Michele Petrovsky Archive

California has been the source of sea changes of a number of kinds.  One that comes quickly to mind is the Internet.  The Information Super Highway to which we’ve all become so accustomed began in 1969 as a consortium of interconnectivity, known as ARPANET, and hosted by four Universities in the Golden State.

Recently, California again moved society forward.  This time, though, it wasn’t equal access to information that was championed.  Instead, income equality, or at least fairness, is the goal.

Emeryville, California, a small town across the Bay from San Francisco, recently established the highest minimum wage in the country.  Two months ago, the minimum in Emeryville was $9.  Now, it’s at least $12.25, and scheduled to go beyond that to a ceiling of $14.44 at the rate of $1.00 per year.

Emeryville’s mayor, Ruth Atkin, in announcing the hike, said “What meaning does a minimum wage have if it's not a living wage?  We should have a living wage."

Late in August, Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin appeared to try to thumb a ride on Donald Trump’s coattails.  Walker’s statements lacked the overt xenophobia that Trump seems to cultivate.  There was, for example, no mention of murderers or rapists.  But like Trump, Walker put forward the idea of a wall.  Trouble was, Walker envisioned a wall, not along the border between Mexico and the United States, but between Canada and us.

Walker claimed that law enforcement officials had concerns about the world’s longest unarmed border.  According to the Wisconsin governor, those officials saw our border with Canada as a possible source of a sort of “commuter crime.” with wrongdoers travelling back and forth with ease.  Such ideas are, in my opinion, ludicrous.

I lived and worked in Canada for a year, teaching at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  Halifax is an active, busy sea port; the capital of the province; and an urbane, multicultural environment.  My time there was completely comfortable, enjoyable and safe.  Not once in those months did I feel myself to be in danger.

Not only Halifax, but Canada in general refute the idea that multi-culturalism is dangerous, and a possible precursor to crime and even terrorism.  If a wall on the United States – Mexico border is ludicrous, how much more so would one on our northern border be?

Recently, former President Jimmy Carter said that he felt the United States had become an oligarchy.  That sentiment can’t be brushed off as the emotionalism of a liberal.  Well-respected institutions like Princeton University, as well as progressive organizations such as CommonDreams.org, have also put forth that idea.

The Princeton effort is particularly germane to this discussion.  In April 2014, two researchers, Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, published a study that concluded that the United States had become an oligarchy, rather than continuing to be a democracy.  Merriam-Webster.com defines oligarchy as

a country, business, etc., that is controlled by a small group of people, and / or: the people that control a country, business, etc.

Gilens and Page investigated over 1,800 policy initiatives taken during the time frame 1981 to 2002 by the Federal government.  Here’s how they summed up their work.

In May just past, protestors at a national meeting of McDonald’s shareholders demanded that the company establish a minimum wage of $15.00 an hour.  In reporting that protest, NBC News noted that what had seemed an impossible dream had gained not only credibility but also momentum and popular support.  Two organizations, Fightfor15.org (a group backed by the Service Employees International Union), and 15now.org, have been set up with the sole purpose of accomplishing what their names suggest – an immediate $15.00 minimum wage.

Kendall Fells, a director of Fightfor15, said recently “They used to think $15 was impossible. Now it's popping up everywhere.”  Everywhere, as of this writing, includes Los Angeles, San Francisco (tentatively in the latter case), Oregon, Philadelphia and Minneapolis. 

What’s particularly interesting about this development is that many of those advocating for a $15.00 minimum wage also assert the need for unions.  In particular, some folks in Los Angeles made that clear.  Acting in support of southern California fast food and retail workers’ demands for a wage that would allow them to live above the poverty line, the Los Angeles Workers Assembly not only made their support for a $15 minimum wage known to Los Angeles’ City Clerk and City Attorney, but also linked that support to the need for union representation for low-wage workers.

We should all join in these efforts. Contact your Members of Congress; tell them “we need $15 now!”

