Allied Approaches Archive (Page 9)

Dangerous anti-protest legislation is working its way through state assemblies all across the U.S., chipping away at the right to protest and undermining social justice movements. State legislators have introduced nearly 100 bills curbing your right to protest since the resistance at Standing Rock began. And if oil and gas companies get their way, Illinois will now be added to the list.

HB 1633, a bill targeting activists, has already overwhelmingly passed the Illinois House of Representatives and is now pending in the State Senate. It has been slated for a hearing next Tuesday, May 14, at 5 p.m., and people can submit witness slips for or against the bill here. 

If this bill is enacted, protesters in Illinois will no longer be able to resist the expansion of fossil fuel pipelines in their communities without risking felony charges.

Specifically, this bill seeks to increase criminal penalties for people who trespass on so-called critical infrastructure facilities. The bill almost exactly lifts its language from a model bill authored by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the secretive group of corporate lobbyists trying to rewrite state laws to benefit corporations over people.

The bill would broadly redefine “critical infrastructure” to include oil and gas pipelines and processing facilities, and turn peaceful activity by protesters into a class four felony punishable by up to three years of incarceration and a heavy fine.

In Illinois as other states, this bill is based almost word-for-word on ALEC’s model critical infrastructure bill, which was inspired by legislation first passed in Oklahoma in 2017, in response to the months-long protests at Standing Rock which stalled construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Throughout the second half of the twentieth century as corporations globalized, buying and building facilities all over the world, workers and their unions struggled to keep pace by building an interconnected global labor movement. It wasn’t until the 1990’s that unions in the United States began dedicating resources to building global solidarity. And even then, many early efforts at global union solidarity were either paternalistic with unionists from the US setting out to ‘help’ workers toiling in sweatshops, or transactional, with US unions only reaching out overseas for support in a specific campaign. More recently many unions in the US and around the world have dedicated serious resources towards building global unions and transformative relationships with unions around the world, but progress has been mixed and we are still a long way from realizing a truly global labor movement.

One of the earlier efforts at global union solidarity was the campaign orchestrated by the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) to win a union contract after an aborted strike at Bridgestone-Firestone. Writing in 2003, Juravich and Bronfenbrenner characterized it as “the largest and most comprehensive global campaign to date,” with activities in 86 countries around the world over the two-and-a-half-year period stretching from July 12, 1994 to November 4, 1996.[1]

That long fight and global campaign would become the first chapter in more than two decades of global union solidarity at Bridgestone-Firestone. By 2001 unions at Bridgestone-Firestone around the world formalized a global union network at a meeting in Tokyo.[2] The network mobilized in support of strikes led by Sindicato Unico del Neumatico Argentina (SUNTA) in Buenos Aires in 2004 and 2008 and Sindborracha in Brazil in 2012 and in support of the 5,000 Firestone rubber plantation workers in Liberia who won a union election in 2007 and a contract in 2008, the first democratic union in the country’s history.

The long process of building solidarity also proved transformational for workers on the shop floor. In 1995, the USWA’s early efforts to take the campaign global were nearly derailed when the anti-Japanese sentiments emanating through the campaign came to the surface. During a protest at the Japanese embassy, a striker was photographed holding a sign reading “Enola Gay, one more time.” When the photo was published in newspapers all over Japan, USWA President George Becker was forced to send a personal apology.[3]

By 2006, rank-and-file workers at the Bridgestone Firestone local in La Vergne, Tennessee, presumably some of the same workers who thought nothing of joining a protest with someone holding a virulently racist sign just a decade earlier, got word of a wildcat strike at the company’s plantation in Liberia and began collecting donations for workers before union officials were notified of the strike through their established global union networks.

Credit card interest rates would be capped at 15% nationwide under a new federal usury law proposed on Thursday by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

The pair’s Loan Shark Prevention Act draws upon a long tradition, not just in legislative politics but in human moral thought. Most major faith traditions have characterized usurious lending as a grave sin, and the background materials prepared by the populist pair make pains to reference the “special place in the Seventh Circle of Hell” such lenders are accorded in late-medieval depictions of the inferno.

“Today we don’t need the hellfire, the pitchforks, or the rivers of boiling blood, but we do need a national usury law that caps interest rates on credit cards and consumer loans at 15%,” a briefing document on the proposal states.

Average annual interest rates on credit card debt have climbed steadily in modern times and now stand at almost 18%. Many cards charge annual percentage rates as high as 27%, the supporting white-paper notes, adding that the finance and retail firms offering this high-cost credit have become alarmingly reliant on the interest income their uncapped charges generate.

The House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bill that would block the Trump administration from granting states the leeway to skirt Obamacare rules —- a measure designed to ensure that patients with pre-existing conditions continue to receive affordable robust coverage — in a 236 to 183 vote. The bill is not expected to pass the GOP-controlled Senate, but even if it does, the president has threatened to veto the measure.

Every House Democrat and four Republicans voted in favor of the bill, H.R. 986, known as the Protecting Americans with Preexisting Conditions Act of 2019. Meanwhile, 183 Republicans voted against it — including members who vowed in 2018 that they would protect people with pre-existing conditions.

The Department of Health and Human Services issued new guidance around the Affordable Care Act (ACA) last November that encourages states to make changes to their marketplaces even if that means skirting federal rules and putting people with pre-existing medical conditions in jeopardy of increased health care costs. The Kaiser Family Foundation called the change “significant,” as it “eliminates the requirement to demonstrate comparable protections for people with high health risks.”

A state, for example, could ask to subsidize plans that don’t cover addiction treatment, a plan that is useless for someone struggling with substance misuse. Healthier people, however, would likely gravitate toward such a cheaper plan. If enough people in perfect health flock to these less comprehensive plans, parallel markets would inevitably form based on risk posed to insurance companies. This means people with pre-existing conditions are left with plans that get increasingly expensive, especially if they don’t qualify for tax credits or cost-sharing subsidies.

