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November 3, 2009National/PoliticalReid reassures left Lieberman on board Sen. Joe Lieberman has reached a private understanding with Majority Leader Harry Reid that he will not block a final vote on healthcare reform, according to two sources briefed on the matter. Health care plan hits rich with big tax increases The typical family would be spared higher taxes from the House Democratic plan to overhaul health care, and their low-income neighbors could come out ahead. Their wealthy counterparts, however, face big tax increases that could eventually hit future generations of taxpayers who are less wealthy. The bill is funded largely from a 5.4 percent tax on individuals making more than $500,000 a year and couples making more than $1 million, starting in 2011. Hospitals Cite Worry on Fees in Health Bill As Congress struggles to rein in health care costs as part of its sweeping reform efforts, hospitals in New York City and other urban areas that provide some of the most expensive care are among the primary targets. The issue pits hospitals in more rural states like Iowa and Minnesota, where spending tends to be lower, against those in areas like New York and Los Angeles, and revolves around a question that has bedeviled the medical establishment for decades: How much money do hospitals need to provide adequate care for patients, especially poor people who have not had regular access to health care. Connecticut's Health Care Advocate Calls For Federal Protections On Health Insurance As health care reform gains momentum in Congress, Connecticut's health care advocate Monday called for federal standards to protect consumers in their dealings with health insurance plans. .. "It is an opportunity to spread those consumer protections to states that wouldn't get them any other way," Lembo said after a conference call sponsored by Health Care for America Now, a national network of community organizations and advocacy groups that supports health care reform. High court to decide NLRB case The Supreme Court said Monday that it will decide whether two people can do the work of five when it comes to resolving labor-management disputes in the workplace... The National Labor Relations Board, which for decades has had the responsibility of policing similar disputes, has operated with two members -- and three vacancies -- for more than a year. The reason for this is that Democrats who retook control of Congress in 2006 objected to President George W. Bush's labor policies and thus refused to confirm his nominees. EPI’s new Economy Track Web site: Exclusive data on the recession and the jobs crisis .. Introducing Economy Track: a new Web site created by EPI featuring a collection of charts containing our exclusive data. Economy Track offers a detailed picture of the recession and the current jobs crisis unavailable elsewhere. Lack of Paid Sick Days May Aid Flu Pandemic Public health experts worried about the spread of the H1N1 flu are raising concerns that workers who deal with the public, like waiters and child care employees, are jeopardizing others by reporting to work sick because they do not get paid for days they miss for illness. Tens of millions of people, or about 40 percent of all private-sector workers, do not receive paid sick days, and as a result many of them cannot afford to stay home when they are ill. Even some companies that provide paid sick days have policies that make it difficult to call in sick, like giving demerits each time someone misses a day. Shortage of flu vaccines leaves healthcare workers vulnerable For more than a week, occupational nurse Janet Li-Tall has been giving the H1N1 flu vaccine to a short list of fellow healthcare workers at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. But she cannot get the coveted vaccine for herself. .. She is among tens of thousands of local healthcare workers who find themselves in the same position as the general public: scrambling to get vaccinated. States Are Pondering Fraud Suits Against Banks Newly empowered by the Supreme Court, the attorneys general of several states hit hard by the housing collapse are exploring consumer fraud suits against major mortgage lenders. Colleges Try 'Crowdsourcing' Help Desks to Save Money At Indiana University at Bloomington, good help is not hard to find, but it's pricey. Questions to the 24-hour tech-support help desk cost the institution about $11.41 per phone call and $9.39 per e-mail message—and last year the help desk handled more than 150,000 inquiries. .. So, in a few weeks, the university will try something different: letting computer users answer one another's questions. Information-technology people call this "crowdsourcing," a buzzword that puts a positive spin on leaving the job of writing and editing to volunteers rather than hired experts. The idea is to open a Web site where students and professors can post their IT woes and share their solutions. Cash-strapped colleges outsource their e-mail It takes manpower and money to run an e-mail system, and colleges and