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August 22, 2008National/PoliticalObama raps McCain for ignorance of his own houses John McCain may have created his own housing crisis. Hours after a report that the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting didn't know how many homes he and his multimillionaire wife own, Democratic rival Barack Obama launched a national TV ad and a series of campaign stops aimed at portraying McCain as wealthy and out of touch. Related item on the AFL-CIO Now blog: Take the Quiz: How Many Houses Do YOU Have? Obama may announce running mate later today Presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday the running mate he has chosen — but has not yet announced — had to meet three standards to join the Democratic ticket: Prepared to be president, able to help him govern and willing to challenge his thinking. Why presidential elections matter to statesBy Stephen C. Fehr Stateline.org Friday, August 22, 2008 A handful of critical states probably will decide the race between Barack Obama and John McCain on Nov. 4, but what the next president does over the next four years will steer policies in all 50 states. A president is many things: a world leader, commander in chief, head of the federal government. For those running states, he also sets a tone on virtually every issue that touches them, from education to immigration to health care. ……. At least 29 states are coping with budget shortfalls by reducing services, cutting jobs, dipping into reserves and in some cases raising taxes. The states’ distress was triggered by a downturn in the national economy caused by high gasoline prices, falling home values and a stubborn mortgage crisis. ……. Soaring health-care costs are a big factor driving the change. Federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid is growing faster than the economy and other government programs at a time when the population is aging. About 28 percent of state funds come from Washington, D.C., the bulk of which is money for Medicaid. States don’t share the costs of Medicare, the federal health plan for seniors. ‘One of the greatest stories of all times’ The Memphis sanitation workers strike remembered Fortieth anniversary events this year have highlighted the historic struggle of African American sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn. — in 1968 among the country’s most oppressed workers — for union rights, decent wages and conditions, respect and dignity, and the fusing of labor, civil rights and peace struggles in that crucible. They have also pointed to the struggles that continue today. Last January strike veterans including union leaders, ministers and community leaders joined in the AFL-CIO’s Martin Luther King Day observance in Memphis. On April 4, veterans of the struggle again came together with labor and civil rights leaders and the Memphis community to rally and march to the Lorraine Motel — now the National Civil Rights Museum — where King was cut down by an assassin’s bullet. The anniversary was a powerful thread running through the national convention of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees here last month — cited by speakers and highlighted by a special workshop and the unveiling of a new video on the strike and King’s crucial role. The workshop featured William Lucy, in 1968 one of the AFSCME leaders who went to Memphis to aid the strikers and now AFSCME’s secretary-treasurer, and Michael Honey, the labor historian whose book, “Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign,” was published last year. Ohio voter rolls / Democrats far outnumber Republicans As Ohio Democrats pack for their national convention in Denver next week, they have quietly rolled up an advantage that almost no one has noticed: nearly a million more registered voters than Republicans. Almost three times as many Ohio voters have become Democrats as have become Republicans since the summer before the last presidential election. …….. Democratic voter registration totals are up nationwide, bolstered by the Obama campaign's aggressive recruitment of new voters, said Dan Seligson, editor of the nonpartisan electionline.org. Although it's difficult to compare Ohio with other states because not all follow the same rules for registering voters, the Democrats' advantage in the Buckeye State is striking, said Doug Lewis, the executive director of the nonprofit Election Center in Houston. For Some Evangelicals, GOP Ties Are No Longer Binding (no link) … For the first time in at least two presidential election cycles, the Republican Party can't assume it has a complete lock on the evangelical vote, which makes up about a quarter of the electorate. President George W. Bush received 78% of the bloc in his 2004 re-election campaign. Polls show that about a third of these white Protestants are either undecided or planning to vote Democratic or independent this November. Ms. Heckel is one reason. She is among thousands of evangelicals who have traveled abroad on short-term missions and returned home newly focused on social issues long championed by Democrats. …….. Presumably, some evangelicals are straying from the GOP for reasons common to other voters: the faltering economy and frustration over the war in Iraq. But some experts cite another factor: the experience of seeing poverty's scourge first-hand. These Republican voters are pulling away from the party despite President Bush's efforts to fight AIDS in Africa. ……. In a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll released Thursday, Sen. John McCain has the support of 70% of white evangelical Protestants, compared with 17% for Sen. Barack Obama. That is 12 points less than the percentage who supported President Bush at this time four years ago. Union Members 25 Percent of Democratic Convention Delegates Union members from around the country will arrive in Denver next week