So far, no state has asked the federal government to skirt ACA rules. But Reps. Ann Kuster (D-NH), Don Beyer (D-VA) and Joe Courtney (D-CT) wanted to ensure no state gets the chance by introducing the measure that advanced on Thursday. 

Republicans in Congress have demonstrated time and time again that they prioritize cheaper health plans over comprehensive ones. Yet, many have tried to distance themselves from their own voting records, especially ahead of the midterm elections. In fact, several Republican Senators introduced a bill last August called the “Ensuring Coverage for Patients with Pre-Existing Conditions Act” that didn’t protect sicker patients as much as current health law does.

This Mother’s Day, let’s celebrate the remarkable Mothers of Social Security. Without them, this essential program may never have been born. It certainly would be much less successful and effective.

The Mothers of Social Security pushed for an expansive, ambitious program. When necessary, they fiercely resisted men too cautious to embrace their bold vision. All of us benefit immensely from their work—particularly women, for whom Social Security’s modest benefits are especially important.

Best known of Social Security’s many mothers is Frances Perkins, the first female member of a presidential Cabinet in the history of the country. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt first asked Perkins to become Secretary of Labor, she told him that she would only accept his history-making offer if he agreed to fully support her fight for Social Security, as well as other significant measures to increase all of our economic security. He did. True to her principles and values, she was a driving force behind the healthy start of Social Security, from the system’s conception to its birth and its early growth.

A less-known pathbreaker was Dr. Barbara Nachtrieb Armstrong, the first tenured female law professor in the country. A Ph.D. economist, she taught both law and economics at Berkeley and authored a landmark treatise, Insuring the Essentials, an exhaustive study of social insurance and minimum wage programs around the world.

Armstrong chaired the Roosevelt administration working group that invented Social Security. Other policymakers, concerned about the constitutionality of Social Security, argued that it should be a state-based program. Armstrong successfully convinced them that only a federal program was workable. When those who oversaw her work contemplated dropping Social Security because they feared it was too big a lift, she leaked their plan to friendly journalists whose exposés got Social Security back on track.

Without Armstrong’s bold leadership and keen intellect, Social Security might not even exist at all today. If that sounds hyperbolic, those same policymakers whom Armstrong outwitted later decided to not propose national, guaranteed health insurance. Cautiously, they decided it was better left for the future. Today, we are still fighting for improved and expanded Medicare for All.

Last week, the Trump administration asked a federal appeals court to repeal the Affordable Care Act in its entirety. Their argument is fundamentally flawed in numerous ways, not the least of which is the fact that it relies on a dissenting opinion that is explicitly at odds with a binding decision by the Supreme Court’s majority.

On Wednesday, a handful of conservative groups weighed in with amicus briefs supporting this attack on Obamacare. They include an organization founded by failed U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R), Citizens United (yes, that Citizens United), a very short brief authored by one of Trump’s personal lawyers, and two anti-vaxxer groups.

The case is Texas v. United States.

Last month, a very different mix of groups filed briefs urging the court not to repeal Obamacare. That, much longer list of organizations, includes many of the major players in health care — such as the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Hospital Association, the Catholic Health Association of the United States, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, AARP, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and a number of economists and legal scholars.

It’s been just over a year since the Trump administration instituted “Section 232” trade action to address surging steel imports. President Trump’s decision to institute steel tariffs has proven to be one of the more controversial decisions of his time in office — which is rather interesting, considering this is a president who seems to thrive on controversy — but nonetheless people seem to have a lot of very important thoughts about it.

But what is often missing from the typical Acela Corridor rhetoric is actual on-the-ground information about what is happening in the steel communities who saw the direct effects of the trade action. With that in mind, we decided to visit some of these places and find out what is happening for ourselves.

Alliance for American Manufacturing President Scott Paul recently traveled to Coatesville, Pa., and Granite City, Ill., two steel towns that were devastated by the steel imports crisis.

Coatesville is home to the oldest continuously operating steel mill in the country — and is a key supplier of the special steel used by the military and to build critical infrastructure — but it came close to shutting down until the steel tariffs helped stabilize the industry. The steel mill in Granite City did shut down in 2015, but the trade action led to the restart of the mill’s two blast furnaces in 2018.

We’re sharing some of the findings from the two trips in a new special section on our website. You can also take a deeper dive on The Manufacturing Report podcast, which is available on iTunes and over on Soundcloud — here’s the episode on Coatesville, and here is Scott’s report from Granite City.

President Trump took a break from his normal Twitter routine on Wednesday afternoon to break a piece of honest-to-goodness news:

Trump is referring to the General Motors Lordstown plant in Ohio, which is one of five North American plants that General Motors announced in November would be shut down, eliminating thousands of jobs.

The Lordstown plant officially closed in March, leading to 1,400 layoffs. Although some of the Lordstown workers have landed at other GM plants, others are still looking for work.

The Lordstown closure was devastating for Ohio’s Mahoning Valley, which had depended on the factory as a pillar of its economy since it opened in 1966. For his part, Trump took the news of the Lordstown closure pretty personally. After all, he visited nearby Youngstown during the 2016 campaign and famously declared, “Those jobs have left Ohio — they’re all coming back. Don’t move, don’t sell your house.”

When Trump tweeted out Wednesday afternoon that GM had sold the Lordstown factory — and to Workhorse, a company that wants to use it to make electric trucks! — it seemed like great news.

But once you start looking at the details, it’s not so clear any of this is going to pan out.

Recent economic reports have President Donald Trump crowing.

