I mentioned in last night’s post about Mike Rogers’ visit to Auburn that the so-called Employee Free Choice Act—which may very well be the most inaccurately named piece of legislation in American history—has undergone some changes this summer.
A half-dozen senators friendly to labor have decided to drop a central provision of a bill that would have made it easier to organize workers.
The so-called card-check provision — which senators decided to scrap to help secure a filibuster-proof 60 votes — would have required employers to recognize a union as soon as a majority of workers signed cards saying they wanted a union. Currently, employers can insist on a secret-ballot election, a higher hurdle for unions ...
Labor unions have pushed aggressively to enact the bill — formally, the Employee Free Choice Act. They view it as essential to reverse labor’s long decline. Just 7.6 percent of private-sector workers belong to unions, one-fifth the rate of a half-century ago.
Behold, irony: The Times says that several moderate Democrats opposed the card-check provision as ... undemocratic.
Here’s an interesting quote from the story, given Rogers’ comments on the bill yesterday and how union leaders might seek to bait and switch card check for tighter arbitration provisions:
Several union leaders interviewed took the senators’ move in stride. One top union official, who insisted on anonymity because lawmakers and labor leaders have agreed not to discuss the status of the bill, said, “Even if card check is jettisoned to political realities, I don’t think people should be despondent over that because labor law reform can take different shapes.”
Now, that ought to give you pause.
More on the bait-and-switch, including more on binding arbitration, from this July 21 editorial in The Wall Street Journal:
Politicians don’t typically broadcast their defeat, and when they do it pays to watch for the blindside hit. That’s surely the case with last week’s reports that six liberal Senators are abandoning part of labor’s top priority, “card check” legislation.
The legislation to eliminate secret ballots in union elections has in fact been comatose for weeks, since Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas declared their opposition. So the real purpose of this “concession” is to shift to Plan B, which is to repackage most of what labor wants with new ribbons and wrapping. The bill that Senators Tom Harkin (Iowa), Mark Pryor (Arkansas), Mr. Specter and others are now considering would still give unions the whip hand in negotiations with management.
Why is this bad? I defer to the WSJ:
Labor is desperate to rig the bargaining rules because most workers show time and again that they don’t want a union. Americans know unions promise higher wages and benefits and more job security. But workers can also see what has happened to such highly unionized industries as steel, autos, airlines and many others. Unions couldn’t save those jobs, and in fact they contributed to their demise with contracts that made the industries uncompetitive. Most workers would also rather not hand over a chunk of their paycheck in mandatory dues to finance the political agenda of labor leaders.
I have said it before, and I’ll say it again: Any broadening of union organization rules must also include an opt-out provision for those portions of dues used in political activities.
It’s commonly known by its highly accurate name: Paycheck protection.
As an update to yesterday’s post about the spread of the H1N1 flu virus, we have this story from the Associated Press:
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Tuesday that a massive school closing wouldn’t stop the spread of the swine flu virus, saying vaccinations must be the defense against a menace that one report said could infect up to half of the population.
“What we know is that we have the virus right now traveling around the United States,“ Sebelius said in a nationally broadcast interview. “And having children in a learning situation is beneficial ... What we learned last spring is that shutting a school down sort of pre-emptively doesn’t stop the virus from spreading ...“
Asked in the interview what people should do while awaiting the arrival of a vaccine, with first supplies likely by October but most not until the Thanksgiving season, Sebelius said: “I think it’s important that people begin to anticipate that we will have a vaccine. We think it’s likely that we’re going to need two shots for the vaccine.“
She said people should plan ahead for this, particularly those with pre-existing medical conditions, pregnant women and health care industry workers. Sebelius said federal health authorities also are recommending that people should immediately get their regular “seasonal” flu vaccine to bolster their health for the scenario yet to play out later this year regarding the swine flu virus.
Here’s a link to the CDC’s “H1N1 U.S. Situation Update” map—in other words, a visual representation of where the infections have spread. One surprising fact: The virus is most widespread in Alaska and Maine—not exactly the two states I would expect to be at the top of the infection list. Other information useful for tracking H1N1 is available here, too—including the graph showing hospitalizations and deaths caused by the virus. Note that through Aug. 20, H1N1 had a fatality rate of more than 6.5 percent.