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To submit a blog to Union Matters, e-mail it to bstack@usw.org. Keep it to 250 words or fewer. You MUST include your full name, hometown, and state. You may attach a photograph of yourself. Please include a phone number. This WILL NOT be published. Posting any given blog is within the discretion of the USW. No blog using foul language (this is a family site), false information (we don’t want to get sued), or unnecessary personal attacks (again, we don’t want to get sued) will be used. Wait a reasonable period of time, then blog again!

Nothing is more precious than the right to vote, unless it’s the ability to exercise that right.

Some of my earliest, and fondest, memories are of my two bubbas discussing the politics of the 1950s in exceedingly heavily accented English.  One can only imagine what they would have thought of the gutting by our Supreme Court of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

While they didn’t live to see that legislation, my bubs cherished, and religiously applied, what it upheld – the right of every adult American citizen to vote.  Both Grandma Boytim and Grandma Petrovsky voted in every Presidential election from the time they became naturalized citizens in the 1930s, until they passed away.  The only other folks I’ve known who voted as faithfully were former students, one originally from Bangladesh and the other from Turkey - naturalized citizens both.  Syeda, my Bangladeshi, told me she cried when she voted for the first time.

In the science fiction film “When Worlds Collide,” there’s a scene in which those attempting to save humanity from Earth’s impending destruction are urged, in a harsh, discordant tone, to work harder!

If that sounds vaguely familiar, it might be because recently Jeb Bush, a leading candidate for the Republican nomination for President, opined something similar.  Trouble is,  Bush meant it as an integral part of his economic plan.

Under that plan, the former Florida governor stated that “people should work longer hours" if the economy is to achieve faster and larger growth.  While Bush’s staff maintains the “longer hours” comment was referred only to part-time workers, that’s not what Bush said at the time.

The U.S. Supreme Court plans to hear a case that, should it be decided in favor of the plaintiffs, could do to unions what King v. Burwell sought to do to the Affordable Care Act.

The case in question involves public sector unions.  Specifically, a group of California teachers have petitioned the Court, claiming their First Amendment rights have been violated.  How so?  They cite having to pay fees to a union for services the union might perform on their behalf, whether or not want to join it, as the violation they allege.

Trouble is, a ruling in agreement with this position would overturn a legal precedent of almost four decades.  That precedent, set in 1977 in the case Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, established the principle that public workers can pay what are called "fair share" fees if they are represented by a union, even if they are not members.  The status of Abood as settled law has been upheld by both a federal district court, and by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.  But that may not be enough.  For instance, in a 5-4 opinion last year, Justice Samuel Alito called Abood questionable on several grounds, implying at least some support for the concept of right-to-work.

The conservative activist Grover Norquist once famously said that government should be small enough to drown in a bathtub.  Almost equally thoughtless was his pledge, eventually signed by multitudes of legislators on the right, never to raise taxes.

That pledge, and with it possibly Mr. Norquist’s influence among conservatives, just went belly-up.  Here’s what seems to be behind the change of heart.

Kansas is among several Republican-dominated states  that must either raise taxes or drastically cut programs like education and the social safety net.  Other states faced with a similar Hobson’s choice include Louisiana, whose Republican governor Bobby Jindal is said to be considering a run for the Presidency, and Wisconsin, whose  Republican Gov. Scott Walker has already expressed interest in that job.

In Kansas, the state’s sales tax will become one of the highest in the country.  In addition to this move, cigarette taxes in Kansas will go up by 50 cents per pack.  Two things should be pointed out regarding these tax hikes.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced earlier this month that he had asked the federal government to allow the state to take over its health care exchange.  Wolf made the request in an effort to protect Pennsylvanians’ ability to continue to receive federal subsidies toward purchasing health insurance, should the Supreme Court gut the Affordable Care Act.