for the Democratic National Convention. A quarter of the more than 4,200 delegates to the convention are active or retired union members or union household members, and they’ll help get the word out about the economic issues that are at the heart of the 2008 elections. Inflation Is Stinging U.S. Workers Harder / European Pay Raises Keep Pace Now, But Economists Fear a Wage-Price Spiral (no link) Consumer prices are rising at their fastest pace in more than a decade in both the U.S. and the euro zone. ……. Unions are more powerful in the 15-nation euro zone than in the U.S., and many laws and practices there are more worker-friendly. That's part of the reason why many European workers are keeping up with inflation better than their U.S. counterparts. Wages and salaries in the euro zone were 3.4% higher in the first quarter than in the year-earlier period, matching the first-quarter annual inflation rate …….. In the U.S., where unions are weaker and wages aren't often indexed to inflation, workers fell behind. Consumer prices were 4.1% higher in the first quarter than in the year-earlier period, but workers' wages and benefits increased 3.3% over the same period. Inflation has risen further since the first quarter, hitting 5.6% in July, while compensation growth has slowed. …… Organized labor has a lot to do with differences between wage inflation in the U.S. and Europe. In the U.S., just 7.5% of private-sector workers are union members, and about 12% of all workers, including government employees. In the euro zone, 18% of private-sector workers, and 22% of all workers, are unionized. In parts of Europe, unions have even more clout than their membership numbers suggest. In much of the euro zone, there is a tradition of big unions negotiating wages for large sectors of the work force, not just their own members. The unions wrangle with employer associations, rather than individual firms, to secure wage deals. In euro-zone countries where such centralized negotiations are less common, wage gains are lagging. Union Movement Mourns Gene Upshaw, 1945–2008 Bush proposes stronger job protections for doctors The Bush administration Thursday proposed stronger job protections for doctors and other health care workers who refuse to participate in abortions because of religious or moral objections. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said that health care professionals should not face retaliation from employers or from medical societies because they object to abortion. ……. The proposed rule, which applies to institutions receiving government money, would require as many as 584,000 employers ranging from major hospitals to doctors' offices and nursing homes to certify in writing that they are complying with several federal laws that protect the conscience rights of health care workers. Violations could lead to a loss of government funding and legal action to recoup federal money already paid. Jump in measles outbreaks worries health officials The number of measles cases in the U.S. is at its highest level since 1997, and nearly half of those involve children whose parents rejected vaccination, government health officials reported Thursday. Hoyer Advocates for a Four-Day Work Week Like long weekends? House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) is pushing a work week of four, 10-hour days for federal employees. In a letter, released this week, to the Office of Personnel Management, he asked the agency to "undertake comprehensive analysis of the transitioning to a 4-day work week for all possible federal employees and inform me by August 31, of any additional actions Congress would need to take to implement such a policy by the end of fiscal year 2008." Per Diem Rates to Rise (scroll down) If you're a federal employee who has the option of taking a business trip at the end of September or early in October, later might be better. The General Services Administration has announced new per diem rates for federal employees. The rates, which take effect Oct. 1, are almost 4 percent higher than those for the current fiscal year. States work to curb jail violence … From 2000 to 2003, the last year for which statistics are available, the homicide rate in prison remained below the national average, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. ….. Like other government agencies, corrections departments are facing budget shortfalls that have led to staff shortages and overcrowding. The worst case is in California, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says they have 100,000 prison beds to hold more than 170,000 inmates. Yet prison homicides have maintained a steady, downward trend, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Bert Useem, a sociology professor at Purdue University in Indiana who has studied the issue, said there was no national drive to combat prison violence. Wardens each saw the violence in their prisons and decided to try new approaches. BLM Office Made Improper Deals With Helium Refiners, Report Says An office of the Bureau of Land Management, which supplies much of the country's crude helium, entered into sweetheart deals with a group of private refiners, potentially costing taxpayers more than $100 million, according to an inspector general's report released yesterday. The Department of Interior report faulted the BLM's Amarillo, Tex., field office for making improper deals with four refiners who extract crude helium from a pipeline that stretches from a field northwest of Amarillo to central Kansas. The agency allowed the refiners -- who operate behind a private shell company they formed in July 2000 -- to net huge profits by overcharging for construction equipment, the report found. U.S. Contractors Shouldn't Face Iraqi Courts (no link) Nearly a year after the tragic shooting of 17 Iraqis by Blackwater security contractors, the Department of Justice is close to indicting six of the guards involved in the horrific events. This is a long overdue step toward holding contractors legally responsible for their actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. But this positive move risks being overshadowed by a more destabilizing development: the apparent agreement, as part of U.S.