The big headline numbers do sound encouraging. The unemployment rate is down to 3.6%, the lowest since 1969. Average earnings are finally outpacing inflation, the stock market has been hitting record highs, and the first quarter of 2019 had the fastest annualized growth rate (3.2%) since 2015.

And yet most of the gains from our growing economy are still going to those who least need a boost. Stock market rallies, for example, further concentrate wealth among the very richest Americans. The top 1% of Americans own more than half of stocks and mutual funds. The bottom 90% own just 7%.

For ordinary Americans, the slight uptick in wages is not enough to make up for many years of stagnation. Average hourly pay rose just 6 cents in April 2019 and 4 cents the month before that.

Workers need a much bigger raise if they are to receive their fair share of economic gains, especially with prices for many essentials rising much faster than wages. For example, compared to the 3.2% increase in average earnings over the past year, spending on prescription drugs is up 7.1% while the average house price rose 5.7%. Average childcare costs jumped 7.5% between 2016 and 2017.

Such small pay increases won’t do much to chip away at the country’s $1.6 trillion in student debt — a burden leading 1 in 15 borrowers to consider suicide, according to a recent survey.

Once again, lawmakers are pushing legislation to force all states to mandate collective bargaining rights for public safety workers – police, fire fighters, EMTs and their colleagues.

But if past is prologue, the measure will pass the Democratic-run House, as it has on occasion ever since the Sept. 11, 2001 al-Qaeda terrorist attacks – and fall victim to a Senate GOP filibuster. Or Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kent., won’t bring it up at all.

That's what happened the first time the fire fighters campaigned for it, in late 2001-2002, just after the attacks, when the collapsing World Trade Center killed 343 New York fire fighters trying to rescue people there, plus their priest. Senators praised their sacrifice, then killed the bill.

The measure, sponsored this time by Reps. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., would tell those states that if their public safety workers unionize, on the state, county or city levels, those workers have the mandated right to collectively bargain over working conditions.

Right now, 20 states ban such bargaining, even where the workers are unionized. The prime offenders are two big right-to-work GOP-run states, Texas and North Carolina. The Carolina ban is so broad that a decade ago, the AFL-CIO lodged a formal complaint with the International Labour Organization over the Tar Heel State’s restrictions.

In late April, the AFL-CIO formally endorsed this year’s legislation, HR1154, in a letter to lawmakers from Legislative Director Bill Samuel. The measure has 59 cosponsors.

“The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act historically received widespread bipartisan support,” Samuel wrote. “In the 111^th Congress, the bill passed the House 314-97, with a majority of each party in favor. The bill would guarantee the right to form a union and bargain over wages, hours and working conditions, with binding arbitration to resolve disputes.”

“It would, however, prohibit strikes or lockouts. Consistent with these minimum standards, the legislation would give states wide flexibility to write and administer their own laws.”

By Celine McNicholas and Lynn Rhinehart

Our economy is out of balance. Corporations and CEOs hold too much power and wealth, and working people know it. Workers are mobilizing, organizing, protesting, and striking at a level not seen in decades, and they are winning pay raises and other real change by using their collective voices.

But, the fact is, it is still too difficult for working people to form a union at their workplace when they want to. The law gives employers too much power and puts too many roadblocks in the way of workers trying to organize with their co-workers. That’s why the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act—introduced today by Senator Murray and Representative Scott—is such an important piece of legislation.

The PRO Act addresses several major problems with the current law and tries to give working people a fair shot when they try to join together with their coworkers to form a union and bargain for better wages, benefits, and conditions at their workplaces. Here’s how:

1. Stronger and swifter remedies when employers interfere with workers’ rights. Under current law, there are no penalties on employers or compensatory damages for workers when employers illegally fire or retaliate against workers who are trying to form a union. As a result, employers routinely fire pro-union workers, because they know it will undermine the organizing campaign and they will face no real consequences. The PRO Act addresses this issue, instituting civil penalties for violations of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Specifically, the legislation establishes compensatory damages for workers and penalties against employers (including penalties on officers and directors) when employers break the law and illegally fire or retaliate against workers. Importantly, these back pay and damages remedies apply to workers regardless of their immigration status. The PRO Act also requires the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to go to court and get an injunction to immediately reinstate workers if the NLRB believes the employer has illegally retaliated against workers for union activity. With this reform, workers won’t be out of a job and a paycheck while their case works its way through the system. Finally, the PRO Act adds a right for workers to go to court to seek relief, bringing labor law in line with other workplace laws that already contain this right. And, the legislation prohibits employers from forcing workers to waive their right to class or collective litigation.
2. More freedom to organize without employer interference. The PRO Act streamlines the NLRB election process so workers can petition to form a union and get a timely vote without their employer interfering and delaying the vote. The act makes clear it is workers’ decision to file for a union election and that employers have no standing in the NLRB’s election process. It prohibits companies from forcing workers to attend mandatory anti-union meetings as a condition of continued employment. If the employer breaks the law or interferes with a fair election, the PRO Act empowers the NLRB to require the employer to bargain with the union if it had the support of a majority of workers prior to the election. And the PRO Act reinstates an Obama administration rule, which was repealed by the Trump administration, to require employers to disclose the names and payments they make to outside third-party union-busters that they hire to campaign against the union.

A bipartisan group of Senators introduced legislation on Thursday to create a new website to help American manufacturers land more federal contracts — and reduce the number of Buy American waivers given to federal agencies.

Approximately $34 billion in taxpayer dollars were paid to foreign manufacturers in the last five years. Under existing Buy American laws, federal projects like bridge building must utilize domestically manufactured goods and materials like steel, as long they are available and reasonably priced. But agencies have used waivers to get around Buy American, and domestic manufacturers are clearly losing out on substantial opportunities.

