Why Ultra-Conservatives Like the Sequester
26 February 13
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Sequester Is a Moral Right for the Extreme Right
Americans cannot be free to live reasonable lives and to thrive in private business. They believe that those who make more from public provisions should pay more to maintain them.
Ultra-conservatives don't believe this. They believe that Democracy gives them the liberty to seek their own self-interests by exercising personal responsibility, without having responsibility for anyone else or anyone else having responsibility for them. They take this as a matter of morality. They see the social responsibility to provide for the common good as an immoral imposition on their liberty.
Their moral sense requires that they do all they can to make the government fail in providing for the common good. Their idea of liberty is maximal personal responsibility, which they see as maximal privatization -- and profitization -- of all that we do for each other together, jointly as a unified nation.
They also believe that if people are hurt by government failure, it is their own fault for being "on the take" instead of providing for themselves. People who depend on public provisions should suffer. They should have rely on themselves alone -- learn personal responsibility, just as Romney said in his 47 percent speech. In the long run, they believe, the country will be better off if everyone has to depend on personal responsibility alone.
Moreover, ultra-conservatives do not see all the ways in which they, and other ultra-conservatives, rely all day every day on what other Americans have supplied for them. They actually believe that they built it all by themselves.So for them the sequester is not a "self-inflicted wound." It is justice. The sequester is not merely about protecting "special interests." It is about the good people who pursued their self-interest successfully, got rich, and have acted "morally" in avoiding taxes that pay for public provisions by the government.
They are not merely trying to harm their own constituents just to hurt the president politically. Yes, they think hurting the president politically is moral, and they believe that any constituents they are hurting need to become more personally responsible. They see the sequester as serving that purpose.
In short, the sequester is not just about money and political power for the Republicans in the House. It is mostly about what they see as the right direction for the country: maximal elimination of the public sphere.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
CWA/SEIU UNION Bargaining Update
CWA/SEIU 1021 Bargaining Update
https://www.facebook.com/
The CWA bargaining team met again with SEIU 1021 management Friday, Jan. 25.
The employer brought five proposals to the table—all takeaways in health care and pension. (See reverse side for details.) The CWA team has said “NO” to all of them, although management has not withdrawn them and insists they need them.
The CWA team entered negotiations with 22 proposals, but at this last meeting pared that down to 10. (See reverse side for details.) The CWA team has been responsibly trying to find savings for the employers without actually intruding on management’s rights to structure its budget (no matter how obviously it needs the help). They are being very careful and so far the only savings they have identified of enough significance to move off a flat “no concessions” position is changing the Kaiser plan (and only the Kaiser plan) from a $10 co-pay per doctor visit to $15.
The CWA researcher estimates the concessions management wants to total $416,000—or about $4,000 per member—in one year. The CWA team is outraged that such a proposal has even been brought to the table. (One member of the management team showed up at the latest session wearing a “NO TAKEAWAYS” button from the Port of Oakland strike many of us worked on, and yet continued to argue that CWA needed to accept cuts. Among SEIU 1021’s numerous ills is not an irony deficiency.)
Every day we are urged by our supervisors and directors to fight for contracts with “no concessions.” And yet the approach of our employer stunningly parallels what we face in our contract campaigns every day:
An employer that consistently underestimates its revenues and overestimates its expenditures, budgeting for a fully staffed operation—something we know all too well not to be reality.
An employer that has way too many contracted out services that should be done by an expanded staff.
An employer that increases its top level managers—specifically three new staff directors and three new officers on lost time—while cutting line staff.
An employer with an $11 million reserve that doesn’t believe it should spend a small amount of it—in this case less than 5%--to alleviate the need for cuts to the staff that keeps its operation going.
We expect this kind of behavior from employers private and public, but for it to come from those who claim to be on the side of the fighting workers is disappointing to say the least.
The CWA bargaining team and CAT will be meeting to discuss where we go from here. You will be hearing from your CAT representatives soon.
This will not stand!
Employer Proposals
1) Eliminate the 5% 401(k) match
2) increased costs of health care to be paid by a change in the benefits provided, some kind of cost sharing, and/or other savings in staff cost
3) If an employee is on leave for six months or more, the employer can fill that position. If the employee returns before twelve months he/she can be placed in any vacant position in their classification. If there is no position available they can be placed on a recall list for six months. If they don’t return to work after twelve months they are laid off.
