Arrested in St. Louis fighting for labor rights

Thousands gathered in St. Louis to support mine worker’s benefits

 

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

On Monday, the National Consumers League joined two legendary labor leaders – Cecil Roberts, President of the United Mine Workers of America, and Larry Cohen, President of the Communications Workers of America – at a rally and protest outside Peabody Energy headquarters in St. Louis. We made history by rallying with 6,000+ members of the UMWA, CWA, UNITE HERE, SEIU, and Jobs for Justice and then marched to the federal courthouse several blocks away, where a group of us were arrested for “impeding traffic” by sitting down in the street. Why were we there? Because the Patriot Coal company, which was created by Peabody Energy, is filing for bankruptcy, which will leave 22,500 coal miners and their families without health care and retirement benefits. Peabody Energy continues to rake in massive profits despite Patriot Coal filing for bankruptcy.

At this rally were some true legends: Van Jones, an environmental advocate and former Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise, and Innovation at the White House, spoke about environmentalists needing to care about workers facing dire loss of health care and retirement income as much as spotted owls or crickets. The NAACP’s director in Missouri, Adolthus Pruitt, read aloud sections of the Peabody annual report detailing the burgeoning profits the company was earning year after year. And of course, the two distinguished labor leaders, Roberts and Cohen.

If ever there was a just cause, this is it: ensuring that 22,500 miners who, for decades, performed dangerous labor hundreds of feet below ground, and who bargained for health care and retirement benefits for their families and gave up wages and other benefits in the process, get the benefits and income they are due. The National Consumers League proudly stands with these workers and their families, and that is why I and Van Jones and Larry Cohen and so many others spoke out, marched, and got arrested in St. Louis.

The President’s Push For Rebuilding the Nation’s Infrastructure is Just The Right Medicine

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

I’m on vacation in FL for the week and reading the Palm Beach Post’s coverage of President Obama’s speech from the port of Miami calling for a surge in spending on infrastructure. I couldn’t agree more. The President is not saying that all such spending should be taxpayer funded. Instead, he’s asking for a public-private partnership, including improving Miami’s rail connection to Hialeah, and in turn, with rail lines all over the country. Right now, port traffic must go through downtown Miami, causing costly delays in transporting the cargo that can be avoided with a tunnel under Biscayne Bay.

This kind of public works project will provide jobs, and likely good jobs that pay livable wages and benefits, and can help repair crumbling infrastructure affecting bridges, dams, tunnels, and sewer systems.  This is a win-win-win, because the taxpayers get better services and improved systems, workers get jobs, and the public-private partnership means that businesses are kicking in their share and have a stake in the outcome. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, a Republican, says the project will create at least 10,000 jobs in the port and is a strong supporter.

I like how the President put it: “There are few more important things we can do to create jobs right now and strengthen our economy over the long haul than rebuilding the infrastructure that powers our businesses and economy. …My top priority …is to ignite the true engine of our economic growth—a rising, thriving middle class.”

Mr. Obama also outlined a series of other projects which Congress needs to support, including a $10 billion “infrastructure bank.” This is exciting stuff, and just the medicine the nation needs as we climb out of the recession of the last few years. Now we need Congress to get behind the effort.

NCL Statement on FCC “Bill Shock” Initiative

The National Consumers League, the nation’s pioneering consumer organization, today reaffirmed its support for robust action by the Federal Communications Commission to address the problem of “bill shock.” The following statement may be attributed to Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumer League:

“Wireless phone bills have become a source of confusion for consumers in recent years. Increasingly data-hungry applications, high rates for data, voice and text-messaging overages and a shift away from paper bills and towards automatic bill pay have all combined to put consumers at the mercy of wireless companies’ billing systems. While many carriers have instituted usage control technologies, they typically rely on proactive user engagement and often require a fee to take advantage of the most useful features. Action by the FCC is needed to give consumers, regardless of carrier, the necessary disclosures and warnings before they experience “bill shock.”  We applaud Chairman Genachowski for his pro-consumer position on this issue.”

Props to Congress for Move to Delay DTV Transition Date

The National Consumers League has issued kudos to the U.S. House of Representatives for voting to delay the official date of the federal transition from analog to digital television.