The new legislation aims to shine a light on the process and ensure federal agencies abide by Buy American by creating BuyAmerican.gov, a central, publicly available website that will collect and display information about each requested Buy American waiver. Manufacturers and others would then be able to identify contract opportunities, and federal agencies can be held accountable for abusing the waiver process.

“We must do everything we can to protect and maximize American jobs, and that starts by ensuring that our tax dollars aren’t used to create jobs overseas,” said Sen. Rob Portman, (R-Ohio), who introduced the bill alongside Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). 

“Our bill would go a much-needed step further,” said Murphy. “It would strengthen and provide transparency of our Buy American laws, which I’ve been working on since I came to Congress, and provide opportunities for U.S. manufacturers to compete to boost our economy and help secure the national security supply chain.”

Six Democratic presidential hopefuls, vying for workers’ support in the 2020 primaries, pushed hard for workers’ rights at an all-day forum in Las Vegas April 27.

For five of them – Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) and Kamala Harris (Calif.), former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (Texas) and former Gov. John Hickenlooper (Colo.) – workers’ issues such as raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and strengthening the right to organize were front and center.

The sixth, former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, who was U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary under Democratic President Barack Obama, endorsed workers’ rights, too. But he made “right to housing” his top issue, having toured Las Vegas’ underground viaducts where homeless people sleep.

The six are among 21 Democrats, so far, vying for the nomination to take on anti-labor GOP incumbent Donald Trump next year. Support from organized labor is a key to their bids.

But there is a contrast between groups of unionized workers. One wing, predominantly minority, female, or both, has been organized by the Service Employees – co-sponsors of the Las Vegas event – and unions such as the Teachers, AFSCME and National Nurses United.

The other wing is still predominantly white male. Other candidates, such as former Vice President Joe Biden, are appealing to them. One influential union representing that group, the Fire Fighters, endorsed Biden on April 29, while warning against the Democrats’ moving too far to the left.

And Biden picked up that endorsement while speaking at a Teamsters union hall in the key swing state of Pennsylvania.

But both wings agree on some key issues, especially labor law reform.

U.S. Steel was the world’s first billion dollar corporation — and now the company is investing more than $1 billion to transform its hometown steelmaking complex into what CEO Dave Burritt says will be “the most innovative steel mill in the United States of America.”

Located just outside Pittsburgh, Mon Valley Works is an integrated operation of several different facilities, and U.S. Steel is aiming to increase its efficiency while also significantly reducing its emissions. The upgrades will allow Mon Valley Works to churn out the type of high-strength, lightweight-yet-flexible steel sought after by the auto, appliance and construction industries.

A new cogeneration facility will be built at the Clairton Plant in Clairton, Pa., which will allow the company to convert a portion of coke oven gas into electricity to power operations throughout the entire Mon Valley Works. At the Edgar Thomson Plant in nearby Braddock, the company will build a new sustainable endless casting and rolling facility, the first of its kind in the United States and one of only a handful in the world.

The 3,000 current employees at Mon Valley Works will have the chance to receive training to operate the upgraded facility, and U.S. Steel plans to “partner with educators in our community” to train the next generation of steelworkers for advanced manufacturing jobs. Meanwhile, the company expects to see a big decrease in its carbon footprint because of the improvements, including a 60 percent drop in particulate matter, a 50 percent decrease of sulfur dioxide and an 80 percent drop of nitrogen oxides.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) is rolling back offshore drilling safety protections put in place after the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, the worst oil spill in U.S. history. The announcement comes as the Trump administration’s coastal fossil fuel ambitions are under intense scrutiny following legal setbacks and bipartisan opposition.

Months after it first announced the weakening of safety rules, DOI on Thursday unveiled its final plan in Port Fourchon, Louisiana, an area deeply connected to offshore drilling. The seaport is the country’s leading service point for the majority of Gulf drilling activities.

In a statement, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said the move would alleviate “unnecessary regulatory burdens while maintaining safety and environmental protection offshore.”

The Obama-era regulations were finalized in 2016 after six years of development. The stricter rules came in response to the BP disaster, which killed 11 people and spilled at least 4.9 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, devastating coastal communities and destroying wildlife. The rules imposed stricter requirements on equipment, including blowout preventers, among other measures.

The rollback weakens those regulations in addition to allowing third-party companies to inspect equipment, rather than government officials, and would also extend the period between inspections. Moreover, companies are no longer required to alert the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) after “false alarms” associated with production.

Environmental groups and safety advocates have argued that the rules have been critical to protecting workers and the environment. Offshore drilling is one of the most dangerous occupations and groups like the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) have strongly opposed efforts to weaken the regulations.

The Service Employees will legally challenge what they term a “racist” Trump administration ban on payroll deductions approved by home care workers, most of them African-American women and Latinas.

The ban, announced May 1 by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMMS) – which is headed by an acolyte of GOP Vice President Mike Pence – says there may be no deductions from the workers’ paychecks for “third parties.”

That means home care workers, whether covered by union contracts or working for other employers, won’t have dues or anything else – from bus pass subsidies to health insurance premiums -- deducted, as of July 1.

The ban would affect thousands of workers, notably those SEIU and other unions organized among the nation’s 800,000-plus home care workers. The home care workers are already among the lowest-paid workers in the U.S., but unionized home care workers earn substantially more.

“Trump administration to home care workers: Here’s your poverty-level wage. Now let us tell you how to spend it,” the union headlined its announcement of their planned lawsuit against Trump’s CMMS and its anti-deductions rule.

“Women who care for seniors and people with disabilities will challenge Trump administration’s racist rule in court and defend their choice to stick together in their union,” SEIU added.

“The rule wrongly targets independent provider home care workers who, without a union, are faced with a physically and emotionally demanding job with a median wage of just $10.49 an hour, no healthcare, no paid sick time and no benefits,” the union said.

