Here’s a proposal that makes sense: The Obama administration wants to set up a consumer financial protection agency to oversee the financial markets and make sure working families aren’t the victims of predatory lending, abusive credit card practices and the kind of irresponsibility and greed that have caused our economic crisis. 

But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is putting its big bucks into preventing creation of any agency that would hold financial institutions accountable. 

Earlier this month, the Chamber announced it would spend $2 million on an ad campaign opposing a consumer protection agency, and it has taken the lead in lobbying Congress to prevent new rules for our financial system.

Tough new rules—and an agency with the authority to enforce them—would protect families, their communities, the housing market and the entire economy. But the agency might make a small dent in the profits of a handful of huge banks and Wall Street corporations and the salaries and bonuses of CEOs. So the Chamber of Commerce is opposed to it. 

The Chamber is paying a price for being out of touch with the country’s priorities. Take energy, for example. While unions, businesses and families across the country are looking for ways to build a new energy economy and solve the climate crisis, the Chamber is virulently supporting the status quo. As a result, three of the country’s biggest energy companies—Exelon, PG&E and PNM—have left the Chamber over the issue, and Nike announced today that it will no longer sit on the Chamber’s Board of Directors. 

The Chamber also stands out as a key opponent of a public insurance option for health care—a broadly popular proposal that would offer working families a real choice in health care coverage and ensure that the insurance industry is competitive. 

The Chamber also has put millions of dollars into opposing the Employee Free Choice Act and workers’ freedom to form a union and bargain—while taking money from bailed-out banks. That is, the Chamber is using our taxpayer dollars to fight a bill that would give workers more choice when they’re deciding whether to form unions. What is it about giving Americans “choice” that the Chamber doesn’t like?) 

And strangely enough for an organization with “U.S.” in its name, the Chamber is hostile to Buy American provisions that would create good jobs for America’s workers. 

Even as broad coalitions are trying to turn our economy around, the Chamber of Commerce is leading the movement to maintain the broken status quo that has benefited a few corporations and left everyone else behind.

For nearly two years, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has been hearing cases and issuing rules with just two members. While many of those decisions were accepted by the parties involved, dozens have been appealed to federal courts citing the two-member status of the NLRB and arguing that a two member board did not constitute a quorum that could act under the National Labor Relations Act. The five-member NLRB is staffed by presidential nominees who must be approved by the Senate.

Today, on behalf of the National Labor Relations Board, Solicitor General Elena Kagan asked the U.S. Supreme Court to settle the question of whether the board is authorized to issue decisions while three of its five seats remain vacant.

After the terms of two board members expired in December 2007 (the fifth seat already was vacant), the two remaining members—current Chairman Wilma B. Liebman, a Democrat, and member Peter Schaumber, a Republican—relied on the advice of U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel that the NLRB could continue to issue decisions. The Justice Department’s opinion was issued in 2003, when it appeared there might be a two-member board, which wound up not happening at that time.

But in the cases that have been appealed in various federal appeals court circuits, the courts have issued different rulings. Three of the courts have upheld the two-member board’s authority to decide cases and one—the District of Columbia U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals—ruled the two-member NLRB did not have the authority to act. Says Liebman:

We continue to believe that our position is correct, and hope that a decision from the high court will bring some finality to these cases.

As Schaumber says:

It is critical to the agency’s mission that this issue be decided.

President Obama has nominated three additional members to the board, and they currently are awaiting Senate confirmation. But there are reports that some Republican senators are blocking action on the nominations.

For more information click here.

With unemployment at the highest rate in 26 years, most Americans want the government to create more jobs before it worries about the deficit.

A new survey of public views of the economy, released today by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), shows more than eight of 10 Americans (83 percent) see unemployment as a big problem today. 

While voters have some concern about the growth of the federal deficit, job creation is far and away their top priority. In fact, by a margin of 53 percent to 42 percent, voters are more concerned about rising unemployment rates than the rising federal deficit.

The Tracking the Recovery survey was conducted among 802 registered voters nationwide from Sept. 21-23 by Hart Research Associates for EPI. The poll takes an indepth look at Americans’ experiences in this recession, their expectations for the year ahead, their views of the government’s role and degree of success so far and their priorities for further government action. Click here to download the poll results.

Says Geoffrey Garin, Hart Research’s president who presented the results today at an EPI forum in Washington, D.C.:

Unemployment and the lack of jobs remains the dominant problem on the economic agenda for voters across party lines. The portrait that emerges from this survey is of a majority with deep concern about the jobs situation who are looking to the Obama administration for continued action to save and create jobs.

