Legislative Update |
WASHINGTON, D.C. - In an early morning vote on Thursday, December 24, 2009 Senate Democrats, joined by the chambers’ two Independents, passed by a vote of 60 to 39 the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009.
With the U.S. House of Representatives having previously passed its version of health-care reform, Democrats from both Congressional chambers will seek to cobble together a single unified conference bill that not only reconciles the differences between the two measures but garners enough support for final passage by both the House and Senate.
Conferees, however, will be challenged in finding solutions and compromises to some of the more contentious provisions in their bills.
The respective bills contain significant differences in several key areas, including a government run insurance plan or public option, employer mandate and new taxes that would help finance America’s most sweeping health-care system over-haul in the past 45 years.
The House bill creates a “public option” plan that would require medical providers to negotiate reimbursement rates with the government.
The Senate bill instead would allow private insurance firms to offer national plans, one of which must be operated on a non-profit basis, that would be overseen by the federal Office of Personnel Management.
The House bill would require employers to provide health insurance for their employees based on payroll or be subject to a penalty of 8 percent of payroll.
While the Senate bill would not require employers to pay for health-care, it would instead subject the employer to a fee of $750 for every employee if even one employee is eligible for a health-care subsidy from a state-based insurance exchange.
Both the House and Senate bills would impose new taxes and fees to help finance health-care reform.
The House plan would levy 5.4 percent surtax on individuals earning more than $500,000 per year and families earning more than $ 1 million.
The Senate bill would impose a 40 percent excise tax on the amount exceeding $8,500 for individual plans and $23,000 for family plans.
The excise tax threshold would be raised to $9,850 and $26,000 respectively for certain high-risk occupations, including longshore.
Senate Poised to Pass Health Care Reform Package, 12/23/2009
Washington, D.C. - With the US House of Representatives having passed its version of health care reform last month, the United States Senate is poised to follow suit with a vote on their package scheduled for December 24, 2009.
The Senate legislation will require 60 votes to pass and to stave off a Republican filibuster.
The Senate version of the legislation would in part finance the massive reform package through an excise tax on so called “Cadillac” insurance plans.
"Cadillac" insurance plans are those costing in excess of $8,500 for individual coverage and $23,000 for family coverage.
Plans that exceed the threshold limits would be hit with a 40 percent tax on the amount above the threshold.
The initial Senate Finance Committee passed bill included exceptions for certain high-risk occupations such as fire fighters, police, mining, fishing, construction and agriculture.
The excise tax threshold for high-risk occupations is $9,850 for individual coverage and $26,000 for family coverage.
Not originally listed as a high-risk occupation, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) with support from Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) lead the effort to include longshoring or marine cargo handling in the Senate Manager’s Amendment under high-risk occupations based on statistical information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that death and injury rates are comparable to or higher than some of the originally listed high-risk occupations.
When Congress returns to Washington from the holiday recess law makers from both chambers of Congress will convene a conference committee to reconcile differences in the two versions of the health care reform bills.
Once accomplished, the conference bill will be subject to a final vote by the House and Senate and upon passage sent to the President for enactment.
Delaware River Deepening, 12/02/2009
ILA national and local leaders from the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware continue to meet with political representatives at the highest levels from the tri-state area to encourage and secure support for the Delaware River Deepening project.
The Delaware River is a global cargo gateway which handles in excess of 60 million tons of cargo annually generating in excess of $4 billion in regional economic activity and accounting for thousands of good paying longshore and ancillary port related jobs.
After years of exhaustive environmental and economic impact studies, the US Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) approved and slated to begin dredging the Delaware River main shipping channel later this year from 40 to 45 feet.
Initially authorized by the United States Congress in 1992, the project is vitally important to the Delaware River maritime industry and its ability to compete for and expand its future cargo handling capacity.
However, Delaware River ports currently find themselves caught in a convergence of three very different political agendas between the states of Pennsylvania (PA), New Jersey (NJ) and Delaware (DE).
