Obama Administration Looking Out for Labor in 2010

[babylonsister]

http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/12/29/101312/85

Good news for workers in 2010

by desmoinesdem, Tue Dec 29, 2009 at 10:13:12 AM EST


Since few media outlets have a reporter assigned to the labor beat anymore, we've heard little this year about one of President Obama's best cabinet appointments: Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis.

Tracy Kurowski wrote a good post at Blog for Iowa about the Department of Labor's annual Statement of Regulatory and Deregulatory Priorities, released three weeks ago (full report here). The gist is that Solis is getting her department "back to the business of looking out for labor rather than commerce." Here are some highlights, but you should go read Kurowski's whole post for more details and background:

* Companies would be required to file financial disclosures on their union-busting activity. <...>

* A rule change to allow third parties to report Wage and Hour violations. This is huge. As the DOL themselves put it, "because workers are fearful of losing their jobs in this economy and therefore less likely to file complaints when they are cheated," a third party which has sufficient information to indicate a probable violation may report the abuse. It's as easy as calling 866-4US-WAGE.

* Companies would be required to document a separate ergonomic job injury log in their Occupational Safety and Health Administration reports. No more dismissing carpel-tunnel and other repetitive motion injuries.

* <...>the Wage and Hour Division will hire 250 new investigators - not nearly enough, but a major departure from a decade of attrition and a fox-watching-the-henhouse regulatory culture. The division will focus on industries with high violation rates including agriculture, restaurants, janitorial, construction and car washes.

* Advancing safety standards to protect workers from combustible dust - diacetyl, the artificial butter flavoring used in microwave popcorn and the source of the potentially deadly disease <...>.

* Also better regulation of exposure to crystalline silica dust which causes debilitating respiratory disease which ultimately may be fatal.

* Requiring pay stubs to break down how pay is computed to guard against wage theft.

* <...>Now all government contractors are required to post notices of their workers' rights under federal labor laws -- a move that will better inform a fifth of the private sector workforce of their rights. <...>

* Strengthening the restrictions of how much coal dust workers are allowed to inhale.

I've been critical of the corporate-friendly Obama administration, but at least the Department of Labor is taking steps to protect workers' rights. Now if only we could get Congress to move on the Employee Free Choice Act...

Tracy Kurowski's post here:

http://www.blogforiowa.com/blog/_archives/2009/12/28/4413958.html
Obama Administration Looking Out for Labor in 2010

[Kdillard]

1. Very good news. Hilda was a great pick.

[MNDemNY]

2. Is that 40% sur-tax on union members health insurance part of that whole "looking-out" thing?

:shrug:

[amborin]

18. +1000

[Dinger]

26. *Snap*

Good point.

[truedelphi]

3. I took your header to mean:

Some worker out there has a pair of shoes to throw.

[Cha]

5. Too bad you can never see anything positive.

[truedelphi]

8. That is not my fault.

Show me any of the larger campaign promises that Obama has actually met, and I will be more positive than you are.

Sixteen months ago, when out on the campaign trail, he PROMISED to re-write NAFTA - not this "Wait until 2010 and maybe I might just figure out some small thing to do for labor" crap.

[Cha]

10. Yeah, I've seen your snarkly little negative crap

all over this board and it just makes you look stupid especially on this one for the Unions.

[truedelphi]

12. Are you talking about the same Unions who are expected

To pay higher taxes on their health care plans to help pay for the Health Insurance Giveaway Plan just enacted?

Those Unions?

Of course, they will be allowed to opt out of their Union health plan to pay for a lesser health insurance plan so as to avoid the tax. Great whippity do dah!

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Clio the Leo]

4. Now THERE is your Obama base....

.... if by "base" we mean "earliest group of organized supporters." The man knows where his bread is buttered, which is why the notion that the HCR bill will ultimately screw over union members is BS.

[Cha]

6. That is good news and I defy anyone

to find something wrong with this work the White House is doing..oh, wait.

[Enrique]

14. I can't

this is solid stuff, it will help many workers. Especially imo the wage and hour improvements.

It's interesting this got zero media attention, and that as far as I know Hilda Solis has never been seen on TV. Labor? Boring!

Another positive from Obama on labor was also mostly ignored. Before he was inaugurated, he took sides in the Republic Windows conflict, and they won, arguably because of Obama's intervention.