-Iraqi Status of Forces Agreement negotiations, to revoke the immunity from Iraqi law that private security contractors have enjoyed since 2003. This decision could place diplomats, Iraqi civilians and PSCs at greater risk, and undermine the U.S. mission in Iraq. More must be done to hold security contractors accountable for their actions -- but this is not the way to do it. Investigating Outsourcing and Offshoring Research The question of whether or not to outsource research is hardly new. A hot topic of discussion in the early 1990s, it seemed to be the new direction for large U.S. and global companies. Some companies have been actively involved in various levels of outsourcing or offshoring for more than 10 years. Fifteen years on, you would think that questions around outsourcing would be resolved. However, today we have more questions than answers. Experience has taught us that some of the initial questions were not the right ones and that a number of original assumptions were wrong. The current points of view on this subject are well-depicted in the song “Unwell” by Matchbox 20. The chorus, “But I’m not crazy I’m just a little unwell,” followed by, “I’m not crazy, I’m just a little impaired” sums it up well. The concept of outsourcing research is not “crazy,” it is actually based on several solid business concepts including workflow maximization, operational efficiencies, and cost optimization. In its present format, however, it is definitely “not well” and “impaired” if issues such as quality of work, staffing, attrition levels, cost/benefit analyses, and the required levels of administrative and management time are examined. The SEC’s Risky New IDEA When you go to the Securities and Exchange Commission website these days, the first thing you see is an animation that looks like something out of The Matrix films or the TV show Numb3rs. It seems the agency’s accountants and lawyers are trying to look cool as they move toward the creation of a new system for distributing public-company financial information on the web. This week SEC Chairman Christopher Cox (photo) unveiled Interactive Data Electronic Applications (IDEA, for short), the successor to the EDGAR system that corporate researchers have relied on since the mid-1990s for easy access to 10-Ks, proxy statements and the like. The big selling point of IDEA is tagging. Companies (and mutual funds) will be required to prepare their filings so that key pieces of information are electronically labeled—using a system called XBRL—and thus can be easily retrieved and compared to corresponding data from other companies. The first interactive filings are expected to be available through IDEA late this year. EDGAR will stick around indefinitely as an archive for pre-interactive filings. …….. My concern is the emphasis being placed on disclosure as simply a collection of pieces of data. This may serve the needs of financial analysts and investors, but as a corporate researcher, I find that some of the most valuable portions of SEC filings are narratives rather than numbers—for example, the descriptions of a company’s operations, its competitive position and its legal problems that appear in 10-Ks. State/LocalCarcieri, union court battle to continue into next week The state's largest public employees' union, Council 94 AFSCME, was back in court Thursday, asking Judge Patricia Hurst to stay the decision she issued on Wednesday, and to continue halting the Carcieri administration from implementing an executive order that changes the way their health care co-pays are calculated. After a 90-minute “status conference” in her chambers Thursday, Hurst made no decision but called on both sides to return to court on Monday to continue arguments. Related articles: The help even those who hate them … But it is important to remember that there are many people, like the oblivious young couple Studs Terkel talked to, who enjoy the benefits of unions without ever being a member of one. Those who took the risks, who challenged old abuses and put their livelihoods on the line, created better working conditions that extended far beyond their own small memberships and spilled into places where “union” might be a dirty word. It would seem good to keep that in mind before we get really silly and start blaming unions for problems that are due to simple human stupidity, not collective bargaining. No deals yet in union talks The wheels are definitely still on the bargaining cart, says Washington Federation of State Employees Executive Director Greg Devereux. "I anticipate we’ll either be back at the table next week or the week after that. My goal is to finish it up then," he said. Ind. official: Proposal may affect food stamps Indiana's human services agency is considering further changes in the way it processes food stamps that likely would cost some clients their benefits, agency chief Mitch Roob said after lawmakers questioned him about the proposal. Roob, secretary of the Family and Social Services Administration, on Wednesday also distributed to lawmakers and reporters a letter from a federal food stamp administrator noting the state had improved its timeliness in processing applications. …….. The new rule, which still must cross several hurdles before being adopted, would require food stamp applicants to submit required documents within 30 days - instead of 60 - or risk having to start the application process all over again from scratch, Roob said. Related article from the Journal Gazette: Feds credit state on welfare aid STAWAR: A welfare privatization check-up …….. The new system relies heavily on digital technology that is proving difficult for some users. The ACLU lawsuit alleges, for example, that one woman, with hearing problems, lost her Medicaid and food stamps after being told she could not meet in person with a state case worker.