Another issue rated as a big problem by participants is the failure of wages and salaries to keep up with the cost of living. Today, 63 percent of Americans rate this as a very big or fairly big problem; 57 percent expect it to be a very big or fairly big problem a year from now.

EPI President Lawrence Mishel says voters understand “that investing in job creation must necessarily come before the challenge of addressing the federal deficit.”

These findings will help policy makers understand that they can do what they need to do to create a sound, jobs-based recovery without losing public support over the federal deficit. And for those who have assumed that the deficit will trump all other concerns, it’s a wake-up call.

The survey clearly shows voters are not falling for conservatives’ efforts to blame the Obama administration for the federal deficit or to push for spending cuts instead of a strong economic stimulus plan. By a margin of more than three to one—73 percent to 24 percent—respondents agreed with this statement:

The federal budget deficit is an important problem, but we need to deal with it in a way that allows us to invest in job creation, education, and energy independence, because we cannot solve the deficit problem without getting people back to work and getting our economy growing again.

At the AFL-CIO’s constitutional convention earlier this month, the delegates approved a comprehensive economic recovery policy, including a JOBS Now! Initiative. They called for the federation to work with government at all levels to adopt policies and programs to put people back to work.

Machinists (IAM) President Tom Buffenbarger pointed out that nearly 31 million Americans are either unemployed, underemployed or have given up looking for work. Saying JOBS Now should be our clarion call, he added:

 If we’re all talk and no action, those 31 million workers will be worse off next year.

Americans also are not happy with the way economic recovery money has been spent so far. When asked who has been helped most so far by the government’s stimulus efforts, the majority say “large banks” (62 percent) or “Wall Street investment companies” (54 percent) have benefited either a lot or a fair amount. Asked how much “the average working person” or “you and your family” have benefited, about one out of 10 (13 percent and 10 percent, respectively) say a lot or a fair amount.

The vast majority of voters (81 percent) agree that the Obama administration still needs to do more to deal with unemployment and the loss of jobs. The survey also shows that voters trust the president more than congressional Republicans, by a margin of 43 percent to 32 percent, to have the right economic policies.

When asked what additional actions they think the government should take, more than 80 percent support passing a major new job creation tax credit for businesses that create jobs in the United States in the next two years. Other policies that drew strong backing include: 

• Extending unemployment insurance benefits for those who have lost their jobs during the recession and are unable to find new jobs (81 percent).
• Putting unemployed people back to work at government-funded public service jobs that help meet important community needs (71 percent).
• Giving a new round of tax rebates to lower- and middle-income Americans (63 percent).
• Providing increased federal assistance to state and local governments to prevent additional layoffs of government employees because government layoffs add to unemployment and harm vital services (52 percent). 

New Jersey’s race for governor is just over a month away, and voters are taking a close look at what candidate Chris Christie would do on key issues like health care. A new video shows that Christie’s proposals could put insurance companies, not patients, first.

Speaking at the Rebovich Institute at New Jersey’s Rider University on Sept. 16, Christie is asked by an unidentified woman how Christie’s policies would affect her daughter.

Christie responds by saying that in New Jersey, health insurance companies have too many mandates for what they have to cover, and younger people, like the unidentified woman’s daughter, don’t need things like cancer screenings. In response, the woman explains that, in fact, cancer screenings for younger people are important:

I actually disagree with that because I happen to know that she’s now at the age where I had my first surgery for cancer.

Christie interrupts her, telling her that she’s an “exception.” That’s Christie’s rationale for discarding the requirement that insurance companies cover cancer screenings: Cancer is rarer in young people. Christie would give insurers free rein to avoid covering life-saving preventative care like mammograms, so that even young people with insurance wouldn’t be able to get such screenings covered.

As Tom Moran at the New Jersey Star-Ledger notes, Christie’s proposals would allow insurance companies to avoid the consumer protections that now exist for New Jersey families.

Find out more about Christie’s plans for health care at The Real Chris Christie. The New Jersey State AFL-CIO is educating union members and their families in the state about Christie’s agenda through direct mail and member-to-member contact.

The New Jersey State AFL-CIO has endorsed Gov. Jon Corzine for re-election because of his support for good jobs, pensions, preventative care and other priorities critical to working families.

