LABOR MATTERS
A Labor Intensive
How Do the Presidential Candidates Compare?
by Jeff Burman
 Jeffrey Burman |
In early October, the House of Representatives joined the Senate in approving an historic $700 billion bailout package intended to revive a staggering financial industry. The controversial bill was quickly signed into law. The bill was widely criticized by free market conservatives on the right and by those on the left who wanted more relief for homeowners. It was criticized for its broad administrative authority and its untested oversight provisions. Negotiations by Congres-sional Democrats to include reforms in bankruptcy and home mortgage rules failed. The crisis was triggered by widespread investments in sub-prime home mortgage debt.
After approving the bailout package, the House passed an extension of Unemployment Insurance benefits for long-term jobless workers. The bill would provide a seven-week extension for jobless workers who exhaust their benefits. President George Bush opposed the extension. Senate Republicans blocked a move to bring the bill to a vote. A parallel effort to craft an economic recovery package for others affected by the economic downturn has stalled.
Organized labor was quick to criticize the way the bailout package was structured. “The bailout bill that emerged from congressional negotiations gives too little relief to homeowners and too much power to an administration that has demonstrated neither competence nor foresight,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in a press release. “We understand the very serious risks to working families of a financial collapse, and we appreciate the need for comprehensive action on the part of our government. But we have serious doubts about the precise plan proposed. Given this uncertainty, and the magnitude of the powers and expenditures being requested by the Administration, we call on Congress to pass an economic stimulus package for Main Street, together with bankruptcy reform to help homeowners. Without a stimulus and bankruptcy reform, the bailout looks like what it is––help for Wall Street.”
 Cartoon by Monte Wolverton, Cagle Cartoons, Inc. |
Utah Mine Collapse Case Goes to Prosecutors
Federal mining officials have asked prosecutors at the Justice Department
to decide whether criminal charges are called for in the deaths of nine people
in last year’s collapse of the Crandall Canyon mine. The Mine Safety
and Health Administration has been investigating a pair of cave-ins at the
mine in August 2007 that killed six miners and three rescuers, according to
an unsigned Associated Press article. The agency has already fined the operator
$1.34 million for violations that it says directly contributed to the deaths.
Richard Stickler, acting assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and
health, said the mine’s operator and its engineering consultants demonstrated
reckless disregard for safety.
The collapse of the Crandall Canyon mine was so extensive, writes Paul Foy in The San Francisco Chronicle, that federal officials found no other mining disaster in the last 50 years to compare it to. Hundreds of coal pillars, overloaded by “retreat mining,” collapsed in seconds. Satellite radar images show that a 69-acre section of the mine caved in.
Millions of Companies Avoid Federal Income Taxes
Two-thirds of foreign corporations doing business here paid no US income taxes
between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress, writes Jennifer
Kerr for the AP.
The study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), released in August, said about 68 percent of these companies avoided corporate taxes over this period. Collectively, the companies reported trillions of dollars in sales, according to the GAO, which also reported that more than 1.6 million US businesses owe the Internal Revenue Service more than $58 billion in unpaid taxes for Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance, according to an unsigned Reuters piece.
Another report revealed tax and accounting loopholes that allowed top executives and corporations to avoid paying about $20 billion a year in taxes. The report, “Executive Excess 2008: How Average Taxpayers Subsidize Runaway Pay,” released by the Institute for Policy Studies, points out that the average CEO of a large US company received $10.5 million in total compensation in 2007––some 344 times the pay of the average US worker. Thirty years ago, the ratio was 35:1.
Whistleblowers Left Dangling
President George Bush’s Department of Labor, charged with enforcing
the federal law protecting corporate whistleblowers at publicly traded
companies, has been dismissing complaints on the technicality that
workers at corporate subsidiaries simply aren’t covered, writes
Jennifer Levitz in The Wall Street Journal. The government has ruled
in favor of whistleblowers 17 times out of 1,273 complaints filed
since 2002, according to department records. Another 841 cases have
been dismissed. The rest of the cases are either pending or withdrawn
or were settled.
 Gene Upshaw in January 2008. Photo by Morry Gash/AP |
NFLPA Union Leader Upshaw Dies
Gene Upshaw, a dominant lineman on the football field who went on
to win untold millions of dollars for NFL players as their union leader,
died suddenly at the age of 63 in August. He had a Hall of Fame career
as a guard for the Oakland Raiders, winning two Super Bowls in his
15 years in a black and silver jersey. He also served as executive
director of the NFL Players Association since 1983, writes Mark Maske
in The Washington Post.
Upshaw died of pancreatic cancer. NFLPA president and Tennessee Titans center Kevin Mawae said Upshaw only learned three days earlier that he had the disease, after he fell ill and his wife took him to the hospital.