If Wolf’s move is to succeed, the Republican-dominated Pennsylvania state legislature would also have to approve a state-run, rather than the current federally-administered, exchange.  That approval might or might not be forthcoming.  A spokesman for the Pennsylvania House Republicans recently told the Philadelphia Inquirer: “There is no reason to deal with it right now.”

One might reasonably interpret that statement as meaning: Let’s wait to see how the Supreme Court rules on Obamacare.  If SCOTUS upholds the law, the whole question becomes moot.  If it overturns the statute, we’ll have to decide how much political risk we’re willing to take on.  Challengers to Obamacare maintain that current federal subsidies for health insurance in 37 states are invalid, simply because the wording of the statute describes such subsidies as being intended only for exchanges established by the State.  Should the Supreme Court uphold that interpretation, about 382,000 Pennsylvanians might lose all or part of the federal subsidies that finance their health care.

It may be that for once, progressives need not be on the defensive.  With the Supreme Court’s deciding yet another challenge to Obamacare in a few weeks, conservatives appear to be the ones on edge.  At least, some conservatives are.

And they have reason to be.  Of the 34 states that might lose health insurance for millions of their citizens, 26 have Republican governors, and 22 have Republican Senate seats up for possible grabs in 2016.

Plaintiffs in the hearing before the Supreme Court took the tack that the ACA’s wording allows the federal government to subsidize coverage only in states that set up their own health insurance markets. If the Supreme Court invalidates subsidies in those states, an estimated 8 million people could lose coverage.

That wouldn’t happen, though, without some serious fallout.  Sandy Praeger, a former Kansas insurance commissioner, said recently "People who are reasonably healthy would just drop coverage. . .and. . .only the unhealthy would keep buying health care. [That in and of itself] would really exacerbate the problem of the cost of health insurance."  Praeger, a Republican who retired this year, went even further, saying a ruling against Obamacare could bring about "a classic death spiral."  That’s insurance-speak for a collapse of the health insurance market.

A piece posted by talkingpointsmemo.com on May 25^th summed up the situation nicely:

“If the subsidies survive, the Affordable Care Act will look like settled law to all but its most passionate opponents. But if they are overturned, the shock could carry into next year's elections.”

We should know if and how this knot gets untied sometime before the end of June.

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To submit a blog to Union Matters, e-mail it to bstack@usw.org. Keep it to 250 words or fewer. You MUST include your full name, hometown, and state. You may attach a photograph of yourself. Please include a phone number. This WILL NOT be published. Posting any given blog is within the discretion of the USW. No blog using foul language (this is a family site), false information (we don’t want to get sued), or unnecessary personal attacks (again, we don’t want to get sued) will be used. Wait a reasonable period of time, then blog again!

Bashing liberals is a time-honored sport on the far right.  Bashing the Clintons can therefore legitimately be compared to fantasy baseball.  In each of these, one can construct one’s own reality, related to facts no more than one wishes.

A major-league example of Clinton bashing is the book Clinton Cash, by Peter Schweizer, founder of the Government Accountability Institute.  Mr. Schweizer is a conservative with a history of getting it wrong.  According to Media Matters, his most recent work continues that tradition.

Right-wing snark of recent years, like the purple-heart Band-Aids that mocked John Kerry’s Presidential candidacy in 2004, has often been funded by uber-wealthy conservatives.  In the case of Clinton Cash, the folks behind the screen are, apparently, the Koch Brothers.

These siblings are no slouches when it comes to keeping conservative causes afloat; their efforts have included bankrolling the campaign to prevent the recall of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.  Operating as they do so far under the radar, the Koch Brothers’ efforts to distort the information that underlies our electoral process might seem almost impossible to overcome.  But they’re mot.

Not even the Koch Brothers have enough money to outstrip the votes of millions of motivated Americans.