Local unions, central labor councils, state federations and national unions are redoubling their efforts to ensure health care reform legislation—which could be on the Senate floor as early as Oct. 13 and in the full House later in the month—is real reform that

• Controls costs.
• Provides guaranteed coverage.
• Holds insurance companies accountable.
• Includes a public health insurance plan option.
• Requires all employers to pay their fair share.
• Rejects new taxes that would hurt working families—who already are being crushed by soaring health costs.

Please join union members across the nation in writing your senators and member of Congress to tell them to pass real health care reform. It’s critical working families speak up and provide a loud counter voice to the health insurance industry’s money and influence. Congress needs to hear from people who can tell their lawmakers about their personal struggles with a broken health care system and why we need real health care reform.

Letters from union members, many of which will be written during breaks on the job site, at local union meetings and via special letter-writing events, will be delivered to lawmakers next week when activists and union leaders travel to Capitol Hill to meet with them or during the Columbus Day recess when union activists meet with the representatives in their home districts during the Columbus Day recess.

Contact your local central labor council or state federation for more information on actions in your area. Union members also can go to the Working Families Toolkit (www.WorkingFamiliesToolkit.com, registration required) for sample letters, fact sheets, fliers and more information on health care reform.

We’re also planning a national health care call-in day to Congress on Oct. 7. Union members can urge their representatives and senators to back health care reform that includes a strong public option. Call 1-877-3-AFL-CIO (1-877-323-5246).

Other actions will include worksite leafleting, letters to the editor and op-ed pieces and other grassroots actions.

The health insurance industry has spent millions to block inclusion of a public health insurance option. That paid off yesterday when the Senate Finance Committee voted 15-8 to kill an amendment by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and another by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to include such an option in their version of health care reform.

But the Finance Committee’s bill is not the only player in the game. Both the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension’s Committee (HELP) and the House bill (H.R. 3200) contain public option provisions and many other improvements over the Finance bill.

This is your chance to make your voice heard and tell Congress “Health Care Can’t Wait!“

Children as young as seven spend months of arduous labor in the cotton fields of Uzbekistan.

As the harvest season for cotton in Uzbekistan begins, 2 million Uzbek children, some as young as six or seven and ranging up to 15, will be forced to spend their days picking cotton instead of attending classes.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Labor Department included cotton from Uzbekistan on a list of goods produced by forced and child labor. Each year during the three-month harvest, Uzbek authorities shut down hundreds of schools, hospitals and public offices. Along with the children, thousands of teachers, doctors and public administrators are forced into the fields.

The International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) has joined with AFT and a broad range of organizations in the United States and Central Asia to call for an end to forced child labor in Uzbekistan. You can act today to stop this shameful practice by signing a petition here.

All supporters who sign the petition by Oct. 2 will have their names put on a special cotton quilt that will be unveiled at a rally in front of the Uzbek embassy in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 14. To get more involved in this action, e-mail volunteer@ilrf.org. 

Every day more than 200 million children around world—one in every six between ages five and 17—go work instead of school, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO). 

Child labor, says U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, continues to be a serious global “problem in 21st century society,” and she says the United States “must do everything in our power to end these shameful practices.”

Uzbekistan is the world’s third-largest exporter of raw cotton and generates some $1 billion a year in cotton exports. Up to one-third of the country’s workforce labors on cotton farms. Independent union representation is almost nonexistent for workers.

Some children who work in the cotton fields are required to work in remote areas where they are forced to stay in dormitories while they pick cotton. Children are even compelled to apply toxic pesticides in parts of Uzbekistan without appropriate protective gear, according to ILRF.

The AFL-CIO Solidarity Center reports that the children working in the fields must meet daily cotton quotas, and those who fail or refuse to take part can face corporal punishment and expulsion from school. Consequences for parents who protest also can be severe: Their social benefits may be revoked, they may be shamed at public meetings or their utilities may be cut off.

The Solidarity Center is part of a broad-based coalition of concerned organizations, led by ILRF, urging the Uzbek government to put an end to these brutal practices. Click here to download an ILRF report, ”We Live Subject to Their Orders: A Three-Province Survey of Forced Child Labor in Uzbekistan’s 2008 Cotton Harvest.”

In an op-ed column in the Los Angeles Times, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, says forced labor in the cotton fields benefits the Uzbek dictatorship, while the children and other workers get only meager meals for their work. 

President Islam Karimov, the strongman leader in Uzbekistan since Soviet times, has not only suppressed democracy, he has maintained his regime’s rigid monopoly as the sole purchaser of cotton grown in the country. Uzbek farmers are required to sell their cotton to state trading agencies at less than one-third the world market price. In turn, the government sells the cotton on commodity exchanges at the market price, guaranteeing huge profits.