You’ve probably heard of the impending transition, which is set for Feb. 17. Consumer advocates are concerned, however, that there are still many consumers out there – an estimated 6.5 million! – who are unprepared for the switch. Those rabbit-ear-relying TV watchers would be in for a rude awakening when the analog signals stop airing. If they haven’t yet subscribed to cable or satellite, swapped their TV for one with a digital signal, or purchased a converter box, they may be baffled when their sets go blank later this month. Unless, that is, the delay is made official, and advocates, government, and others are given more time to reach those millions of consumers with the info they need to make the switch.

Sally Greenberg, NCL‘s Executive Director, had this to say about the move by the House:

“The decision by the U.S. House of Representatives to approve a four-month delay in the shutdown of analog TV signals is a victory for the estimated 6.5 million U.S. households that remain unprepared for the DTV transition. Consumers in these unprepared households are disproportionately elderly, low-income, rural, and minority. The delay will allow time for governmental, private, and non-profit educational efforts to have greater effect and for more converter box coupons to be sent to consumers currently on the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s waiting list. The delay will also help avoid the nightmare scenario of consumers, particularly older ones, climbing their roofs in February to adjust TV antennas due to the transition. We urge President Obama to sign the bill to law as soon as possible.”

Contaminated peanut butter? Is nothing sacred?

by Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

The all American sandwich, peanut butter and jelly, defiled by the potentially deadly Salmonella pathogen?

More than 500 people in 43 states have been sickened, and eight have died, after eating crackers and other products made with peanut butter from  a plant owned by the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA). More than 100 children under the age of 5 are among those who have been sickened.

The good news for consumers is that none of PCA’s products are sold directly to consumers. 
The bad news is that apparently PCA distributed potentially contaminated products to more than 100 companies for use as an ingredient in hundreds of different products, such as cookies, crackers, cereal, candy and ice cream.
 The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) initiated an inspection of PCA’s Blakely plant on January 9 shortly after learning that the firm might be linked to the ongoing Salmonella outbreak that was making people sick in states across the country.  But what should outrage consumers is that isn’t the first time the PCA has been implicated  – far from it. According to the New York Times, over the last two years  there were 12 instances in which the company’s own tests of its product found contamination by salmonella. In each case, the report states, “after the firm retested the product and received a negative status, the product was shipped in interstate commerce.”

It is illegal for a company to continue testing a product until it gets a clean test, said Michael Taylor, a food safety expert at George Washington University.

The FDA’s report describes a plant that was poorly constructed, with gaps and holes in the walls and flaking rust that could get into food products. “There were open gaps observed” near air-conditioner intakes that were as large as a half-inch by two and one-half feet long, the report said.  Previous inspections of the plant by the Georgia State Agriculture Department found dirty surfaces, grease residue and dirt buildup throughout the plant. They also found rust residue that could flake into food, gaps in warehouse doors large enough for rodents to enter, and numerous other problems.

Ingesting foods containing the Salmonella virus can be deadly in the very young, the elderly or those with compromised immune systems.

The plant sells its peanut paste to some of the nation’s largest food manufacturers, including Kellogg and McKee Foods. As a result of the contamination, more than 100 products have been recalled, mostly cookies and crackers.

In a press conference Tuesday, Michael Rogers, director of the division of field investigations at the FDA, said that the company’s tests showing salmonella contamination should have led the company to take actions to eliminate the contamination. “It’s significant, because at the point at which salmonella was identified, it shouldn’t be there, based on the manufacturing process that’s designed to mitigate salmonella, actually eliminate it,” Mr. Rogers said.

But the firm took no steps to clean its plant after the test results alerted the company to the contamination, inspection team found problems with the plant’s routine cleaning procedures as well.

The plant also stored pallets of peanut butter next to supplies of peanuts, the inspection report says. Finished products should be stored far from raw materials to reduce the chances of re-contamination of the finished goods, according to federal rules.

What is wrong with this picture? This Georgia plant is a clearly a serial violator– the feds found numerous violations but so did the state of Georgia. Why wasn’t the plant closed down after the Georgia State Inspection? Restaurants that are dirty and violate municipal rules are routinely closed down until they fix safety violations. What is the point of federal and state safety procedures if a company is permitted to flout them and send contaminated products into the marketplace? and shouldn’t we have tough criminal penalties for a company that knowingly ships contaminated products?

Certainly, Congress will be demanding answers, but consumers should demand them as well. Our food safety regime is broken. President Obama needs to appoint a tough new FDA Commissioner immediately. But the job of the FDA is overwhelming; FDA regulates food, drugs, and medical devices. We agree with our friends at the Center for Science in the Public Interest – our food safety system needs to be overhauled.