[Hippo_Tron]

23. It will once it gets to congress

The media doesn't like to write about issues they like to write about process and right now there's is no process since congress is focused on health care and the underwear bomber. Once there's a process story to write, the media will talk about this.

[yowzayowzayowza]

7. K&R

[Peacetrain]

9. K&R!!!!

[IndianaGreen]

11. Is this before or after he sticks that tax on our health benefits dagger on our backs?

Whatever became of Obama's professed support for EFCA during the campaign? Oh, never mind!

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[IndianaGreen]

20. Health Care Excise Tax = A Big Middle Class Tax Increase

Health Care Excise Tax = A Big Middle Class Tax Increase

Revised December 17, 2009

JCT data shows excise tax in the Senate bill would strike at the heart of the middle class

Health care legislation under consideration in the U.S. Senate would raise $149 billion over ten years by imposing a 40 percent excise tax above certain thresholds on insurance company health plans and self-insured plans offered by companies to their workers. This tax would have a dramatic effect on those plans forcing steep reductions in benefits, shifting of costs to workers and a significant increase in taxes on millions of middle-class families.

Contrary to claims by proponents that it will affect only “Cadillac” health plans, like those enjoyed by Goldman Sachs executives, according to Joint Committee on Taxation(i) data the excise tax will:

• Affect 19 percent of workers with employer-sponsored health coverage in 2016.
• Affect nearly 25 million households(ii) in 2019, including one-fifth of middle-class households making between $50,000 and $75,000.
• Affect about 25 percent of health plans by 2019.
• Cost affected households an additional $7,500 in taxes on average between 2013 and 2019, or more than $1,000 a year.
• In 2019, cost affected taxpayers who are millionaires an extra $2,600 in taxes and those making between $50,000 to $75,000 an extra $1,100 in taxes, but the wealthy taxpayers’ income will be at least 13 to 20 times greater.
• Be a tax increase of 0.1 percent of income for those households affected that make more than $1 million a year and be a tax increase of 1.4 percent for those households affected that make $50,000 to $75,000.

The JCT assumes that 82.5 percent of the revenue raised from the tax will be generated by increased wages to make up for health benefits cuts and increased cost sharing. However, most employers say they will not increase workers’ wages in response:

• Only 9 percent of human resource executives in a recent Towers-Perrin survey said if health care reform reduced their benefit costs would they increase salary or direct compensation; 78 percent said they would retain the savings in the business as profit.
• Just 16 percent of health plan sponsors in a recent Mercer survey said they would convert any health care cost savings into higher pay for their workers.

http://www.healthcarevoices.org/pages/impact-of-the-excise-tax-on-the-middle-class

[ellie]

21. !

[Brickbat]

22. That was my first thought, too.

The tax on Chevy plans has got to go. And his total lack of leadership on EFCA since he got elected is terribly disappointing. I'm tired of working for candidates who forget who brung 'em to the dance.

[inna]

15. hip hip hurray! finally!!

[bigwillq]

16. Good post.

:thumbsup:

[Undercurrent]

17. I'm VERY

happy to see the Department of Labor putting worker's right and protection first. It's been a long time since the Department has been headed by a true labor advocate.

I applaud Hilda Solis, and Obama for choosing her!

[Cha]

24. Kick~

[Mithreal]

25. good news, kick

[Bluenorthwest]

27. Solis was a great choice

And some of those provisions are excellent. I am not familiar with the process, does anyone know how such proposals become actual? Does this stuff have to go to Congress, or is it administrative level change?
That third party reporting is a wonderful idea, and one that I could use for the benefit of others this morning. They hit the nail on the head with that need. A very good provision.
Does anyone know how long and what steps need to be followed? I have no idea. Is it fast stuff or long haul stuff? Either way I will support it with gusto.
Still not happy about the tax on Union health plans, having given up money for benefits since I was 20. Right now I will not be taxed, and if I were to be in that situation again, I would probably be making piles of cash so the tax would be moot to me. But for many others, it could be very harmful. So I do not dig that.
The rest of it, I'm there for Hilda all the way.

[lsewpershad]

28. Good start

now all the other depts and agencies should start dolng their jobs.....jobs WE pay them to do.