Consumers and companies in the United States and Western Europe prop up this “monstrous system” by unwittingly purchasing cotton harvested by forced child labor, Harkin says. Most Uzbek cotton is sold to countries in South Asia and Eastern Europe. From there, the cotton is processed and turned into garments sold in retail stores in the United States, Canada and Western Europe.

Harkin says an international network of nongovernmental organizations, U.S. retailers, manufacturers, faith-based investors and others has come together to try to persuade the Uzbek government to end its use of forced child labor. But the Uzbek government has refused to end the practice despite making promises to do so. He warns:

It is time for the Uzbek government to begin acting in good faith. It should immediately invite the ILO to send an expert observer and assessment mission to Uzbekistan as a prelude to the long-term engagement necessary to reduce and ultimately end forced child labor in that country’s cotton fields. It should allow Uzbek children to leave the fields and return to school.

Hundreds of students from four Chicago-area universities joined UNITE HERE members in a peaceful disobedience demonstration last week.

They clean our hotel rooms—some as many as 30 times a day—with few benefits. Now the housekeepers at some of the nation’s top hotel chains are joining with women’s rights, student, community and clergy leaders to shine a light on the abuses in the hotel industry.

On Sept. 30, more than 350 people will launch a seven-city nationwide “Hope for Housekeepers” tour. The tour kicks off in Long Beach, Calif., where workers will carry a seven-foot by 60-foot “Hope Quilt” on a mile-long pilgrimage from the Hilton Long Beach to the Hyatt Regency Long Beach to symbolize their struggle for decent working conditions.

“Hope for Housekeepers” is a national movement of women, founded by Hyatt housekeepers across the country to stop the abuse of women in the hotel industry and bring a message of hope to Hyatt housekeepers and women working as housekeepers across the globe. Starting out from Long Beach, the tour will travel to San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Antonio, Boston, Indianapolis and Chicago.

The “Hope Quilt,” which will be the centerpiece of the tour, stitches together the stories of Hyatt housekeepers and the struggles they endure every day just to provide for their families. Each patch symbolizes a story of pain, injury and even death or miscarriage brought upon by the heavy burden of their workloads.

In each city, Hyatt housekeepers will hold public events to share stories of hardship and their hopes for a better life for their families. Hyatt housekeepers often clean as many as 30 hotel rooms a day in just eight hours, and many forgo health insurance for their families because of the high cost, according to UNITE HERE, which represents some of the housekeepers.

In a survey of more than 600 housekeepers by UNITE HERE, some 91 percent of respondents say they have suffered work-related pain. Of those who reported pain in the survey, two-thirds took pain medication to get through their daily quota. In a recent academic study of 50 hotels operated by the top five hotel companies, Hyatt had the highest reported rate of injury for housekeepers in the hotels studied.

Yet, despite their hard work, Hyatt fired 98 housekeepers at its Boston hotel last month, many of them veteran employees who made $15 an hour. They were replaced with $8-an-hour “temporary” workers provided by Hospitality Staffing Solutions, an outsourcing company in Atlanta.

Last week, Hyatt offered the housekeepers new temporary jobs through the staffing agency at their old wages, but did not say where or what the jobs would be. The workers rejected that offer. For more information and to help the Boston Hyatt workers, click here.

Meanwhile, UNITE HERE contracts covering some 7,500 workers at 37 hotels in Chicago and 9,000 at 32 San Francisco hotels expired in August. Talks are continuing with the largest employers in each city, including Hyatt Hotels Corp., the Blackstone Group and Starwood Hotels and Resorts, all of which operate properties under several different banners.

In San Francisco, some 1,700 UNITE HERE members from the hotels and other employers took part in the demonstrations and 92 were arrested, while 700 union members participated in a Chicago protest that resulted in 200 arrests.

In San Antonio, workers are asking the city’s mayor to intervene in a dispute with the Grand Hyatt hotel there. The union says management is using anti-union tactics such as intimidation and firings to thwart workers’ freedom to join a union. The Grand Hyatt received some $200 million from the city of San Antonio to get started and build the hotel.

The problem with many freight brokers is that they feel entitled to the profits they are accustomed to taking. Freight Brokers lie to shippers about the rates truck drivers are demanding then lie to truckers about the rate(s) businesses are willing to pay simply for greed. They are allowed to operate in such a manner [...]