If you haven’t yet voted in my polls on this issue, please do. You’ll find the general poll in the sidebar; the poll about your intentions regarding the vaccine is in the earlier post.
CNN is reporting, and his family has confirmed, that U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) has died of brain cancer.
He was 77.
Kennedy has been fighting cancer for more than a year, and his absence from the Senate as it undertook health care legislation—for decades, his key issue—was a constant reminder of the seriousness of his condition. Most recently, word surfaced that Kennedy had written personal notes to leaders of the Massachusetts Legislature to ask them to change the state’s successor law to ensure that his seat would not be left vacant for months—but especially when Congress voted on the health care bill now working its way through Congress—as his successor was established through a special election, as state law currently provides.
There will be plenty of time to talk about the impact Kennedy’s death will have on the ongoing efforts to overhaul health care in Washington.
Tonight is not that time.
Kennedy made a substantial contribution to public service. He was a U.S. Army veteran and served more than 46 years in the Senate. I encourage you to read about his career here.
Regardless of your thoughts about Kennedy’s political philosophy and record—and, for better or for worse, he is one of America’s most controversial political figures—his death marks the irrefutable passing of an important era in American politics. The Kennedy name is synonymous with politics in the United States; as the brother of one president and the brother of another might-have-been president, both of whom were brutally assassinated before the eyes of the world, Ted Kennedy was a unique link between the country our nation has become and what it used to be.
My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.
See also:
This obituary, an expansive and sweeping overview of Kennedy’s life, from ABC News.
I caught up with U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) tonight after his speech to the Lee County Republican Executive Committee in Auburn.
I say I caught up with him after the speech because I got there just in time to hear the last paragraph of his remarks. I arrived just before the 7 p.m. meeting; unfortunately for me, Rogers was part of the 6 p.m. social hour. (Note to self: In the Lee County REC, “Social hour” actually includes business.)
Anyway, he was gracious enough to hang around in the lobby for a few minutes to catch me up on what he told the standing-room-only crowd of about 100.
Here’s what he said:
At the close of his formal remarks, Rogers was encouraging the crowd to work especially hard to retain the senior members of Alabama’s congressional delegation, including U.S. senators Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions. Only after years of building seniority can legislators really start to make broad impacts on public policy, Rogers said, and through Shelby and Sessions, “Alabama is finally getting some seniority.“ Shelby, the ranking member on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee,“is an 800-pound gorilla” in Washington, and Sessions’ new position as the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee made him the GOP’s “point man” as the Senate considered the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
As Rogers concluded his remarks, a man over my shoulder said half-heartedly to the man sitting next to him, “Well, I guess the bottom line is, we’re stuck for the next 30 years.“
I couldn’t stifle a chuckle.
Later, I asked Tripp Skipper, Rogers’ senior adviser, how long Rogers intended to stay in Congress.
“My guess is he’ll keep going back as long as the good folks of the Third District will send him,“ Skipper said.
On health care: Rogers told me that most of his remarks to the crowd had focused on the health care bill now making its way through Congress.
“The whole debate is about the public option,“ he said. And while some people may think that the Democratic leadership will back off of the public option because of the “upheaval” it has caused across the country, “I don’t think it’s over,“ he said.
Rogers said there is no circumstance under which he would support a bill that included a public option, citing concerns that such an option would eventually lead to a single-payer system.
“I have serious questions about the implications of keeping the public option on the table,“ Rogers said. “They say it’s to keep the private insurance companies honest. But if the public option doesn’t have to make a profit, doesn’t have to pay taxes, is not subject to the same rules and regulations as the private sector and is subsidized by the government, how can private insurance companies compete with that?“
The scenario would inevitably lead to the single-payer system, Rogers said.
He also has concerns about health care delivery in rural areas under the new plan, he said.