universities have less of both these days. So they’re turning to outside providers such as Google and Microsoft to run their e-mail for free. Feds: No true count of Iraq contractors KBR, the largest contractor in Iraq, is pulling out of that country so slowly that it could end up costing American taxpayers $193 million more than expected, according to a new Pentagon audit . .. One reason it’s hard to pin down how fast KBR and other contractors are withdrawing from Iraq is that the Defense and State departments and the Agency for International Development — the three agencies employing the most contractors in the Middle East — can’t agree on how many contract employees they have. Pensions for Executives on Rise Pensions for top executives rose an average of 19% in 2008, with more than 200 executives seeing pensions increase more than 50%, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. The executive-pension growth stemmed partly from generous pension formulas, which are based on executive pay, according to the filings. Also adding to the pension jumps are arcane techniques that have received little scrutiny, including increases triggered when an executive reaches a certain age or when companies change interest rates used to calculate the pensions. Fed gives Wall Street deadline on pay plan Summoned to the ornate Lower Manhattan headquarters of the New York Federal Reserve building on Monday, Wall Street's top bankers were given a Feb. 1 deadline to submit proposals for how they plan to improve their pay practices, people with knowledge of the meeting said. The meeting, convened by New York Fed President William C. Dudley, was brief -- no more than 30 minutes -- and to the point with Fed regulators making it clear that they are serious about enforcing the executive compensation guidelines they proposed late last month. State/LocalState officials, guards' union at odds over security at Mansfield prison State prison officials and the union representing corrections officers are at odds over alleged security problems at the Mansfield Correctional Institution. The union said that a cache of 30 "shanks," or homemade knives, was found in a broom closet and a cell at the prison. .. The Ohio Civil Service Employees Association set up an informational picket line and called for a prisoner lockdown today to protest "dangerous conditions" at the Mansfield prison. CSEA protests wage-freeze proposal More than 100 St. Lawrence County Civil Service Employees Association workers packed the state Supreme Court room Monday to demand that the Legislature abandon a proposal to freeze employee pay. State Releases Preliminary Layoff Details The State of Iowa Monday released preliminary plans to lay off 792 state employees. According to a media release, layoffs have been proposed by 15 of the 36 state agencies as an element of their plan to implement the ten percent across-the-board cut in General Fund spending ordered by Governor Culver in October. No mandatory shots for U of I staff in union An arbitrator has ruled that University of Iowa Hospitals may not unilaterally order union staff members to get flu shots. Child care clamp down ... Bob Allen, a spokesperson with AFSCME Wisconsin, which now includes 1,500 in-home day care providers as members of AFSCME/Child Care Providers Together, says the union has generally supported efforts to address problems revealed in the newspaper's investigation and state audit. But since testifying in favor of Grigsby's bill, the union has raised concerns over newly proposed amendments that immediately pull the licenses of providers for a variety of charges. City may ask union for wage freeze There was little surprise Monday night when the city of Beaver Dam Administrative Committee voted to eliminate the 3-percent raise that had previously been budgeted for non-represented employees in 2010. ... What may raise some eyebrows, however, was the committee’s subsequent decision to remove the funding for a 3-percent raise for employees represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 157 (AFSCME). Union members will be operating without a contract as 2010 begins, but it is common practice to budget a typical 3-percent raise in order to cover the anticipated retroactive costs of a yet-to-be-reached contract agreement. Labor Scores Long-Sought History Victory in Wisconsin Schools .. Trouble is, most people don't remember how crucial labor was in pushing Depression-era politicians to codify the basic features of American working life we now take for granted. Either they don't know any labor history buffs, or they never learned about workers' struggles in school. That could soon change in Wisconsin, if Democratic Governor Jim Doyle signs a bill requiring the state's Superintendent of Public Instruction to include the history of organized labor and the collective bargaining process in state social studies standards. Teachers draw on those standards as they prepare students for standardized tests. Doyle has said he will sign the law. Some library decisions, but not on layoffs ... Present an alternative