Just a few weeks ago, the states of NJ and DE filed an injunction seeking to prevent the ACOE from moving forward on the project claiming that the ACOE did not have the proper jurisdiction over the project, but rather, that each state (PA, NJ, and DE) had the power to grant approval of the project based on their own separate environmental standards. As a result, the project has now become an argument as to sovereignty, and whether a state has the ability to halt a federally approved project. A hearing has been set for December 8, 2009 to determine the ability for the lawsuit to move forward.
In addition, various environmental groups have filed a separate suit claiming that the deepening of the Delaware River would have negative impacts on the ecological well-being of the Delaware River and Bay.
At stake are the 75,000 direct, indirect and induced maritime industry jobs that now exist in the tri-state region as well as private-public partnerships that have expressed serious interest in developing the Ports of Wilmington and Philadelphia into “world class” container facilities, which could easily generate in excess of 150,000 additional direct, indirect and induced jobs.
With the widening of the Panama Canal scheduled for completion in 2015, East and Gulf Coast ports are implementing development programs to increase their cargo handling capacity and to accommodate new generation vessels with draft requirements in excess of 40 feet.
Industry experts continue to project that international trade volumes will rebound and grow over the next decade.
For Delaware River ports to remain competitive and with current national and state unemployment levels having risen to levels not experienced since the Great Depression, this is precisely the type of job saving and creation project that our national and state political leaders need to invest in.
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Employee Free Choice Act Senator Arlen Specter’s (R-PA) recent announcement stating that he would not support the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) or a cloture vote to curtail an anticipated Republican Filibuster is a disappointing blow not only to working families in Pennsylvania but to working families all across America. An original sponsor of the legislation and the only Republican to vote for cloture in 2007 when the bill was last considered by the US Senate, Specter stated that “The problems of the recession make this a particularly bad time to enact Employee Free Choice legislation” and suggested that he did not want to bear the political cost of being the decisive vote. |
 AFL-CIO site |
73 percent of the public, the majority of both Houses of Congress and the Obama Administration support the passage and enactment of this legislation. EFCA would restore the rights of workers to bargain for their wages, benefits and working conditions without being threatened, intimidated or fired. The legislation does not eliminate secret ballot elections, nor require sign up. EFCA simply lets workers choose which method they want to use to achieve recognition from their employer.
The steady decline in collective bargaining coverage along with stagnant wages has contributed to the economic crisis confronting our nation today. By allowing workers to join together free of harassment and threats EFCA would stimulate our economy, put more people to work, raise wages and benefits for all, rebuild the middle class and renew the American dream.
The ILA will continue to work with Congress, including Senator Specter, to pass this critical legislation.
Generations Must Stand United for Employee Free Choice Act
Barbara J. Easterling President, Alliance for Retired Americans
Our nation’s economic crisis is affecting nearly everyone. Unless you are getting one of those big Wall Street bonuses, you are probably struggling to pay your bills, keep your home, or afford to see a doctor or fill a prescription. There is no longer any doubt that the fundamentals of our economy are broken.
One way out of this mess – and a way to help both current and future retirees – is for Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
The Employee Free Choice Act recognizes that our middle class is in trouble because more and more, big corporations hold all the cards. As they lavish their CEOs with bonuses and golden parachutes, they slash jobs and cut all the wrong corners on customer service and safety. They break their promises to workers and retirees, leaving millions without health care and retirement plans.
But standing up for yourself by forming a union hasn’t been easy. One in five workers trying to form a union is fired. Decades of “hear no evil, see no evil” enforcement of labor laws has given management the green light to harass and intimidate anyone who tries to exercise their rights on the job. Too often federal officials fail to protect law-abiding employees, and instead act like the lookout man at a bank robbery.
Ever since I joined a union – on my very first day as a telephone operator in Akron, Ohio – I have seen firsthand how collective bargaining is the best hope workers have for good jobs and good wages. Now, as president of the Alliance for Retired Americans, I see that as middle class jobs disappear, so does the prospect of a safe and secure retirement. Did you know that workers in a union are nearly three times more likely to have pensions and five times more likely to have health insurance benefits? A union contract helps you long past when your working days are done.