……. Overall the new application system was touted as not only being state-of-the-art, but also cost-effective, saving the taxpayers approximately a half billion dollars over 10 years. No one can argue that Indiana does not need a well managed and efficient system for processing benefit applications, that fully exploits current technologies, but for $1.16 billion dollars, at least the telephone interviews should run on time and any savings should not stem from denying critical services to some of our most vulnerable citizens. They deserve at least the same consideration from the state that IBM and ACS received when they applied for the state contract. Vote delayed for info tech outsourcing / City Council says 5-year, $23M contract is missing information. A decision to outsource the information technology contract for the city and county was delayed Tuesday. City Council voted to delay a decision to award the five-year, $23 million contract to the Houston branch of the France-based company, ATOS Origin IT Services, because it was missing several pieces of information. That included the definition of “key positions” that ATOS would maintain and what the benefits to the city and county would be. ‘It’s not my fault’ … Later in the hearing Henry Bayer, executive director of AFSCME Council 31, spoke to the commission members about Walker's testimony. "If I were a liar I could be a better liar than they (DOC) are. This department is willing to sacrifice so much for a gain of one-quarter of a thousandth percent and that is what it would be to close Pontiac and open Thomson," said Bayer. "We (the union) will work with the director to keep Pontiac open," said Bayer. "We have to make him understand that Thomson was built to relieve the overload, not to displace other facilities." The coroner stays / County Board rejects using medical examiner to probe deaths The push for a Will County medical examiner is dead. At least for now.…… Some people opposed the idea, including some employees who work for O'Neil. A medical examiner would be an overly expensive, unnecessary change, they said, citing the office's successful track record. "Is this what the people of Will County deserve?" asked Mike VanOver, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1028 and a Will County deputy coroner. "A politically motivated rush job? The same old election-year politics?" Union weighs 4-day work week Union members who make up most of the town’s staff are considering a proposal to move to a four-day work week, resulting in Town Hall being closed on Fridays. The union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which represents 48 non-management municipal staff members, is currently negotiating a new three-year contract with the town. Since funds for a three-percent raise were voted down at April Town Meeting, the union was “told to be creative because the town didn’t have any money,” according to Joyce Matthews, president of AFSCME local. Texas proposes Texas-based funds to invest in roads Texas-based funds could invest directly in transportation projects through a new corporation under a plan unveiled on Thursday by the state's legislative leaders and the governor. Texas has the nation's biggest road privatization plan but the legislature, reacting to criticisms that developers were enriching themselves at the expense of taxpayers, enacted a two-year moratorium. That has crimped planned road-building projects though investment banks and developers have expressed keen interest in them. Labor unions not happy as board approves GPS / Employees irked by vehicle tarcking plan A show of force by Brookhaven's labor unions couldn't stop the Town Board from approving Tuesday night new tracking technology for the town's 700 vehicles. Resistance to the proposal to place global positioning satellite-based trackers in town-owned cars and trucks was so strong, in fact, that prior to the meeting, one Long Island employment union leader — while acknowledging the likelihood that the GPS plan would be approved — promised retaliation against Supervisor Brian Foley's administration. All told, about 100 union members made their way into the meeting room to cheer union leaders who decried the plan and boo supporters. But ultimately, board members ignored the union outcry and voted 5-2 to go with the GPS plan, with only Councilman Tim Mazzei (R-Blue Point), leader of the board's conservative majority, and Councilwoman Kathy Walsh (R-Centereach), wife of Brookhaven Civic Service Employees Association blue-collar chief Bill Walsh, in opposition. Line drawn on sick days / Strickland sides with business, says leave plan is bad for Ohio Calling it "unworkable, unwieldy and detrimental to Ohio's economy," Gov. Ted Strickland said yesterday that he will not support a union-backed ballot initiative mandating that many companies offer paid sick days. Affirmative-action initiative fails to make ballot An initiative that would amend the Arizona Constitution to ban affirmative-action programs in the state was disqualified from the ballot Thursday by Secretary of State Jan Brewer. Inmate suicide could be second for prison program The state's Virtual Prison Program is only a year old and the Monday death of inmate Randall McCullough, 37, could be the second suicide involving the initiative outside of Idaho. Idaho prison officials said Wednesday they're still investigating if McCullough committed suicide at a private contracted facility in Texas - Bill Clayton Detention Center run by the GEO Group Inc. - which is holding 371 inmates each at $51 per day under a contract that expires in July 2009. |
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