4) Reduction in the amount of donated leave days a employee out on catastrophic leave can receive from other employees from 80 to 60.
5) Deletion of the MOU’s side letters on Settlement Bonus, Vacation Cash-Out, Retiree Medical and Pilot Project of filling of Staff Openings and Voluntary Transfer Requests.
CWA proposals still on the table
1) Mileage and transportation
2) CompTime
3) Assignment out of Area
4) Hotel Accomodations
5) Out of jurisdiction
6) Education Allowance
7) Vision Plan
8) Salary increases
9) Probationary Period
10) Side Letter – Change of ee’s jurisdiction
11) Promotions
12) Reimbursement timelines
And new as of Jan. 25: Y-rating and the counter on health care (Kaiser co-pays)
The Great Sequester LIE
The Great Sequester Lie
By Paul Begala, The Daily Beast
25 February 13
n a column on the budget, to maintain credibility with Beltway elites, I am supposed to claim the impasse is both parties' fault. It isn't. The conventional wisdom is that Republicans won't support any more tax increases and Democrats won't support any more spending cuts. That's half right.
House Democrats have proposed some sensible spending cuts: like doing away with the billions we spend subsidizing oil companies. With gas nearing $4 a gallon, does anyone really want to send taxpayers' money to the welfare queens of ExxonMobil? House Dems would also enact the Buffett rule (I prefer "Romney rule"), ending the obscenity in the tax code that lets hedge-fund managers pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries.
Not to be outdone, Senate Democrats have proposed $110 billion in spending cuts and tax increases: again, reducing oil subsidies (though not as much as the House Dems), ending the deduction businesses take for moving jobs overseas and trimming the defense budget and farm subsidies.
Finally, the White House boasts of having eliminated 77 government programs, including 16 at the Department of Education, 10 at Health and Human Services, and 4 at Labor. The president's budget calls for $30 billion in cuts to farm programs and $25 billion in savings from the post office.
The Republicans, for their part, did allow the Bush tax cuts to expire on income over $450,000, but they seem to have dug in their heels on the Romney rule and oil subsidies. They are blaming President Obama's "failed leadership" for the sequester and arguing that it was the White House that first proposed the gun-to-the-head approach. As the kids say, 'whatever'. The
Democrats have come to the table with spending cuts. Will the Republicans join them and support some tax increases? Um, no. "Just last month," House Speaker John Boehner said, "The president got his higher taxes on the wealthy, and he's already back for more." True. But there is still some very low-hanging fruit on the revenue side. Republicans ought to at least embrace the Romney rule-if for no other reason than to punish Mitt for running such a lame campaign.
Meanwhile, some congressional Republicans are taking a break from complaining about government spending to complain about the lack of government spending. As Politico has reported, Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker is worried about cuts to the Army Corps of Engineers, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins is fretting over potential job losses at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and John McCain has continued his longstanding opposition to a sequester, bringing it home by telling his fellow Arizonans, "They make the Apache helicopter in Mesa, Arizona. If they cut back, it would have to be affected there."
I would take it further. The new Tea Party senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, says, "I think we have to be prepared to go so far as to shut the government down if we don't get some serious policies to stop the out-of-control spending to tackle the debt." OK, let's start by shutting down federal spending in Texas. Federal funds account for 32 percent of the Lone Star State's budget. Oh, and how about Fort Hood? At 340 square miles, it is the biggest Army base in the free world and the largest single employer in Texas. All that federal spending must be sapping the souls of my fellow Texans. So let's move Fort Hood to, oh, say, Nevada. Sen. Harry Reid actually believes in federal investments, and the Nevada desert might provide good terrain for Fort Hood's tanks.
This could be fun. Oklahoma so hates Obama's big spending that every single county in the state voted for Mitt Romney. Oklahoma has twice the percentage of federal employees than the U.S. average, and Okies get $1.35 back from Washington for each dollar they pay in taxes. So close the massive FAA center in Oklahoma City. Move it to Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco district, where they love big government.
