refinery, federal officials said Thursday. The fine is more than four times the size of any previous OSHA sanction. The officials, who insisted on anonymity because the fines were not scheduled to be announced until Friday, said the penalty was the result of BP’s failure to comply in hundreds of instances with a 2005 agreement to fix safety hazards at the refinery, the nation’s third-largest. According to documents obtained by The New York Times, OSHA issued 271 notifications to BP for failing to correct hazards at the Texas City refinery over the four-year period since the explosion. As a result, OSHA, which is part of the Labor Department, is issuing fines of $56.7 million. In addition, OSHA also identified 439 “willful and egregious” violations of industry-accepted safety controls at the refinery. Those violations will lead to $30.7 million in additional fines. H1N1 flu spreading changes in behavior Some time-honored traditions — working sick, flying sick, going to school sick — are in question as the nation seeks to fend off the spread of swine flu. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in its most specific calculation to date, estimated Thursday that the number of Americans who came down with the H1N1 virus in the first wave of the disease (April to July) could have been as high as 5.7 million. Swine flu is widespread in every state but Connecticut, New Jersey, South Carolina, Hawaii and the District of Columbia. As a result, schools are questioning perfect attendance awards, employers are looking twice at sick-day limits, and airlines are encouraging the ticketed ill to stay on the ground. Federal Researchers Find Lower Standards in Schools A new federal study shows that nearly a third of the states lowered their academic proficiency standards in recent years, a step that helps schools stay ahead of sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law. But lowering standards also confuses parents about how children’s achievement compares with those in other states and countries. The study, released Thursday, was the first by the federal Department of Education’s research arm to use a statistical comparison between federal and state tests to analyze whether states had changed their testing standards. It found that 15 states lowered their proficiency standards in fourth- or eighth-grade reading or math from 2005 to 2007. Three states, Maine, Oklahoma and Wyoming, lowered standards in both subjects at both grade levels, the study said. State/LocalPartisan Position: Protesters Give UC President a Cemetery A day-long conference held this past Saturday on the UC campus addressed the California public education crisis. In late afternoon of the same day, about 200 students, workers, and community activists visited UC President Mark Yudof’s house in the Oakland hills. On the hillside below his residence, the protesters built a mock cemetery, in keeping with Yudof’s recent comparison of the university to a cemetery. According to the protesters, the rent that UC pays for Yudof’s home in the Oakland hills, $10,000 per month, exemplifies the university administration’s priorities: enabling a luxurious lifestyle for the executives of the system, while slashing workers’ salaries and students’ education to the bone. … Unlike Clark Kerr, who addressed the public in measured tones of reason and sober reflection, President Yudof uses language that is more spontaneous and colorful. In a recent interview with the New York Times, Yudof lamented that although he listens to the faculty, no one listens to him: “Being president of the University of California is like being manager of a cemetery: there are many people under you, but no one is listening.” … Yudof’s critics see the predicament of the university quite differently, although for them too, the cemetery metaphor is a telling one: compared to the roar of conservative politicians demanding cutbacks, the voice of education’s advocates is not getting through to the administrators. Maricruz Manzanares, a senior custodian at UC Berkeley and an officer of AFSCME Local 3299, says that current policy “favors UC executives at the expense of students, workers, and the community. Instead of raising student fees, cutting classes, laying off workers, and offering less services, President Yudof should be giving attention to the alternatives that the union has offered.” Manzanares reports that staff cutbacks have made it impossible for custodians to do the work that is necessary to keep campus buildings clean and usable. Furlough opponents must consider all budget options With Furlough Fridays a reality, efforts toward a long-term solution are overdue. The time that some are now devoting to finger-pointing and affixing blame are a distraction from the more important work we have before us. The real question is, as the economic torrent threatens to erode the foundation of public education, what can we do? Kaua‘i hosts state’s mayors LIHU‘E — The state’s four elected county executives discussed a broad range of issues from agriculture to collective bargaining to the 2010 legislative session at their monthly Hawai‘i Council of Mayors meeting Wednesday. … Asked about the possibility of weighing in on a potential special session to divert money from the Hurricane Fund to the Department of Education to avoid further Friday furloughs for public school students, Tavares, a former teacher, said the mayors have stayed out of the Hawai‘i State Teachers Association negotiations and hope the two sides can work things out quickly because it is “unfortunate to me that children have to suffer.” Hannemann said the furloughs are a state decision but acknowledged that there is an impact on the local communities that require action from the counties. “Children are not a state issue or a county issue but are a community issue,” Kenoi said, adding that the county mayors “recognize our responsibility” to “provide a safe haven” for kids to participate in productive activities when they are not in school. Regarding the mayors’ own negotiations with the United Public Workers, Hannemann said talks are ongoing, and Carvalho said the four often discuss “strategy.” City union agrees to wage freeze ROCKFORD — City leaders are grappling with a projected $7.6 million deficit in the 2010 general fund, and the city has the state’s highest