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To submit a blog to Union Matters, e-mail it to bstack@usw.org. Keep it to 250 words or fewer. You MUST include your full name, hometown, and state. You may attach a photograph of yourself. Please include a phone number. This WILL NOT be published. Posting any given blog is within the discretion of the USW. No blog using foul language (this is a family site), false information (we don’t want to get sued), or unnecessary personal attacks (again, we don’t want to get sued) will be used. Wait a reasonable period of time, then blog again!

Is there a connection, a causal relationship, between trade agreements such as NAFTA and urban unrest like that recently experienced by Baltimore?

Some feel there is.  For instance, the Chief Operating Officer of the Baltimore Orioles said:

My greater source of personal concern …  is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S.[and] plunged tens of millions of good, hard-working Americans into economic devastation …

Data exists to support such claims.  For instance, one of the Huffington Post’s subsidiaries, together with the organization  Public Citizen, reported in early 2014 that NAFTA, in its first 20 years, had produced no benefits to our economy.  Rather, it resulted in:

• a $181 billion U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and Canada
• a corollary loss of 1 million net U.S. jobs
• increasing income inequality
• the doubling of immigration from Mexico
• more than $360 million paid to corporations after rollbacks of domestic public interest policies

Recently, the Republican administration in Wisconsin took a step that seems to challenge the First Amendment to our Constitution.  According to a report in the New York Times, a Wisconsin agency that manages state lands has forbidden its employees from working on issues related to climate change while they are on the job.

Other than the obvious non sequitur inherent in this stance – since climate change quite possibly affects the lands the agency manages – there’s another significant question here.  Does such an order violate the First Amendment rights of these employees?  Let’s take a look at that amendment, the first in what’s known as the Bill of Rights, and a statement of what so many consider emblematic of our nation.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Article III Section 1 of our Constitution defines the conditions under which Federal judges serve.  Article II Section 4 in our foundational document defines those offenses for which judges, including Justices of the Supreme Court, can be removed from office.

The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Lucas A. Powe, a Supreme Court historian, claimed recently that Chief Justice John Roberts will be under enormous pressure to deep-six the Affordable Care Act this coming June, when SCOTUS hears a challenge to it.  According to Powe, Roberts’ “natural allies,” hard-core conservatives, want to gut the statute.  Powe speculated further that if Roberts allows Obamacare to stand, as he did in 2012, he might be accused by these die-hards of any or all of the above mentioned offenses.

Never trust far-right ideologues with your money.

On March 25, the far-right-Republican-dominated U.S. House of Representatives passed a budget that would, as Daily Kos put it, cause the 1% to celebrate with glee.  That spending bill, while unlikely to get through the Republican-controlled Senate, would, among other things, gut:

• child tax credits
• food stamps
• Medicaid
• Pell Grants
• tax deductions for education.

To top off the uber-conservative wish list, the House budget would also end the Affordable Care Act.

In one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek: the Next Generation, Dr. Beverly Crusher is trapped in a universe that threatens to shrink until she is its only occupant.

The conservative activist organization called the American Legislative Exchange or ALEC now finds itself in a similar situation.  On March 24^th, the Center for American Progress, in its email newsletter called The Progress Report, predicted, if not the demise at least the continuing diminution, of ALEC.

Here at Union Matters, we’ve discussed ALEC before.  Specifically, ALEC exists to offer cookie-cutter bills that right-wing state legislatures use to accomplish conservative goals.

But ALEC and its agenda aren’t without opponents.  On March 23^rd, British Petroleum, which employs many USW members, announced that it is cutting ties with ALEC.  And BP is only the most recent mega-company to do so.  In 2012, superstars of the business world such as Coca-Cola, Kraft, Walmart, Amazon, Johnson & Johnson, and Miller/Coors, withdrew support for ALEC because of the latter’s buttressing restrictive voter ID legislation and Stand Your Ground gun laws.

The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, states, in one part of its web site:

Hard work is needed to break out of the cycle of stagnant ideas and old ways of legislating.  ALEC provides a platform for legislators looking to share and find new understanding of the challenges facing their states.  …  legislators can start the discussions in their states of how to best streamline government services and create a system that is efficient, effective and accountable.