We need legislation to bring the food safety program at the FDA and Department of Agriculture and all the other federal agencies that regulate food into the 21st century. Representative Rosa DeLauro has introduced legislation to create a new Food Safety Administration at Health and Human Services.  That approach would bring the program elements together and put an expert in charge. We ask Congress and the Obama Administration to pass this legislation quickly, and begin to overhaul our food safety regime and make it work for consumers.

Elizabeth Warren’s Financial Services Product Safety Commission Proposal

by Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

Can a faulty toaster be compared with a faulty credit card? Several weeks ago at the Consumer Federation of America’s annual gathering on financial services, I heard Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren speak on just this topic. Warren, who wrote an article for Harvard Magazine called “Making Credit Safer: The Case for Regulation,” is recommending a radical new system for protecting consumers from credit card and other debts that are dangerous to their financial health. The new regime would be the financial equivalent of the Consumer Product Safety Commission – the independent federal agency that regulates the safety of 15,000 consumer products all of us use daily. Warren would call the new agency the “financial services product safety commission.”

Child Labor Enforcement: Are We Adequately Protecting our Children?

This morning on Capitol Hill, NCL’s Sally Greenberg and Dave Strauss from the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs will testify before a subcommittee hearing on Workforce Protection on the issue of domestic child labor, including the Department of Labor’s inadequate enforcement of child labor laws and the need for reform of agricultural child labor laws. They’ll be joined by former child field worker Norma Flores, who will tell her story of growing up in a farmworking family in Texas.

If you’re not going to be on Capitol Hill yourself this morning, you can listen to the live Web cast at the committee’s Web site, or you can read Sally Greenberg’s testimony at our site.

Good News for Consumers: Potential Safety Hazards Getting Better Disclosure by Feds

by Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

Some good news for consumers: we’ll soon be getting far better disclosures about potential safety hazards for food and drugs. In a blog about a month ago, I cheered the passage of major reforms in the Consumer Product Safety Act, which will help protect consumers, especially the most vulnerable ones — children — from dangerous or defective products. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) regulates more than 15,000 consumer products, ranging from all-terrain vehicles to electrical outlets to high chairs and bassinets.

Last week I sat in on an all-day briefing, sponsored by the CPSC, detailing highlights of the new law. One of the most important and exciting changes is that CPSC will be setting up a public database to give consumers access to information about products that other consumers, or CPSC, or manufacturers themselves have found dangerous, defective, or otherwise problematic.

Also last week the CPSC announced that it was recalling — without the manufacturer’s cooperation — a bassinet that has been implicated in the deaths of two babies, and that it was making the announcement as a result of new powers Congress had granted under the reform legislation. As a parent shopping for a bassinet, you’d certainly like to know about any hazards associated with this product. In the past, CPSC hasn’t been able to share complaint information, unless the product had been recalled, without checking with the manufacturer first. Under the new law, more general disclosures will be available at the public database of the agency’s Web site. At the meeting last week, CPSC officials noted that the opening of the database is some months away from being ready, but they say they may get it up and running ahead of schedule, which is great news for consumers.

It’s no coincidence that the Food and Drug Administration also announced this week that it will begin to list drugs whose safety is under investigation on its Web site every three months. Once again, Congress directed FDA to do it. However, while the federal safety agency will name the drug and the nature of the “adverse events,” it will not describe their seriousness or the number of complaints received, according to the Washington Post. That’s too bad, because with that information consumers can better assess the level of risk when their doctor prescribes a drug with potentially harmful side effects.

Of course, publishing such information can have a downside. FDA says that its adverse event hotline has received many reports that turned out to be false alarms. The upside, however, is that many times the full impact of side effects isn’t understood until the drug hits the market and many more people are taking it. The hope is that the public will have access to much more information on the safety and side effects of the drugs they are taking through this more open process—always a good thing for consumers.

Unemployed = Unemployment Benefits, Right?

by Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

Not necessarily. I always assumed that when you worked, then lost your job, you’re automatically entitled to unemployment benefits—they are part of our American “safety net.” Turns out I was wrong: according to a recent story in the Wall Street Journal, July 29, only 37% of the country’s unemployed received benefits in 2007, down from 55% in 1958 and 44% in 2001. The Journal based its numbers on Labor Department statistics.