unemployment rate at just over 15 percent. Thursday, members of American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Local 1058 and 1058 B decided now is not the best time to demand a wage increase. The nearly 280 public works, community development, 911 and other city employees agreed to take a one-year wage freeze. “Nobody is happy about not receiving a raise, but this was the best move at this time,” union President Garry Cacciapaglia said. Jay Ferraro, the union’s chief negotiator and staff representative, said the wage freeze is a continuation of the city employees’ existing contract, which will expire Dec. 31. Aware of the city’s financial plight, Ferraro said the union doesn’t want to contribute to Rockford’s unemployment rate. State budget cuts: 180 lose state jobs, so far At least 180 state workers will be laid off in coming days and more than 3,200 nonunion employees must take seven days off work without pay before June, Gov. Chet Culver said Wednesday. But the fates of employees in the state corrections and public safety departments will hang in the balance for another week. Culver wants union members to agree to pay cuts that would prevent at least some of the 549 proposed layoffs for prison workers, probation officers, state troopers, fire marshals and other law officers. The chances that unions will agree to contract changes were uncertain Wednesday. The leader of the state's largest union said all options put forward would be considered. A University of Iowa labor specialist said, however, that reopening contracts in Iowa rarely happens. Possible layoffs unsettle prison officers, workers Newton, Ia. — The mood was tense and somber at the Newton Correctional Facility during Thursday’s first shift change, as rank-and-file prison workers await the outcome of union negotiations that could determine their fates. The Newton prison, which houses 1,100 inmates, is among nine state prisons and eight community corrections districts where 515 Department of Corrections workers face layoffs if budget-cut negotiations falter between union leaders and Gov. Chet Culver. As correctional officers and other workers streamed into the Newton facility in the pre-dawn darkness Thursday, some employees were openly critical of Culver and other politicians and voiced opposition to reopening union contracts. Twenty-six jobs are in jeopardy here among 321 employees, and 28 vacant jobs won’t be filled.Employees also expressed worries about prison security if more employees lose their jobs. The budget cuts, which would hit the Department of Corrections harder than any other state agency, would include elimination of 262 jobs now vacant. Local prison job cuts in limbo The jobs of 74 corrections workers in the Fort Dodge area appear to depend on the possibility of unions reaching an agreement with Gov. Chet Culver. Those workers were to be laid off to help the Department of Corrections comply with a 10 percent across the board budget cut imposed by Culver. But on Wednesday, Culver rejected the department's proposed cuts and called for negotiations with three unions that represent state workers: the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; Iowa United Professionals and the State Police Officers Council. ''If we cannot reach agreement with the unions, then I will implement the layoff plans submitted by these two departments,'' Culver said in a statement issued by his office. He was referring to the departments of Corrections and Public Safety. University employees spared from layoffs Cedar Falls, Ia. — Workers at Iowa’s three state-run universities appear to have escaped layoffs from the state budget ax, with plans that rely on unpaid time off and smaller contributions by the schools to employees’ retirement accounts. The Iowa Board of Regents on Thursday approved budget plans that also include no bonuses for university presidents and, most likely, a $100 surcharge next semester for students at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa. Editorial: State leaders must focus on priorities Last week, the directors of state agencies submitted budget-cut proposals to Gov. Chet Culver to deal with the drastic revenue shortfall. On Wednesday, the governor responded by approving most plans. He announced some modifications, required non-union employees to take furloughs, and gave unions extra time to decide whether members will take pay cuts to save jobs in public safety and corrections. When it's all said and done, Iowa is going to cut more than $500 million this fiscal year. It's going to be hard - for hundreds of state employees who will lose jobs, private-sector agencies that will see contracts slashed and Iowans who depend on state services. That's the bad news. The really bad news: It's going to get worse. Patrick to end nearly 1,000 jobs WORCESTER - Governor Deval Patrick intends to close a projected $600 million budget gap by eliminating nearly 1,000 state jobs, shaving millions from human service programs, reducing help for local school building projects, and possibly closing the State House library, the governor and his aides said yesterday. Patrick said he would move to make $352 million in cuts across state government, including $277 million from the executive branch. He will also seek authority from lawmakers to make $75 million in additional reductions in other branches of government, including the Legislature, the judiciary, and county sheriffs. But Patrick’s budget cuts - which were met with a mixture of frustration, resignation, and even relief that they were not worse - were notable for what they did not touch: local aid, the money cities and towns rely on to run their schools, police, fire departments, and much more. Patrick made a point of saying he would fully protect that funding. Negotiations resume between AFSCME, Detroit city officials; union willing to budge DETROIT — AFSCME Council 25 negotiators and city labor relations representatives return to the bargaining table today to continue hammering out an agreement that bridges the gap between labor demands and the city’s proposal to make deep cuts to stem the budget crisis. According to Cathy Phillips, AFSCME Council 25’s chief negotiator, and her deputy negotiator DeAngelo Malcolm, AFSCME might budge in the direction of the city’s demands at today’s negotiation