to laying off 30 Rockford Public Library employees to help balance the budget? That’s still a work in progress. A month after the Rockford Public Library Board and union officials vowed to work together to find an amenable solution to a projected $1.7 million budget shortfall, both sides said at tonight’s board meeting that talks have been productive and are ongoing. After that meeting, Jay Ferraro, representative of Local 473 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said the number of projected library employee layoffs is now closer to 14. Group seeks to stop closing of Tinley Park's Howe Center A coalition of state and local leaders, union representatives and families of developmentally disabled adults has launched an effort to block the closing of the embattled Howe Developmental Center in Tinley Park. ... The coalition they helped found includes backing from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, which represents Howe's nearly 700 employees, U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., three state senators and 11 state representatives, two Cook County commissioners, and elected officials of more than a dozen south suburban communities. Sandburg Birthplace hours cut yet again The combination of state budget woes and the Jan. 31 retirement of Steve Holden, former site superintendent at the Carl Sandburg State Historic Site, 313 E. Third St., is causing the hours at the birthplace cottage and welcome center to be cut back once again. .. “It can’t be done at this point without negotiating with the union (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees),” Winick said. “We’re still in line for two positions” once the state lifts its hiring freeze, he explained. Rally against closing Allentown State Hospital today Local politicians will join Allentown State Hospital workers during their lunch break today to protest the state's possible closure of the nearly 100-year-old facility on Hanover Avenue. Two local labor unions affiliated with the Service Employees International Union Local 668 and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2061 organized the rally, inviting politicians, family members of employees and patients and the general public to participate in the 30-minute event. It will run from 12:15-12:45 p.m. Minnesota public employment shrinks, especially locally Minnesota 2020 recently demonstrated that public employment per capita in Minnesota has dropped below the national average. A more detailed analysis of the data reveals that most of this decline in public employment occurred among Minnesota local governments, not state government. UC Budget Generates Protest A group of union service workers and supporting students rallied in front of Chancellor Henry T. Yang’s office yesterday only to find that the chancellor had already left the building. The afternoon march was organized by two public worker unions — the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, University Professional and Technical Employees and Coalition of University Employees — and attracted a group of about 15 students and service workers who were concerned that communication between the administration and undergraduate students regarding the UC budget had been compromised. The humble crowd assembled outside of Cheadle Hall with intentions to hand-deliver a disgruntled letter to Yang. Average DMV wait time is up 18 minutes since furloughs began The average wait time for walk-in customers at Department of Motor Vehicles offices has increased from 27 minutes to 45 minutes since the governor ordered state workers to take three furlough days each month, according to a legislative review. Panel calling for review of state structure, salaries Reviewing state employee salaries, seeking cost reductions in schools and rethinking the size of Michigan's government sound like great ideas that could have useful for this year's state budget. These issues may not be fully addressed in the short term in Lansing, but are suggested in "Charting a Way Forward," a report compiled by the Legislative Commission on Government Efficiency. Shared sacrifice We’re in the middle of the worst budget crisis in decades in New Mexico. One can finger-point all day long, but let’s face it: The entire country is in a crisis, with many places worse off than New Mexico even as our revenues continue to collapse. Suggestions pour into gov’t efficiency hotline Lt. Gov. Diane Denish said she has received more than 100 calls on her newly established government efficiency hotline since it launched Oct. 23. Some callers have suggested changes in salaries and the number of state employees. .. Callers also suggested car-pooling requirements, four-day work weeks, a one-day furlough per pay period for state employees, salary reductions and a reduction in the number of exempt state employees. Gov. Brewer set to call back Legislature Gov. Jan Brewer said she expects to call the Legislature back to work later this month to cut about one-third of the $1.75 billion budget deficit. |
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