The Trump administration’s CMMS rule never mentions the words “union” or “dues” or “checkoff,” a reading of it shows. It just says the workers cannot authorize diverting part of their paychecks to unnamed “third parties.” CMMS said it received several thousand comments on the rule, but didn’t characterize them or recognize opposition from workers and unions.

SEIU says that “diversion” is just a right-wing dodge.

The purported benefits of the U.S.-Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA, or NAFTA-2) for American workers are so tiny, one can hardly see them.

The U.S. International Trade Commission’s recent study of the economic impacts of the U.S.-Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA, or NAFTA-2) finds that it will have small, but positive, effects on U.S. output (GDP up .35% over six years), employment (176,000 jobs or 0.12 %) and wages (up 0.27%). However, these projections are based on a number of questionable assumptions about the impacts of the trade deal, “assuming” for example that Mexico will adopt new labor legislation that will improve labor rights in that country, and “that these provisions are enforced” and Mexican union wages increase by 17.2 percent as a result. Furthermore, the ITC claims that U.S. wages will rise as a direct result of improved labor rights enforcement in Mexico, although that conclusion is not supported by the results of their own model.

These findings illustrate a much larger problem with the outdated modeling approach used by the ITC, which assumes that the purpose of trade and investment deals, such as the USMCA, is to reduce tariffs. However, the most important provisions of modern international economic agreements, such as the USMCA and the World Trade Organization, lay down rules governing matters such as foreign investment, services trade, government procurement, data transmission and storage, food and product safety standards, as well as labor rights and environmental standards. These rules govern how countries trade and businesses invest and how our economies are governed and regulated. At the end of the day, they determine who wins and loses, how income is distributed, the tradeoffs between corporate power and control, and whether the rights of workers, the public and the environment will be protected from transnational abuses from big business and big government.

Chapter 8 of the ITC report on the USMCA (p. 215) makes the following erroneous claim: The Commission estimates that the collective bargaining legislation will likely increase unionization rates and wages in Mexico and also increase Mexican output. This, in turn, would be expected to increase U.S. output and employment also, resulting in a small (0.27 percent) increase in U.S. real wages to attract the new workers.

You’d think that President Trump and Congressional Democrats would be loathe to work together to get any kind of legislation enacted in Washington, especially as a presidential election cycle heats up. Right? That’s what I’d think, and I’m a very smart politics-knower.

But it looks like they’re going to give it a shot, though! Good on ’em!

Trump shared white tic-tacs with Pelosi during infrastructure meeting — apparently his go-to move with the Speaker, since he did the same thing during the St. Patrick’s Day reception!

— Melanie Zanona (@MZanona) April 30, 2019

No word from the president, who was busy after the meeting trying to influence policy at the Federal Reserve via Twitter. But that Tic-tac is a good sign. And, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, it was a “productive” meeting. And White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said as much, too.

Pelosi told reporters that they and the president agreed on two things. First, the entire package should be total $2 trillion, which is no small increase from the $200 billion Trump earmarked for infrastructure spending in his last budget proposal (the administration, for what it’s worth, claimed that $200 billion would seed an additional $800 billion in private spending).

Second, they agreed to meet again in three weeks to hear the president’s proposals for funding such a package – because, as Schumer pointed out, without Trump already on board it will be hard to move anything through the Senate.

The Democrats, in advance of their White House visit, sent a letter to the president saying any infrastructure package they would support must account for climate change, which is a priority on the left; and it must include “Buy America” provisions to keep all of this spending in the 50 states and create American manufacturing jobs, which polling shows is a priority for everybody.

You’ll recall that President Trump has signed more than one executive order regarding Buy America, which reveals that the administration understands just how popular these kinds of rules are, but does little else; the orders are more or less superficial.

“In terms of legislative policy and regulatory impact, there was none whatsoever,” Alliance for American Manufacturing President Scott Paul recently told the American Prospect. “The practical effect of what the administration has done is virtually nothing.”

Maybe it’ll be in an honest-to-god, humongous and long-overdue infrastructure package that the president finally gets serious about Buy America? Time will tell. 

***

Reposted from AAM

America’s elites have for decades now enjoyed — and exploited — a mainstream political consensus.  America is doing just fine, this consensus has held, but just not for everybody. We have some poor, unfortunate souls in our midst, the consensus continues, and decency demands more “opportunity” for them.

Aspiring politicians have always loved this opportunity message. They can spout it and sound compassionate and caring to the voting public. The message’s more important attraction: Pols can spout it and not in any way come across as threatening to the deep pockets they count on for campaign cash.

The rich, after all, simply adore the mainstream “opportunity” gospel. Talking about increasing opportunity distracts attention from how rich people — and the corporations they run — behave, how what the rich do to become and stay rich keeps poor people poor and most of the rest of us struggling.

But this mainstream political consensus has over recent years collapsed. Precious few analysts are still claiming that the nation is doing “just fine.” The United States these days is essentially working well only for the rich, and appreciable numbers of Americans no longer just wonder why. They’re demanding checks on grand private fortunes and the behaviors that pump these fortunes up.

All this has today’s rich worrying. Really worrying. Recent headlines tell the story. From the Financial Times: “Why American CEOs are worried about capitalism.” The Guardian: “The kings of capitalism are finally worried about the growing gap between rich and poor.” The Washington Post: “U.S. billionaires worry about the survival of the system that made them rich.”

Two years ago, Donald Trump announced his administration would “follow two simple rules: Buy American and Hire American.” At most of the de facto campaign rallies he’s held since his inauguration, “Buy American” has been a reliable applause line.

But Trump’s talks and tweets have not been backed up by any Trump policies that strengthen Buy American policies regarding the use of American-made goods and materials in projects paid for with taxpayer funds.