In other words, ALEC’s raison d’etre is to help conservative state legislatures block new or gut existing progressive policies, and to substitute laws that accomplish the goals of the far right.

So far, ALEC is batting 500 in this effort.  To date, 25 of our 50 states have enacted right-to-work (for less) laws.  Most recently, ALEC’s cookie-cutter legislation found its way to Wisconsin.  There, on March 10^th, Scott Walker signed into law a bill that the Center for Media and Democracy’s PRWatch said was taken almost word for word from ALEC’s model.

In December of 2014, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said a right-to-work-for-less bill would be a distraction from his preferred legislative agenda.  But more recently, he opined that such a bill had become appropriate because his budget and legislative agenda have been finalized.  In a burst of frankness, Walker followed up by stating that passing right-to-work-for-less legislation would be a step toward achieving his presidential ambitions.  (Walker has made other similar “pander to the right wing” statements of late.  For example, in an interview in February, Gov. Walker refused to say whether he believed in evolution.)

A number of Wisconsin labor leaders point to the governor’s recent championing of right-to-work-for-less as self-serving, to say the least.  These same leaders also insist that the governor is rushing the bill through the legislature to discourage discussion.

On Feb. 2, President Barack Obama released his planned budget for fiscal year 2016.  Almost immediately, Republicans in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate made it clear that they’re looking for at least a vigorous debate, and more likely a knock-down drag-out brawl, over Social Security.

Specifically, the President’s budget would transfer tax revenues from Social Security's retirement fund to its disability fund.  Without this transfer, of a type known as reallocation, the disability fund would be unable to pay full benefits beginning in late 2016.  House Republicans voted in January to block such transfers unless Social Security's overall solvency was improved.  They made it known that the need for reallocation was, to them, a reason to pursue broader changes to Social Security.  Democrats, on the other hand, have campaigned for reallocation based, not on overall changes to Social Security, but rather on individual needs for reallocation as they arise.

In December 2014, the jobless rate in the United States dropped to 5.6%.  Even correcting for folks who retired or simply gave up job-hunting, that’s an encouraging statistic.  Still more encouraging are the stock market’s recent bullish behavior, and the almost exponential growth of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

But don’t start celebrating just yet.  In a recent blog post, USW President Leo Gerard noted numerous flaws in recent economic reports and forecasts.  Among the most disheartening: wages have not, by any measure, kept up with overall economic growth, or, more specifically, with the expansion of CEO compensation.

After the recent midterm elections, Politico reported on what it dubbed an ALEC-killer.

According to Nick Rathod, a Democratic operative, Progressives are looking around to figure out where to go to push back, and there has not been a vehicle to do that at the state level…. 

For that reason, Rathod started, and has been tapped to run, SiX, the State Innovation Exchange.  SiX is intended to be a competitor with ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council.  ALEC is an organization that has for years promoted and even written pro-business, anti-regulation legislation in a plethora of states.

According to pollsters at the American Research Group, a typical family of four in the United States spent about $861.00 on Christmas gifts this year.  That’s an increase of 35% since the holiday season of 1985.

Trouble is, median incomes for such nuclear families have gone up by only 6.5% in the last 30 years.  Had holiday and gift spending kept pace only with the rise in median income, our family of four would have spent only about 1/6^th, or 0.167, of that $861.  The stockings hung by the chimney with such great care would therefore have held only about $143.79 worth of goodies.

Many consider the so-called Millennials responsible for the disproportionate increase in holiday gift spending.  These young folks are thought to consider themselves entitled to uber-giving.  However, a New Jersey resident and the mother of three Millenials considers out-of-proportion gift spending to be the fault of parents.  As she put it, “They [parents] seem to be the ones who need to give expensive gifts.  …  It's the parents who are playing the ‘Let's keep up with the Joneses’ game."

