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Congress Takes Up Working Family Issues
An election-year Congress is taking up several measures that will affect working families — from budget proposals to taxes to health care — and CWA is pressing for action that will benefit workers’ jobs, pocketbooks and families.
Minimum Wage
Both the House and Senate have passed bills to increase the minimum wage, but they come with a very high price tag and few real benefits for working families. The Senate version includes changes in overtime compensation that could limit payments for some workers, while the House bill adds tax breaks of $123 billion that primarily benefit the country’s wealthiest citizens.
In the House bill, for every $1 in higher wages that a low-wage worker receives, $10.90 in tax cuts would accrue mainly to upper income earners, a review by the Economic Policy Institute and Citizens for Tax Justice revealed.
The analysis shows that 91 percent of the tax gains would go the richest 10 percent of citizens, while the wealthiest — the top 1 percent who earn above $319,000 — would gain 73 percent of the tax savings. This group would get an average annual tax cut of $6,128, while the bottom 60 percent of taxpayers would get an average annual tax cut of just $4.
House Republicans sought to spread the $1 increase over three years, as the Senate version does, but a Democratic-sponsored amendment giving workers the full increase over two years passed by a 246-179 vote. Democrats pointed out that spreading the increase over three years would cost low-wage workers about $900. Nearly 70 percent of the 10 million full-time minimum wage workers are adults, according to the National Economic Council.
President Clinton has pledged to veto the bill and has called on Congress to “send me a bill I can sign — a clean, straightforward bill that raises the minimum wage by a dollar over two years.”
Patients’ Bill of Rights
House and Senate conferees are debating very different versions of the Patients’ Bill of Rights, with CWA supporting the House version which was adopted by a bipartisan coalition — over the strong opposition of House leadership. The House bill assures access to emergency care, holds health care plans accountable for their actions by allowing patients to sue for malpractice and failure to treat, and extends the protections of the bill to the 16 million Americans in private health care plans.
In contrast, the weaker Senate version would cover just 56 million people in federally regulated plans and would not provide managed-care patients with the safeguards and the reform they need.
In a letter sent to all managed-care reform conferees, CWA Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling expressed concern that some provisions under consideration, such as medical savings accounts, would actually decrease patients’ access to health insurance by segregating the healthy from the sick. CWA is pressing for full protections and coverage, including the right to sue a health plan, full access to emergency room care, protections against retaliation for health care workers and direct access for women to ob-gyn care, she wrote.
In a related area, CWA is urging Congress to support the Clinton administration’s plan to include prescription drug coverage for Medicare beneficiaries.
Normal Trade Relations for China
The debate over granting permanent normal trade relations for China is heating up with Congress this year set to vote on whether to grant China full trading rights. The labor movement has called for enforceable labor, human rights and environmental provisions to be a part of any agreement to make China a full trading partner.
Under the current system, Congress each year determines whether to renew China’s trading rights. China’s economic policy is based on its repeated violations of international standards on basic human rights and its reliance on forced labor camps where workers earn as little as 13 cents an hour. The United States already has a massive trade deficit with China that has resulted in the loss of 880,000 high-wage U.S. manufacturing jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
If anything, China’s human rights record has worsened, according to a report by the U.S. Department of State. “China continues to brutally suppress freedom of religion, expression and association,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “Our growing trade relationship with China has not encouraged China to clean up its act, despite what supporters of permanent free trade status claim,” he said.
Last December in Seattle, tens of thousands of working people sent a clear message to WTO negotiators that the global economy must work for people, not just profits, the AFL-CIO said. Continuing that effort, thousands of working families will gather at the U.S. Capitol on April 12 to remind Congress that there should be “no blank check for China.”
Minimum Wage
Both the House and Senate have passed bills to increase the minimum wage, but they come with a very high price tag and few real benefits for working families. The Senate version includes changes in overtime compensation that could limit payments for some workers, while the House bill adds tax breaks of $123 billion that primarily benefit the country’s wealthiest citizens.
In the House bill, for every $1 in higher wages that a low-wage worker receives, $10.90 in tax cuts would accrue mainly to upper income earners, a review by the Economic Policy Institute and Citizens for Tax Justice revealed.
The analysis shows that 91 percent of the tax gains would go the richest 10 percent of citizens, while the wealthiest — the top 1 percent who earn above $319,000 — would gain 73 percent of the tax savings. This group would get an average annual tax cut of $6,128, while the bottom 60 percent of taxpayers would get an average annual tax cut of just $4.
House Republicans sought to spread the $1 increase over three years, as the Senate version does, but a Democratic-sponsored amendment giving workers the full increase over two years passed by a 246-179 vote. Democrats pointed out that spreading the increase over three years would cost low-wage workers about $900. Nearly 70 percent of the 10 million full-time minimum wage workers are adults, according to the National Economic Council.
President Clinton has pledged to veto the bill and has called on Congress to “send me a bill I can sign — a clean, straightforward bill that raises the minimum wage by a dollar over two years.”
Patients’ Bill of Rights
House and Senate conferees are debating very different versions of the Patients’ Bill of Rights, with CWA supporting the House version which was adopted by a bipartisan coalition — over the strong opposition of House leadership. The House bill assures access to emergency care, holds health care plans accountable for their actions by allowing patients to sue for malpractice and failure to treat, and extends the protections of the bill to the 16 million Americans in private health care plans.
In contrast, the weaker Senate version would cover just 56 million people in federally regulated plans and would not provide managed-care patients with the safeguards and the reform they need.
In a letter sent to all managed-care reform conferees, CWA Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling expressed concern that some provisions under consideration, such as medical savings accounts, would actually decrease patients’ access to health insurance by segregating the healthy from the sick. CWA is pressing for full protections and coverage, including the right to sue a health plan, full access to emergency room care, protections against retaliation for health care workers and direct access for women to ob-gyn care, she wrote.
In a related area, CWA is urging Congress to support the Clinton administration’s plan to include prescription drug coverage for Medicare beneficiaries.
Normal Trade Relations for China
The debate over granting permanent normal trade relations for China is heating up with Congress this year set to vote on whether to grant China full trading rights. The labor movement has called for enforceable labor, human rights and environmental provisions to be a part of any agreement to make China a full trading partner.
Under the current system, Congress each year determines whether to renew China’s trading rights. China’s economic policy is based on its repeated violations of international standards on basic human rights and its reliance on forced labor camps where workers earn as little as 13 cents an hour. The United States already has a massive trade deficit with China that has resulted in the loss of 880,000 high-wage U.S. manufacturing jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
If anything, China’s human rights record has worsened, according to a report by the U.S. Department of State. “China continues to brutally suppress freedom of religion, expression and association,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “Our growing trade relationship with China has not encouraged China to clean up its act, despite what supporters of permanent free trade status claim,” he said.
Last December in Seattle, tens of thousands of working people sent a clear message to WTO negotiators that the global economy must work for people, not just profits, the AFL-CIO said. Continuing that effort, thousands of working families will gather at the U.S. Capitol on April 12 to remind Congress that there should be “no blank check for China.”