In an age of polarization, the issue stands out for its strong bipartisan appeal. Americans across the ideological spectrum understand that many bridges, roads, tunnels, and drinking water systems have long since exceeded their life spans. An Alliance for American Manufacturing “National Survey on Infrastructure and Buy America Policies” released earlier this month found that 81 percent of 1,200 likely 2020 voters wanted the president and Congress to focus on repairing transportation and water networks and other critical infrastructure, a higher percentage than for any other issue. Fully 80 percent also supported laws that would require infrastructure projects built with public funds to be constructed with American-made materials and goods.

Substantial majorities also favored requiring privately funded projects to do the same (74 percent) and doing away with lowest-bidder contracting on taxpayer-funded projects that award projects to foreign firms (76 percent). The support for domestic-preference policies holds steady across the lines of party, age, gender, education, race, and rural and urban locales.

But Trump’s executive orders haven’t really leveled the playing field. His 2017 “Buy American, Hire American” executive order included provisions to “maximize” the use of American goods and materials in federally funded projects. His second executive order, signed earlier this year, details preferences for specific domestic materials, goods, and products in a wide array of infrastructure and public-works projects, but merely seeks to “encourage” infrastructure project recipients “to use, to the greatest extent practicable, iron and aluminum as well as steel, cement, and other manufactured products produced in the United States in every contract, subcontract, purchase order, or sub‑award.”

The International Association of Fire Fighters, a labor union representing more than 300,000 firefighters and emergency medical service providers, endorsed Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign on Monday. Fox and Friends host Brian Kilmeade apparently found this very concerning.

In a Monday morning interview with the union’s general president, Harold Schaitberger, Kilmeade repeatedly demanded to know why the mandatory union dues for the “many of those firefighters” who actually support President Donald Trump would be used to elect a candidate they oppose.

Schaitberger explained that the group’s voluntary political action committee donations, not its union dues, would be used for political spending — but Kilmeade would not relent.

“Are you using their dues for Joe Biden?” Kilmeade asked of the union’s Trump supporters.

“Our role is to represent all of them in their profession,” Schaitberger began to respond.

“Right. Are you using their money to support Joe Biden?” Kilmeade pressed.

“We are using the money that those that choose to contribute to our political PAC, we use on their behalf in the political arena. Those that choose to make those contributions,” he replied.

The big news in the Social Security trustees report released yesterday is that the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) trust fund depletion date was extended 20 years, to 2052. Recent declines in SSDI applications and in assumed SSDI take-up going forward contribute to a small improvement in Social Security’s overall financial status, as did higher-than-projected mortality in recent years.

Other demographic factors—recent and projected declines in the birth rate and immigration—had negative effects on the program’s finances, though not enough to offset higher-than-expected mortality. However, when combined with the “valuation period” effect—the retirement of the large Baby Boomer cohort and subsequent slowdown in the growth rate of the working-age population—the demographic factors are essentially a wash—reducing the projected long-term deficit by .01 percent of payroll.

Economic factors included both positive and negative factors, but on balance increased the projected deficit by .04 percent of payroll. The positive factors include lower expected inflation, slightly higher long-term wage growth, and the current strong economy as a starting point for projections. The negative factors were lower productivity growth and interest rate assumptions. With the aforementioned positive effect of changes to disability experience and assumptions, which reduced the projected deficit by .07 percent of payroll, and minor technical adjustments, the overall effect was to shrink the projected deficit by .06 percent of payroll over the 75-year window.

Is this good news? Yes, in the sense that the annual release of the report often serves as an excuse for fearmongering. It’s more challenging to put a doom-and-gloom spin on an improved financial outlook—though some will inevitably try. One possible news hook is the fact that the combined “old age” and “disability” trust funds (often simply referred to as “the [combined] trust fund”) will start to shrink next year as more Baby Boomers retire. This is entirely proper and predictable—the Baby Boomers are the reason we built up the trust fund in the first place—but it has never stopped anyone from yelling “Social Security is going bankrupt!” in a crowded theater of bad ideas. (The challenge for the doomsayers, rather, is that they’ve been saying this ever since Social Security revenues minus the interest on trust fund assets weren’t enough to cover benefit payments, so this talking point has become a bit dull with time.)

The biggest economic story of our times isn’t about supply and demand.  It’s about institutions and politics.  It’s about power.

The median annual earnings of full-time wage and salaried workers in 1979, in today’s dollars, was $43,680. The median earnings in 2018 was $45,708. If between 1979 and 2018, the American economy almost tripled in size, so where did the gains go?  Most went to the top.

Now this is broadly known, but there is less certainty about why.

1. The Conventional View  

Conventional wisdom attributes the widening economic divide to globalization and technological change – the “inevitable” result of the invisible hand of the so-called “free market.”

Simply put, as the American economy merged with the rest of the globe, American workers had to compete with foreign workers willing to toil for a fraction of American wages. And as technology advanced, American workers also had to compete with software and robots that were cheaper to employ than Americans.

So, according to this conventional view, the only realistic way to raise the wages of most Americans is to give them more and better education and job training, so they can become more competitive. They can thereby overcome the so-called “skills gap” that keeps them from taking the jobs of the future – jobs and opportunities generated by new technologies.

2.  A Deeper View of the American Political Economy

The conventional story isn’t completely wrong, and education and training are important. But the conventional view leaves out some of the largest and most important changes, and therefore overlooks the most important solutions.

To understand what really happened, it’s critical to understand that there is no “free market” in nature. The term “free market” suggests outcomes are objectively fair and that any “intervention” in the free market is somehow “unnatural.” But in reality, markets cannot exist without people constructing them. Markets depend on rules, and rules come out of legislatures, executive agencies, and courts.  The biggest political change over the last four decades is the overwhelming dominance of big money in politics – influencing what those rules are to be.