Almost as soon as it appeared that the Affordable Care Act had been accepted as a legitimate part of government services, along comes the political equivalent of Bruce in the movie Jaws.

It’s a case before the U.S. Supreme Court called King vs. Burwell, challenging the legality of tax credits offered through the federal health insurance exchange, HealthCare.gov.

The five conservative Justices of the Supreme Court will control the fate of Obamacare. If their ruling eliminates tax credits offered through HealthCare.gov, enrollees in 34 states without state exchanges could lose the tax credits that makes their health insurance affordable.

Article III Section 1 of our Constitution defines the conditions under which Federal judges serve.  Article II Section 4 in our foundational document defines those offenses for which judges, including Justices of the Supreme Court, can be removed from office.

The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Lucas A. Powe, a Supreme Court historian, claimed recently that Chief Justice John Roberts will be under enormous pressure to deep-six the Affordable Care Act this coming June, when SCOTUS hears a challenge to it.  According to Powe, Roberts’ “natural allies,” hard-core conservatives, want to gut the statute.  Powe speculated further that if Roberts allows Obamacare to stand, as he did in 2012, he might be accused by these die-hards of any or all of the above mentioned offenses.

And you thought Night of the Living Dead was scary …

In discussing his horror classic, George Romero stated that he wanted to make a hopeless film – one in which the rogues, not the good guys, prevailed.

On Nov. 4 that happened.  Republicans regained control of the U.S. Senate by a significant margin.  They’re projected to hold the upper chamber by eight seats.  Now for the scary part:  There’s a consensus developing that, while Mitch McConnell of Kentucky will be the new majority leader, the de facto chief will be – shudder – Sen. Ted Cruz.

The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has a somewhat checkered history.  On the one hand, there are decisions like Marbury v. Madison.  That case helped define the boundary between the constitutionally separate executive and judicial branches of our Federal government.  On the other hand, there are decisions which were much less commendable.  Dred Scott, anyone?

According to Talking Points Memo, reporters who cover the court are, are, as TPM put it, apoplectic.  Why?  SCOTUS agreed to hear a case that, if won by the plaintiffs, would effectively gut the Affordable Care Act.

Here's some really fuzzy math for you.  When does 32 equal 65?

They're the same when one examines elected office holders at all levels of government in the United States.  65% of these are white males.  But such dudes make up only 31% of our overall population.

The Reflective Democracy Campaign recently released the results of a study it just completed on this question.  The Campaign built a database of over 42,000 elected officials, only to discover that our leaders don’t look too much like us.  Men, and particularly white men, occupy the majority of elected offices. Women and people of color are, to quote Think Progress, massively underrepresented.

Recently, tech companies like Facebook and Google dropped their support of the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC.

ALEC is a group, supported and funded by big business, that champions right-wing legislation at the state and national levels.  One executive described how ALEC carries out its mission.  "They're just literally lying" about the realities of climate change, he said.

Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States defines the powers our President has over our military.  Specifically, it says:

“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States …”

Perhaps U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) should review this Section.  On Sept. 23, during an address to a gathering of Tea Party types, Mr. Lamborn said, “A lot of us are talking to the generals behind the scenes, saying, ‘Hey, if you disagree with the policy that the White House has given you, let’s have a resignation.  You know, let’s have a public resignation, and state your protest, and go out in a blaze of glory …’”

On Sept. 25,  just past, Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s Hardball discussed the Washington Post’s report on income inequality in the United States.  To use the Post’s headline, the pay gap between CEOs and workers is much worse than you realize.

The Post article cites a study by Harvard Business School which found that most Americans believe CEOs make roughly 30 times what the average worker earns.

That’s naïve to the nth degree.  Chief executive officers in the United States actually make more than 350 times what the workers laboring under them take home.  This underestimate, and a lack of a fuller understanding of the gap, is a problem not only on the United States but also in other industrial nations of the world.