Two years ago I made a similar argument about Kentucky, calling on Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul to put the Bluegrass State in detox for its addiction to local pork. No such luck. But perhaps the principle can apply to the sequester: enforce it only in states whose elected representatives won't support the taxes needed to fund the spending they want.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
New Cancer Killer ?
Sodium Bicarbonate Cancer Killer
According
to the American Cancer Society, sodium bicarbonate is being promoted
as an alternative treatment to cancer by an Italian oncologist, Dr.
Tullio Simoncini. He believes that cancer is caused by a yeast
infection, and sodium bicarbonate has the capacity to kill the yeast.
(See Reference 1.) Dr. Simoncini published his research thesis,
entitled "Cancer is Fungus," presenting fungal infection as
the main cause
of cancer
.
However, no scientific evidence is available to support that cancer is due to yeast infection and that sodium bicarbonate can directly cure cancers, although studies have been conducted regarding the ability of sodium carbonate to influence the pH levels of cancer cells.
Significance
- S
odium bicarbonate is a mainstream treatment for acidosis. Oncologists use it to neutralize the acid properties of most cancer agents in chemotherapy. The Arizona Cancer Center of the University of Arizona, the Department of Pharmacology of Wayne State University in Michigan, and H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Florida are conducting a study that indicates the capacity of sodium bicarbonate to alter the pH of tumor cells that could inhibit its spread and progression. (See Reference 2.)
-
he acid environment
- 1.)
Benefits
- S
ome chemotherapy agents have a heavy acidic nature that can pose a danger to a patient. Oncologists use the complementary benefit of sodium bicarbonate to neutralize the acid property in anti-carcinogen agents. (See Reference 3.) It also helps in bringing alkalinity to the cellular environment of tumors. Because cancer cells cannot survive in an environment that has high oxygen level, an alkaline environment prevents them from growing and spreading.
Considerations
- Although there is lack of substantial evidence to prove that sodium bicarbonate can directly treat cancer, the researches conducted with animal tests provide some therapeutic benefits from the use of sodium bicarbonate for cancer treatment
ARIZ.
U. CLINICAL TRIAL of SODIUM BICARBONATE TUMOR KILLER
Saturday, February 16, 2013
MI AFL, UTW File Suit to Block Right to Work Less Law
Michigan AFL-CIO files federal lawsuit seeking to stop right-to-work law
By on February 11, 2013 at 4:24 PM, updated February 11, 2013 at 10:13 PM
EnlargeUnion members and supporters protest expected right-to-work legislation at the Michigan Capitol on Dec. 6, 2012. (Jonathan Oosting | MLive.com)Unions protest right to work at Michigan Capitol gallery(29 photos)
Attorneys for the AFL-CIO filed a federal lawsuit today in Detroit, seeking a declaratory judgement that PA 348 of 2012 is unlawful and requesting a permanent enjoinder barring state officials from enforcing it.
The 8-count complaint alleges that Michigan's right-to-work law violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution by allowing the state to levy civil and criminal penalties for behaviors regulated by the federal National Labor Relations Act and by purporting to apply to areas under federal jurisdiction, such as dock-yards and forts.
"In its haste to enact a right-to-work law, the legislature overreached and went into an area that is controlled specifically by federal law," said AFL-CIO attorney Andy Nickelhoff, "and that violates the constitution."
The Michigan State Building and Construction Trades Council joined the AFL-CIO in the suit, along with Change to Win, a volunteer labor federation that includes the Teamsters and SEIU. (And our Longshore brothers and sisters in the proud ILWU)
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, along with several other state officials, is named as a defendant in the complaint. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Today's suit is the latest in a series of challenges to Michigan's new right-to-work law, which prohibits employers from collecting union dues a condition of employment. But this case, filed with U.S. District Court Judge Stephen J. Murphy III, is the first at the federal level.
Gov. Rick Snyder, anticipating legal challenges that he said could delay upcoming contract negotiations, last month asked the Michigan Supreme Court to issue an advisory opinion on the new law and whether it violates the state or U.S. constitution.