The North American Free Trade Agreement resulted in growing trade deficits with Mexico and steep U.S. job losses after it was implemented in 1994, increasing the bilateral trade gap by at least $97.2 billion and costing at least 682,900 jobs through 2010.

Can NAFTA 2.0 do any better?

The U.S. International Trade Commission’s (ITC) new report on the economic impact of the U.S.—Mexico–Canada Trade Agreement, released last week, projects that the revised NAFTA (USMCA) will have tiny impacts on the economy. The ITC estimates the deal will increase GDP by 0.35% when it is fully implemented (six years after it takes effect), or roughly 10 weeks of growth. Similarly, it projects that 175,000 jobs will be added in the domestic economy, a 0.1 percent increase in total employment (based on CBO projections for the economy in 2025), or roughly as many jobs as the economy adds in a normal month, over the next six years. And it claims real wages will rise about one-quarter of a percentage point (0.27 percent), roughly 4 percent of what workers are expected to gain, in real terms, over the next six years, if promised gains in output and employment are realized.

But there are strong reasons to doubt that these gains will be achieved. The ITC results show that the deal will yield remarkably small gains, and those gains rest on questionable assumptions about how the deal will help workers and the economy. Perhaps the most problematic finding in the ITC study (p. 25) was that labor provisions in the USMCA “would increase Mexico union wages by 17.2 percent, assuming that these provisions are enforced.” Given that unionization rates in the durable goods sectors of Mexican manufacturing are reported to be 20.2 percent (Table F.4), these would be massive impacts, indeed. Yet Mexican workers will not benefit unless there are mechanisms to ensure that labor rights enforcement does improve, but those provisions do not yet exist in the agreement.

Thus, it is not surprising to find that the AFL-CIO, other labor unions, and many members of Congress are demanding that “swift [and] certain enforcement tools” are included in the deal before it is submitted to Congress. These concerns also apply to segments of the agreement that pertain to the environment, access to medicines. Furthermore, the assumption that Mexican union wages will increase 17.2 percent seems especially heroic, within the 6-year adjustment period in the ITC model (p 23.), in light of the struggles that will be required to unionize such a large share of the labor force.

"Socialism," snarled Donald Trump at a recent pep rally of far-right Republicans. And the obedient crowd of faithful Trumpistas snarled back in unison: "So-shull-izz-ummm!"

And there you have the entire intellectual content of the GOP's 2020 re-election strategy under Generalissimo Trump—slap Democrats silly with a scurrilous campaign branding them as Lenin-Trotsky-Stalin reincarnate. It's not just Trump hissing out the socialist label in a frantic McCarthyesque attempt to make it stick by mindless repetition, but also Mike Pence, cabinet officials, Republican lawmakers, right-wing pundits and, of course, the extremist choreographers of Fox News.

Their incessant babbling has already turned clownish, with many babblers bumbling over their own ignorance and making ridiculous attempts to overplay their weak hands. Texas Sen. John Cornyn, for example, compared Democrats who support ideas such as "Medicare for All" to Mussolini. Apparently, Cornyn is unaware that the brutish Italian dictator was no socialist, but a fascist! Mussolini's ideology of ultranationalism, promotion of masculine authoritarianism, domination of society by big business and the wealthy and suppression of democratic rights is the opposite of the Democratic agenda. Indeed, it describes the policies of—guess who—Trump and his acolytes, including Cornyn!

The real problem for the GOP, however, is not merely that squawking like Chicken Little about diabolical socialism makes them sound like old fuddy-duddies, but that the so-called socialism they're attacking is enormously popular with the workaday majority of Americans. Government-backed health care for all? Sure. Why should CEOs and Congress critters be the only ones to get this? Affordable higher education and housing initiatives? Of course, for that helps all of America. A wealth tax on corporate giants and the superrich? Long overdue that they stop dodging the cost of the common good. Restore the rights of labor and restrain the rise of monopolies? Yes!

Far from socialism, this is democratic populism, reversing decades of government policies that take from the many to give to the wealthy few. It's an honest, popular rebellion against the corporate plutocracy that seeks to usurp America's democracy, promoted by Trump and Cornyn. Which side are you on?

And which side are some of our Democratic leaders on? Unfortunately, an exotic flu epidemic has broken out in Washington, D.C. Dubbed the "Canadian hot sauce flu," it afflicts a particular group of Democratic officeholders and operatives.

The Treasury Department’s semiannual Exchange Rate Policies report is now more than a week overdue. But then again President Trump is almost three years overdue in labeling China as a currency manipulator -- something he promised to announce on his first day in office.

True, it’s unlikely that this month’s report would name China a currency manipulator since October’s report didn’t either. Nonetheless, an examination of the country’s currency practices could help bolster the Trump administration’s bargaining position as it prepares to continue trade talks with China next week.

Though both countries have reportedly already settled penalties to deter currency manipulationin the pending trade deal, the Chinese renminbi’s value has been in decline in relation to the U.S. dollar as trade talks have heated up. China could easily further undervalue its currency to blunt the impact of tariffs – particularly as economic pressures continue to build.

But why does currency manipulation matter? It’s yet another method by which Beijing has gamed the international trade system, artificially lowering the cost of its exports and thereby gaining unfair competitive advantage. This method along with its other trade cheating practices, such as industrial subsidies, forced technology transfers, and intellectual property theft, have won China the lion’s share of manufacturing while undercutting manufacturing in the United States.

So, where’s that report?

Meanwhile, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer has shown that he at least is as motivated as ever to put an end to China’s trade cheating, continuing China’s 15-year run on the intellectual property (IP) Priority Watch List in a Special 301 report released Thursday. In the report, Lighthizer warns that China along with the other countries included on the Watch List that failure to address these IP concerns may result in tariffs.