session. “We may be giving them something moving closer to them Thursday,” Phillips told Michigan Messenger, though she wouldn’t talk details. Now it’s up to the city. “The question still remains, will they be receptive to it?” she asked. Bitter contract talks to leave Detroit with fewer Angels' Night patrols Thousands of Detroit employees who typically help protect the city from firebugs during this three-day Halloween period are refusing to do so unless they are paid overtime, Mayor Dave Bing's office said Thursday. Angels' Night city worker participation is expected to be down by at least half, and the administration is asking residents to be extra vigilant in watching for suspicious activity in neighborhoods. But union leaders say money has nothing to do with their rebuff; they simply won't spend their time volunteering for Bing because they say he has been cutthroat during bitter ongoing labor negotiations. "You don't spit in somebody's face and then turn to them and say, 'I need you,' " said Leamon Wilson, chairman of the presidents of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees locals. The unions represent about 3,400 city workers, many from departments that usually patrol during Angels' Night. Another front opens in Bing’s battle with AFSCME DETROIT — Mayor Dave Bing’s relationship with the leaders of the city’s most powerful union seems like it’s getting more conflict-ridden day after day. Bing is accused by leaders of AFSCME Council 25 of impeding real give-and-take negotiations over a future contract, negotiations that are at a formal — if not metaphysical — impasse. On top of that, this past week the Bing administration terminated scores of AFSCME’s current city employee contracts. That, in turn, led to a Wednesday afternoon courtroom standoff between lawyers for the mayor, who’s up for re-election next week, and the city’s largest public employees union, whose 3,500 members find themselves at the center of the debate over Detroit’s ballooning $300 million budget deficit. State pensions face $2B shortfall With the value of their investment assets plunging for the year ending June 30, Montana's two major state pension funds racked up massive increases in their unfunded liabilities, a legislative committee learned Friday. Unfunded liabilities are potential shortfalls in pension funds. Large unfunded liabilities can signal serious future financial problems if major changes aren't made. AFSCME wants guv to veto 7.6 percent agency cuts The government workers’ union is asking Governor Bill Richardson to veto the part of the recently passed budget bill that requires him to cut state agency budgets by 7.6 percent. ”Additional cuts of nearly 8 percent, which is closer to 10-12 percent because we are five months into the fiscal year, will deny much needed services to a significant part of our state’s population,” Joel Villarreal of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) said in a news release Thursday.Gov. Richardson, the Human Services Department and the Corrections Department have all balked at the cuts this week. Multnomah County budget: 'Stability is within our reach' Steep program cuts, employee wage freezes and the new motor vehicle rental tax appear to have averted Multnomah County's potential budget crisis and should lead to a stabilization of the county's finances over the next five years, according to a new budget office report. "We may have plateaued at the bottom," Karyne Kieta, county budget director, told commissioners at their weekly meeting today. "I am cautiously optimistic that stability is within our reach." … But county staff members expressed relief at the financial optimism, no matter how tentative. "I do believe the efforts we made paid off," said Becky Steward, president of AFSCME Local 88, the county's largest union and the first to agree to pay concessions this budget cycle. "I definitely hope that we don't have to do it again anytime soon, because it's hard." Puerto Rico Strikes SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO—In 1934, the year of the largest sugarcane workers’ strike in Puerto Rican history, Antonio S. Pedreira, a wealthy writer and educator, described Puerto Ricans as lazy and irresponsible: “To be lazy, in our country, is self-repression, lack of mental activity and freewill […] We are squatting before our future.” Seventy-five years later, the attitudes of Puerto Rico’s ruling elite appear unchanged. Faced with widespread opposition to plans by Gov. Luis Fortuño to fire tens of thousands of public-sector workers and privatize government services, members of the governor’s staff have called working class Puerto Ricans “ticks” “garrapata” and terrorists and told them to accept privatization and layoffs because “such is life.” Union and county make deal MONTESANO — The county’s largest union and the county commissioners approved a memorandum of understanding Wednesday afternoon that will allow county employees to take days off without pay and voluntarily pay more for their medical costs. Without the agreement, some departments may have had a hard time meeting the commissioner’s demand of a 10 percent across-the-board cut to their current spending levels. The county is looking at a $3 million drop in revenue next year. For the past few weeks, commissioners have been working with union leaders for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees to find some kind of concessions. At one point, the commissioners requested a laundry list of concessions that would have had employees give back their annual 2.5 percent raise and longevity “step” increases, among other measures. The union rejected those ideas, even though the commissioners have ordered no wage increases or “step” increases for the county’s 72 exempt employees. The commissioners are encouraging the union employees to take the county’s 11 paid holidays off without pay, thus not impacting their work schedules and allowing the county offices to remain open as scheduled. … Anyone who takes a furlough day would qualify under a state unemployment program that would pay employees up to 60 percent of their wages for their time lost, the commissioners said. “So we would see the full savings and the employee would still get some money,” Commissioner Al Carter said. |
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