The workers who don’t qualify for unemployment include part timers, people who quit or were fired, and those who didn’t earn enough money in a one-year “base period” that often excludes the most recent 3-6 months. Most states’ base period includes the first four of the last five completed quarters. States often require an average weekly wage in calculating their base period.

Covering a mere 37% of the unemployed is unconscionable. Unemployment benefits are often the only life jacket that workers can grab onto to keep food on the table and the lights on. Low income workers bear the brunt of this policy, with fewer than 15% of low wage workers getting benefits, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The House of Representatives passed a bill last year to provide an additional $7 billion to allow part-time workers to receive benefits and count earnings more generously. The Senate is supposed to take up a similar bill this fall. Our friends at NELP (National Employment Law Project) are working to get the bill passed and they argue that 300,000 additional workers would qualify for benefits if states changed the way they determine the base earnings period. An employer-based group in Texas was quoted as saying the bill isn’t a “panacea for everyone who happens not to be working.” No, but laid off workers aren’t looking for a panacea. They’re looking for a little help to feed their families. At an annual cost of $550 million, we ought to be able to make that happen.

Historic Consumer Product Bill a Boon for Kids’ Safety

by Sally Greenberg

In my years working as product safety counsel for Consumers Union, I spent a lot of time trying to improve product safety for consumers, especially kids. This week both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate supported truly historic reforms – reforms that seemed like mere pipe dreams only a few years ago. The bill, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, awaits the President’s signature.

One thing I have learned over the years, as well, is that a product safety crisis – like the one in 2000 when we learned that thousands of Firestone Tires were defective and separated off of (mostly) Ford Explorer at high speeds, killing hundreds of drivers and passengers – or the presence of excessive levels of lead in the toys our children are playing with – is a wakeup call for legislators and consumers alike. These crises can open the door to more close look at the laws that affect safety and ways to improve them.

To the credit of my fellow consumer advocates and members of congress from both parties, they rolled up their sleeves and worked together for reforms. The catalyzing event was high lead levels in toys discovered over the past two years – that opened the door to scrutiny of the federal agency charged with keeping our products safe, the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Traditionally underfunded and under the radar screen, the CPSC was operating with half the employees it began with in the mid-1970s while the number of consumer products had increased exponentially. Worthy of note, as well, were the comments by the top guy at the Toy Industry of America, who said the bill was “the right thing to do.”

Among the bill’s provisions, it will:

• Effectively ban lead from children’s toys, a position NCL has long endorsed. Lead is a proven toxin for children’s development and can do lifelong damage. No object intended for use by children should contain anything but the most minute amounts of lead.

• Require toymakers to have independent labs to test products before they are sold; many consumers assumed this was happening already, but instead, too many toys and products intended for children were introduced into the marketplace without proper testing and analysis Consumers may eventually see labels certifying toys have been tested before being sold, and consumers buying online or through a catalog will be able to see the same warning label that appears on packaging to warn parents of small parts or other potential hazards.

• Allow the CPSC to post information about products that have consumers have reported to the agency as being dangerous or defective; other federal agencies allow consumers to go to their websites to check on products before they purchase them. A provision of CPSC’s law prevented it from posting this information until the agency checked in with the manufacturer. That will change under the new law.

• State attorneys general will have the authority to help enforce federal product safety laws and take manufacturers to court to keep dangerous products off the market.

• This beleaguered agency will finally get the funding it needs to carry out its many and growing responsibilities. The CPSC budget will nearly double to $136 million, from $80 million for this fiscal year; the agency has already hired additional inspectors for the nation’s largest ports, where dangerous imports can enter the country currently unnoticed because of weak enforcement.

Finally, while at Consumers Union I had the honor of working with Linda Ginzel and Boaz Keysar after their toddler son died in a recalled and defective portable crib that killed other children as well. They have been heroic in their fight for safer kids’ products and better regulations to protect them. I am so happy that after many years of working to get these reforms into the Consumer Product Safety Act, there will finally be a requirement for mandatory standards and testing for specific infant and toddler products, we will see a ban on the sale, lease or use in commercial settings of cribs that do not meet current safety standards, and product registration cards will be required with new products to facilitate notice of recalled products.

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 includes many of the proposals consumer groups have worked to get enacted for a decade. It took a wake-up call like high levels of lead in toys to get Congress’ attention to the sad state of product safety regulation – and hats off to the members and their staffs in both parties for their support - but with the enactment of this bill we will see a far better safety environment, and most important, vastly safer toys and products for the most precious and vulnerable consumers, our kids.