An opinion handed down Wednesday by three Republican judges could chill the First Amendment rights of protesters — and potentially allow police to shut down political movements by filing lawsuits harassing movement leaders.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Doe v. McKesson effectively strips First Amendment protections from protest leaders who commit minor offenses, ignoring longstanding Supreme Court precedents in the process.

The “Doe” in Doe v. McKesson is an anonymous police officer who was allegedly injured by an unknown protester who is not DeRay McKesson. McKesson is a prominent racial justice advocate closely associated with the Black Lives Matter movement who, according to Doe’s complaint, helped organize a protest near the Baton Rouge Police Department building.

Doe alleges that the unknown person — who, again, is not DeRay McKesson — “picked up a piece of concrete or similar rock like substance and hurled [it] into the police” that were arresting protesters. Officer Doe claims he was hit by the rock and suffered serious injuries. If true, this rock-thrower’s actions are reprehensible, and whoever threw the rock belongs in prison.

The new Democratic-run U.S. House “has stood on the side of workers” on issues ranging from defending federal workers to opposing job-losing “free trade” pacts to pro-worker labor law reform, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says.

As a matter of fact, he added in a wide-ranging Q-&-A hosted by the Economic Club of Washington, the only current exception is the “Green New Deal,” and that’s “because we weren’t part of the process” or at the table when its backers drafted it, he said.

But the Democrats’ other big ideas, including wide-ranging electoral reform and Medicare For All – which Trumka predicted would come incrementally, starting with lowering the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 50 – get labor’s support, he said.

Trumka gave his evaluation of those issues, and many others, in the hour-plus discussion on April 23 with the club’s president, and a follow up short session with reporters.

His evaluation comes as Congress considers many worker-oriented issues. Among them: Trade pacts, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour – “and a union” Trumka emphasized – and rewriting labor law to making it easier for workers to organize and defend themselves. Trumka predicted states’ minimum wage hikes will push Congress to yield on that raise.

But it also comes as the ruling Democrats wrestle with how to respond to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s devastating report about Russian manipulation of the 2016 presidential election, in favor of GOP nominee Donald Trump, and the Trump campaign’s subsequent contacts with the Russians and use of their information.

Neither Trumka nor his questioners raised the issue, and particularly whether the Democrats should impeach Trump for obstruction of justice in his constant attempts to derail Mueller’s probe, get witnesses to lie and to fire Mueller and, earlier, FBI Director James Comey.

We typically think urban neighborhoods when we think gentrification. We think places where modest-income families have thrived for generations suddenly becoming no-go zones for all but the affluent.

The waters around us have always seemed a place of escape from all this displacement, a more democratic space where the rich can stake no claim. The wealthy, after all, can’t displace someone fishing on a lake or sailing off the coast. Or can they? People who work and play around our waters are starting to worry.

Local boat dealers and bass fishing aficionados alike, reports one leading marine industry trade journal, are all now “expressing concern about the growing income disparity in the United States.” That journal, Soundings Trade Only, is even highlighting stats that show America’s top 1 percent holding more wealth than “the bottom 90 percent of the population combined.”

What has boat dealers so concerned? The middle-class families they’ve counted on for decades are feeling too squeezed to buy their boats — or even continue boating.

“Boating has now priced out the middle-class buyer,” one retailer opined to a Soundings Trade Only survey. “Only the near rich/very rich can boat.”

Mark Jeffreys, a high school finance teacher who hosts a popular bass fishing webcast, sees a bubble close to bursting. His pastime is getting too pricey, and he wonderswhen bass anglers are “going to get to the point where they’re not going to pay $9 for crankbait.”

Not everyone around water is worrying. The companies that build boats, Jeffreys notes, seem to “have been able to do very well.” They’re making fewer boats but clearing “a tremendous amount” on the boats they do make.

Some politicians are calling for higher taxes on the rich. Naturally, these proposals have unleashed a torrent of opposition – mostly from…the rich. Here are the 12 biggest myths they’re propounding: 

Myth 1: A top marginal tax rate applies to all of a rich person’s total income or wealth.

Wrong. It would only apply to dollars in excess of a certain level. The 70 percent income tax rate proposed by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would apply only to dollars in excess of 10 million dollars a year. The 2 percent wealth tax proposed by Elizabeth Warren would apply only to wealth in excess of 50 million dollars.

Myth 2 : Raising taxes on the rich is a far-left idea.

Baloney. 70 percent of Americans – including 54 percent of Republicans – support raising taxes on families making more than 10 million dollars a year.  And expecting the rich to pay their fair share is a traditional American idea. From 1930 to 1980, the average top marginal income tax rate was  78 percent. From 1951 to 1963 it exceeded 90 percent – again, only on dollars in excess of a very high threshold. Even considering all deductions and tax credits, the very rich paid over half of their top incomes in taxes.  

Myth 3: A wealth tax is unconstitutional.

Rubbish. Most locales already impose an annual wealth tax on the value of peoples’ homes – the main source of household wealth for most people. It’s called the property tax. The rich hold most of their wealth in stocks and bonds, so why should these forms of wealth escape taxation?  Article I Section 8 of the Constitution gives “Congress [the] power to lay and collect taxes.”

Myth 4: When taxes on the rich are cut, they invest more and everyone benefits, when taxes on the rich are increased, economic growth slows.

Utter baloney. Trickle-down economics is a cruel joke. Donald Trump, George W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan all cut taxes on the rich, and nothing trickled down. There’s no evidence that higher taxes on the rich slows economic growth. To the contrary, when the top marginal tax rate has been high – between 71 to 92 percent – growth has averaged 4 percent a year. But when top rate has been low – between 28 and 39 percent – growth has averaged only 2.1 percent.