“My job is to ask questions. If I’m wrong, then it should be easy to disprove what I’m saying.“
As for the public option, Rogers said he expects that liberal Democrats will succeed at getting the bill out of the House with it intact. How? Speaker Nancy Pelosi is “smart, capable and she really wants this,“ Rogers said, so he expects that she will target a handful of Democrats (14, if she keeps the rest of the Democrats together) from the Blue Dog caucus who are in strong positions in their districts, peel them off from the caucus and lock them down on the vote to get the bill passed. Those members, theoretically, will be able to withstand the political storms in their districts; the rest of the Blue Dogs, Rogers said, will be released to “do what they have to do” in voting against the bill and go back to their districts to say whatever is necessary to keep their seats.
The real problem is in the Senate, where, as I have told you over the last two days, liberal Democrats are floating the idea of using reconciliation to pass the health care bill without having to overcome the threat of a filibuster. We didn’t get back to what Rogers thought would happen if the Senate passed the bill under reconciliation and it came back to the House from conference with the public option intact. But I suspect his reticence on that issue spoke volumes.
On that national “upheaval” Rogers mentioned: He said he’s “disturbed” by the White House’s reaction to the anger at town hall meetings. That anger isn’t just about what’s going on in health care, he said. It was caused by a “series of policy decisions,“ starting with the stimulus package, including the cap and trade bill and continuing through other moves strengthening the government’s control over the financial sector. Add what’s going on with health care to the mix, and Americans are seeing “a lot of public policy movement” that consolidates power in the federal government.
“My town halls are packed, and I’ve never had that before,“ Rogers said.
I asked Rogers about the way health care is sucking all the oxygen out of the room and whether that is enabling anything else to fly below the radar in Congress. At first, he shook his head, but then he mentioned the Employer Free Choice Act.
You might have missed it in all the health care and Supreme Court news last month, but the EFCA has undergone some substantial changes in the Senate. Or has it?
A handful of senators have signaled their opposition to the “card check” provision of the bill that would make it easier for unions to organize. That was the most controversial component of the bill, because it would substitute the card check for the secret-ballot elections that are now required for organization. But Rogers said he expects that the unions will make a full frontal assault on Congress to get what’s left of the bill—new arbitration provisions—into law.
Rogers said the unions—“who bought and paid for this Congress to get this bill through”—will try to swap the card check provision for tighter arbitration periods of as few as 30 days. Business organizations fear the change because, under expanded arbitration, they would have even less control than they do under the system now over what they pay their employees, what benefits they offer, etc.
Rogers will return to Washington for the fall session in two weeks.
It will be interesting to see how his prognostications play out.
I’ve kept up with all the news about the virus, though mostly by default; I don’t consider myself an alarmist, but because of the massive coverage it’s getting, it’s hard to miss it on cable news and on the web.
I’ve talked to various people about it at varying points along the way. The general consensus in my circle seemed to be that while H1N1 would probably cause a slightly more intense or lengthy bout of flu as compared with the regular seasonal flu, it wasn’t anything to worry about—at least not in the apoplectic way some people are doing.
And then I read this article from CNN, which says in part:
The H1N1 flu virus could cause up to 90,000 U.S. deaths, mainly among children and young adults, if it resurges this fall as expected, according to a report released Monday by a presidential advisory panel.
The H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu virus, could infect between 30 percent and 50 percent of the American population during the fall and winter and lead to as many as 1.8 million U.S. hospital admissions, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology reported.
The report says 30,000 to 90,000 deaths are projected as part of a “plausible scenario” involving large outbreaks at schools, inadequate antiviral supplies and the virus peaking before vaccinations have time to be effective ...
An H1N1 resurgence may happen as early as September, at the beginning of the school year, and infections may peak in mid-October, according to the report. However, the H1N1 vaccine isn’t expected to be available until mid-October, and even then it will take several weeks for vaccinated individuals to develop immunity, the report says.
(For comparison, the seasonal flu is responsible for up to 40,000 U.S. deaths annually, according to CNN.)
So, the government wants you to get the vaccine (which is actually two shots) ... but it isn’t available yet, and by the time you get it, it may be too late for it to work.
Yikes.
What do you think about all this? Are you in an at-risk group? Are you concerned about H1N1? Are you going to get the vaccine? Let me know in the polls below and in the sidebar.
