Health Care Debate Heads for the Heartland
As members of Congress leave Washington for
the August recess without completing health care
reform, the health insurance industry is
preparing to launch a deluge of ads to sell the
idea that fixing our broken health care system
is too expensive, too complicated and somehow
un-American.
The insurance industry will spend millions in
the effort, but much of the battle will be
fought in the viral world of the Internet, where
rumors, half-truths and outright lies will share
the stage with outrageous claims about secret
horrors hidden deep in the proposed legislation.
Among the urban myths already circulating is
the claim that the government will force senior
citizens to undergo counseling to encourage
suicide as an alternative to expensive
procedures. This bizarre notion is being
aggressively promoted on talk radio, where much
of the scare campaign will take place.
In addition false claims of
government-sponsored euthanasia, the campaign
will include dire warnings about health care
rationing, higher taxes and a government
“takeover” of the nation’s health care system.
But there will be no mention of how the current
system allows insurance companies to deny
coverage for pre-existing conditions or how
millions of American families are regularly
forced to choose between food and medicine.
Perhaps the most outrageous claim that will
be made during the August recess is the idea
that giant health insurance companies are not
ruthless profiteers, but scrappy underdogs,
valiantly struggling to deliver quality health
care to a deserving and grateful nation.
In the days ahead, every IAM member should
contact their lawmakers, by phone, by mail or in
person and demand an end to the chokehold that
health insurance companies have had on this
nation for too long.
Solidarity Prevails in Washington D.C.
Organizing Win
A determined group of nearly 120 employees
who provide maintenance and security services on
the streets of Washington, D.C., voted solidly
for IAM representation recently after brushing
aside a fierce anti-union campaign.
The new IAM members are employed by the
Downtown D.C. Business Improvement District and
provide assistance to tourists in addition to
maintaining streets and reporting suspicious
activity to the D.C. Metropolitan Police
Department.
The campaign turned ugly when the company
resorted to harassment tactics in the final
weeks before the vote, including surveillance of
employees who accepted IAM campaign literature.
The workers refused to be intimidated and
organizers were joined by volunteers from IAM
headquarters, the William W. Winpisinger Center
and IAM Local CE 1 in Washington, D.C. who
helped get the word out in a final push before
ballots were cast.
“I want to congratulate our new members for
standing strong in the face of adversity and to
thank all the volunteers who stepped up when
this election was on the line,” said General
Secretary-Treasurer Warren Mart. “Special thanks
also go to District 98 Business Representative
Roosevelt Littlejohn and IAM National Pension
Fund Coordinator Jim Lauter, who coordinated
this successful drive.”
New Mexico Machinists Rally to Save
Aerospace Jobs
Dozens of active and retired members of Local
794 in Albuquerque, NM, took to the streets this
week to oppose a decision by G.E. Aviation to
close a jet engine facility that has been an
economic anchor in the Albuquerque community for
more than 30 years.
“There’s no reason this plant can’t be
saved,” said Local 794 President Ernest Dow in
an
interview broadcast on New Mexico’s KRQE
News 13. “The workers here are dedicated
workers, they’re skilled workers. All General
Electric has to do is keep this work in house.”
General Electric announced last week that it
intends to close the Albuquerque plant in the
fall of 2010. The move will put more than 400
G.E. employees out of work and cost up to 1,400
additional workers their jobs when the impact of
the closure spreads to sub-contractors, retail
establishments and municipal employees.
“The closure of this facility could result in
the loss of $25 to $30 million in economic
activity,” said Western Territory GVP Gary
Allen, who hails from the Albuquerque plant.
“The unemployment rate in New Mexico is
already at the highest level in 10 years and any
decision about this plant must include all
stakeholders, including state and local
officials, as well as workers and their
representatives.”
Machinists Union Wins Print, Web & Video
Awards
The Machinists union won several top honors
in the annual International Labor Communications
Association (ILCA) Media Awards contest, which
honors the best in labor journalism.
The
IAM won top honors in the Multimedia Campaign
category for ‘America's Edge: Our Skills, Our
Kids.’ The ‘America’s Edge’
feature story in the IAM Journal also won first
place in the Analysis category.
The IAM website,
www.goiam.org
, won first place for Best Website Design
among International unions while the IAM video
team won a second place award for “Ticket to the
American Dream.”
Several IAM District
publications were also honored, including the
District 751 Aero Mechanic, the District 141
Messenger and the District 141 website.
The ILCA
is a professional organization that supports
labor communicators in North America and is an
allied organization of the AFL-CIO. The annual
ILCA Journalism/Media contest is open to ILCA
member publications from dozens of local and
international unions.
Grundmann Nominated to Chair Key Federal
Board
President Barack Obama has nominated NFFE-IAM
General Counsel Susan Grundmann to serve as
chair of the Merit Systems Protection Board
(MSPB). The MSPB is an independent,
quasi-judicial agency with responsibility for
deciding federal employee appeals from personnel
actions taken against them, protecting the
integrity of the civil service and other federal
merit systems, and conducting studies of the
civil service and other merit systems in the
executive branch.
On July 30, 2009, the White House issued the
following statement about the nomination of Ms.
Grundmann: “Since 2002, Susan Tsui Grundmann has
served as General Counsel to the National
Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), which
represents 100,000 federal workers nationwide
and is affiliated with the International
Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers
(IAMAW). At NFFE, she has successfully
litigated cases in the U.S. District Court for
the District of Columbia and the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia.”
The White House also noted her service
representing employees in the Forest Service,
Department of Agriculture, Passport Services,
Veterans Administration, General Services
Administration and some 25 additional federal
agencies. Since 2003, Grundmann has been a
regular instructor on federal sector law at the
William W. Winpisinger Education Center in
Placid Harbor, MD.
Many States, Cities Hit by Double Digit
Unemployment
The latest county-by-county map of the
unemployment situation is yet another vivid
representation of the vastness of today’s
economic crisis.
More than 90 percent of
the nation's largest metropolitan areas saw
their unemployment rates climb in June from the
previous month says the U.S. Department of
Labor. A total of 15 states and the District of
Columbia had unemployment rates of at least 10
percent.
Michigan again reported the highest jobless
rate, 15.2 percent. The last state to have an
unemployment rate of 15 percent or higher was
West Virginia in March 1984. The states with the
next highest rates were Rhode Island, 12.4
percent; Oregon, 12.2 percent; South Carolina,
12.1 percent; Nevada, 12 percent; California,
11.6 percent; Ohio, 11.1 percent and North
Carolina, 11 percent.
Image of
county unemployment map:
http://www.bls.gov/lau/maps/twmcort.pdf
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