Days later, the ACLU of Michigan filed suit on behalf of the AFL-CIO and other unions, asking a judge to invalidate the law because it was passed and signed on the same day that state police blocked access to the Capitol during a protest that drew 12,000 people to Lansing.
Jonathan Oosting is a Capitol reporter for MLive Media Group. Email him at joosting@mlive.com or follow attwitter.com/jonathanoosting.
Friday, February 15, 2013
ILWU and ILA Under Corp Attacks
Aggressive Employers Challenge Longshore Workers on Both Coasts
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With their pivotal position in the global supply chain, dockworkers are often considered the standard-bearers of on-the-job power. But on both coasts, this union stronghold is under stepped-up employer pressure.
Terminal operators and shippers are pushing leaner staffing, challenging longstanding work rules, and introducing job-displacing technology. They are also driving a wedge between standards for longshore workers handling containerized cargo and for those who do everything else on the docks.
The union response has been uneven, after the widespread disruptions and civil disobedience workers used during a heated battle in Longview, Washington, in 2011-2012.
Port clerks in Southern California have just voted to reject the settlement that sent them back to work in December after an eight-day strike. East Coast longshore workers, who narrowly avoided a strike in the final days of 2012, are weighing whether to accept a controversial deal reached earlier this month. And West Coast grain handlers also opted not to strike in late December, even though employers declared impasse and imposed a contract workers had roundly rejected.
Clerks Strike
The steady drip of outsourcing drove 600 clerical workers, members of Longshore Union Local 63’s Office Clerical Unit (ILWU), out on an eight-day strike in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach November 27.
After more than two years working under an expired contract, their strike provoked the biggest disruption in West Coast container traffic since the employers’ 2002 coastwide lockout.
Picket lines quickly spread across both ports, eventually idling close to 10,000 additional longshore workers at 10 of the 14 terminals. Over $400 billion worth of container shipments—nearly a third of all such shipments into the U.S.—pass through the two ports each year on their way from far-flung factories to retail shelves.
At its peak the strike had 13 ships anchored offshore, waiting to discharge cargo, while another 18 were re-routed to other ports.
The clerical workers handle invoicing and billing records and schedule on-site customs inspections. Outsourcing has moved 50 of their bargaining unit jobs to non-union office workers away from the ports, from Colorado to Costa Rica.
After eight days of high-stakes negotiations, including federal mediation and an eleventh-hour intervention by Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, strikers returned to work December 5 with new limits on outsourcing.
But clerical workers have reportedly rejected the agreement. No one from the union could be reached for comment, but there is speculation that details of final contract language, settled after the return to work, fed the “no” vote.
Back East
Meanwhile, the East Coast Longshore union (ILA) announced a six-year agreement with port operators February 2. The deal capped tense negotiations marked by two contract extensions, federal mediation, and a narrowly averted strike in late December.
A 200-person committee will convene March 12-14 to review the proposal and either recommend it to members or send negotiators back to the table.
Reports indicate the six-year deal includes backloaded raises—no raises in the first half of the agreement, then one dollar each year for the final three years.
The deal also restores a controversial cap on the “container royalty,” an annual productivity dividend paid to longshore workers based on tonnage moving through containerized ports. The dividend was established with the introduction of containerized shipping in the 1960s to compensate for the huge loss of longshore jobs. ILA members won removal of the cap in their 2009 negotiations. Now it’s back.
“People are upset,” noted Mark Bass, president of ILA Local 1410 in Mobile, Alabama. “There were certain things the ILA promised to stand on, to bring everybody up.”
According to Bass, workers are also concerned the modest increase in the employers’ contribution to benefit funds—a extra $1 per hour worked over the life of the agreement—isn’t nearly enough to shore up local pension, holiday, and vacation funds, which are in poor shape after the financial collapse and continued recession.
Ken Riley, president of Local 1422 in Charleston, South Carolina, and national vice president, shares this concern. “In our local we always say you’re only one accident, or one diagnosis, away from a pension.” he said. “That’s why we’ve done a lot of education, particularly with younger members, so folks understand that improving pension benefits is not just for folks about to leave the industry.”
But Riley also pointed to some advances in the current agreement, including a faster progression to top pay—from nine years down to six—and a first-ever coastwide agreement on automation.