Health insurance companies have turned to scare tactics and outright lies to fight health care reform. Seems they’re not satisfied with jacking up the cost of premiums, canceling policies when people get sick and denying treatment.

In fact, you can tell the health insurance companies you’re sick of their lies and that it’s time for real health care reform.

• Click here if a Blue Cross Blue Shield company provides your health insurance.
• Click here if UnitedHealthcare provides your health insurance.
• Click here if Aetna provides your health insurance.
• Click here if Humana provides your health insurance.
• Click here if CIGNA provides your health insurance.
• Click here if a different company provides your health insurance.
• Click here if you don’t have health insurance.

Today, Florida members of the Alliance for Retired Americans rallied in front of the West Palm Beach offices of Humana and called the scare tactics and lies ”unconscionable.”

Humana and several other health insurance companies recently sent letters to seniors with Medicare Advantage policies, claiming that health care reform legislation would cause “millions of seniors and disabled individuals” to lose their benefits. Says Tony Fransetta, president of the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans:

What Humana is doing is unconscionable. Although payments to Humana under Medicare Advantage have increased drastically in the last several years, benefits and services for seniors have not.

On Sept. 21, Medicare told Humana and other health insurance companies to stop misleading consumers.

This information is misleading and confusing to beneficiaries. Please be advised that we take this matter very seriously and, based upon the findings of our investigation, will pursue compliance and enforcement action.

Humana is the second-largest provider of Medicare Advantage policies in the nation.

Medicare Advantage was designed as a pilot program to privatize Medicare during the Bush administration. It allows seniors to receive their benefits through private insurers who, in turn, are reimbursed by the federal government. But currently, the government pays private insurance companies like Humana, on average, 14 percent more for providing coverage to Medicare Advantage clients than it would pay for the same care under traditional Medicare.

That’s quite a cash cow for the health insurance industry and represents, according to the Alliance, “wasteful overpayments to Medicare Advantage programs” that health care reform would rein in.

As Barbara Kennelly, president the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, points out in a column at Huffington Post, the insurance industry uses the funding to tell a $169 billion lie about health care reform.

The only threats of benefits cuts have come from private insurers offering Medicare Advantage plans. Why? Because the industry is at risk of losing billions in federal subsidies—subsidies that have raised premiums for every beneficiary in Medicare (not just the 20 percent in private Medicare Advantage)….These subsidies continue to amass over time, ultimately costing the Treasury and every senior in Medicare $169 billion during the first decade alone. It’s a sweet deal for insurers. A deal they’re now fighting hard to protect.

Lying about Medicare is not the only sleazy action in which health insurance companies are engaging. There is the $1.4.million a day they are spending on an army of 2,700 congressional lobbyists and campaign contributions to kill real reform—especially a public health insurance option that would lower consumer costs and force health insurers to compete. That’s in addition to the television, radio, web and media campaigns to derail reform—and the big health insurance fingerprints on this summer’s town hall meetings.

Then there’s the way they do everyday business:

• Denying coverage or rising rates on people or businesses based on pre-existing conditions.
• Standing between patients and their doctors in deciding what care is needed.
• Paying bonuses and other incentives to employees who deny care or reject claims.

It’s enough to make you sick.

Our friends at Brave New Films have just posted their third short video in the “Sick for Profits” project on how the big insurance companies are fighting health care reform. This time, they’ve expose WellPoint, which operates the Blue Cross Blue Shield empire. Previously, they looked at UnitedHealthcare and CIGNA. Click here for those and other Sick for Profit videos.

UPDATE: Schumer’s public option amendment got killed as well, 10-13, with Baucus, Conrad and Lincoln voting against it. Disgrace.

Looks like one version of public option just got killed in the Senate Finance Committee. Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s public option amendment, the strongest of the public option amendments offered, was just voted down 15-8, with five Democrats voting against it: Sens. Max Baucus (Mont.), Tom Carper (Del.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) and Bill Nelson (Fla.).

As Rockefeller said before the vote:

Why would we not do this? People come second and the profits come first if we’re against this.

Looks like the People lost this one. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will now offer another public option amendment. Let’s hope the Nay-saying Dems have time to check the People’s pulse before they shoot down another public option.

According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll out today, half of 18- to 34-year-olds surveyed say they support a public insurance option as part of health care reform.

Last week, a poll by the New York Times/CBS found 65 percent of those surveyed support a public option and only 26 percent oppose it. A public option would give consumers a choice—and private insurers are opposed to it because they’re afraid it will reduce their massive profits.

So who exactly is being represented in this vote?