Automation
The automation deal formalized future negotiations over the introduction of new technology, and will channel displaced workers into other ILA jobs. Employers also agreed, in principle, that jobs created by new technology will be in the ILA’s jurisdiction.
“It won’t give us 100 percent protection,” Riley noted, “but we did pretty well.” The automation deal is similar to the one struck by West Coast longshore workers and employers after the coastwide lockout in 2002.
Automation has been a growing concern in the ILA since the world’s largest shipping company, AP Moller-Maersk, opened a semi-automated container terminal in Norfolk, Virginia in August 2007. The move introduced remotely operated yard cranes, controlled through a combination of GPS technology, cameras, and computers. The rail-mounted cranes stack the huge containers seven high and eight wide, delivering them to trucks or rail cars. Six cranes can be operated by one operator from a computer booth inside the terminal.
A similar system is being developed in Bayonne, New Jersey, part of the East Coast’s biggest port system, surrounding New York City. And in Jacksonville, Florida, port authorities have already approved construction of a fully automated terminal operated by the shipping giant Hanjin.
The union won protections against the outsourcing of skilled chassis repair and maintenance—a key issue for International President Harold Daggett, whose home local performs this work in the East Coast’s busiest port system, New York and New Jersey.
As bargaining now shifts to local issues in each port, concern remains high over employer proposals for drastic cuts to staffing levels and crew sizes, particularly in New York and New Jersey.
Grain Strain
The West Coast Longshore union and the Pacific Northwest Grain Handlers Association are at a stalemate. The two sides were locked in tense negotiations late last year, with the ILWU trying to maintain longstanding master contract standards for the 3,000 longshore workers who handle grain along the Puget Sound and Columbia River.
Longshore workers in the region move nearly 30 percent of all U.S. grain exports, including half the nation’s wheat shipments.
The conflict came to a head December 18 when employers declared impasse and pushed the four ILWU locals to vote on their “last, best, and final” offer. Grain workers rejected the proposal by 94 percent. But two of the association employers—Columbia Grain and United Grain—imposed the new terms anyway on December 27, hoping to provoke a strike.
“It’s simple: they want to break the union,” said Leal Sundet, the ILWU Coast Committeeman leading grain negotiations. “But we’ve been here 80 years and we’re not going anywhere.”
According to Sundet, these employers have taken full advantage of the high prices—and hefty profit margins—accompanying this year’s low harvest, spending several months, and millions of dollars, preparing for a showdown with the ILWU. Grain operators fortified terminal entrances in anticipation of aggressive picket lines and installed new surveillance technology to limit the effectiveness of work-to-rule strategies.
The companies had out-of-town replacement workers and three non-union tugboats—complete with armed security and additional Coast Guard protection—on hand in case longshore workers walked off the job.
Rather than strike, the ILWU chose to report to work under the newly imposed conditions, and is considering unfair labor practice charges against the two companies while trying to hammer out a better deal separately with TEMCO, a joint venture between global agribusiness companies CHS and Cargill. Terminals for the fourth employer, Louis-Dreyfus Commodities, have been shuttered for construction, but the company continues to participate in negotiations.
The union remains tight-lipped about TEMCO negotiations, but it is unclear how a settlement—even one protecting master contract standards—can be spread to the two hard-line employers.
Last year’s pitched battle in Longview, Washington, over 25 jobs cast a long shadow over bargaining. ILWU members squared off with grain giant EGT after the company announced it would operate its new state-of-the-art terminal with a different, compliant union. The ILWU finally reached an agreement after months of picketing and direct action that included occupation of the grain terminal, a blockaded train shipment, and scores of arrests.
Despite the militancy, the EGT contract loosened work rules and staffing standards compared to the master grain contract. Now employers are pushing to spread these concessions, such as regular 12-hour shifts, bypassing seniority, and greater flexibility to use supervisors for bargaining unit work.
These developments only raise the stakes for the master contract negotiations coming up in 2014, covering 15,000 West Coast longshore workers. For generations these ILWU members have set the bar for militancy, on-the-job organization, and top-notch contracts. Employers clearly are gearing up to loosen labor’s grip on a key chokepoint in their global supply chain. Look for fireworks in June next year.
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