Most of my generation is no longer in the workforce. But we worry about our younger friends and family who struggle to either find a job or hang onto the one they have. If things stay as they are, will they ever be able to retire?
In times this tough, we must all stand together. All of us must educate our neighbors – and particularly our lawmakers – about how our right to collectively bargain is broken. Only through restoring fairness to our labor laws can we restore our nation’s middle class to the greatness that it once was.
Barbara J. Easterling was elected president of the Alliance for Retired Americans in February of this year. She was previously the secretary-treasurer of the Communications Workers of America. For more information, visit www.retiredamericans.org or call 1-888-633-4435.
Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)
Across the country, union members are mobilizing to collect one million signatures in support of the Employee Free Choice Act—national legislation that will break down the barriers faced by workers when forming unions and bargaining for better wages, benefits and working conditions.
It's called the Million-Member Mobilization for the Employee Free Choice Act, and the International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO is pledging to get at least 10 percent of our members to sign up. Here's why.
With an economy in recession, mounting home foreclosures and skyrocketing costs for health care, gas and groceries, working families are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. Union members know a union card is the best ticket to the middle class and a bolster against tough economic times. After all, union members average 28 percent higher wages, are 62 percent more likely to have employer-provided health coverage and are four times more likely to have defined-benefit pensions than workers who don’t have unions.
Collective bargaining is the best opportunity that working men and women have to achieve individual opportunity, restore economic fairness and rebuild America’s middle class.
But when workers try to form unions to improve their lives, many companies do everything they can to stop them. The current company-dominated system for forming unions allows corporations to coerce, intimidate and even fire workers who try to form unions. Today, 60 million workers say they would join a union now if they could—but corporations are stopping them cold.
EFCA was introduced in the House and Senate during the 108th, 109th, and 110th Congress. It passed in the House on March 1, 2007 for the first time, but was filibustered by Senate Republicans in June 2007.
The more union members who take on these fights together, the stronger we are.
Please register your support for EFCA at www.employeefreechoiceact.org and help give power back to workers by allowing them to form unions once a majority has signed authorization cards.
ILA endorses S. 3174, the “Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Port Security Task Force Implementation Act of 2008”.
Senators Lautenberg and Menendez of New Jersey introduced legislation following recent testimony from federal officials who stated that they would not be able to meet a 2012 deadline to scan all containers coming into the United States.
America’s international waterborne trade is the fuel that propels our nation’s economic engine. Our ports provide hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect jobs and generate billions of dollars in economic and tax revenue.
Each year millions of containers from all parts of the globe arrive at our docks and move through our ports on trucks and rail to their final destination. Unfortunately, only a very small percentage of them are adequately scanned for weapons of mass destruction.
The International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO (ILA) has always had a vital interest in, and commitment to the enhancement of America’s maritime security. ILA members work daily on the front lines of America’s war against maritime related terror and would be among the first affected if there were an incident our breach in security at any of our commercial seaports.
S. 3174 would fill critical security gaps in the cargo supply chain by establishing new minimum security standards and protocols for containers entering the US.
The Lautenber/Menedez bill would require cargo to be monitored through the entire cargo supply chain; from the point and time the container is loaded until its arrival in the US.
The legislation would also require all port regions to have in place a response and recovery plan in the event of a terrorist strike or emergency.
ILA applauds introduction of S. 3199; legislation that would amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exempt certain shipping from the harbor maintenance tax.
The ILA has long supported efforts to develop a viable US marine highway (Short sea shipping) system.
With international freight volumes growing and America’s land based transportation infrastructure capacity squeezed, the development of a US marine highway system would provide an additional efficient and environmentally sound transportation option.
The introduction of S. 3199 by Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey mirrors legislation, H.R. 1499, previously introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland.
Both the Lautenberg and Cummings bills seek to eliminate a major impediment to the development of a short sea shipping system by exempting waterborne transportation of cargo between US ports from the Harbor Maintenance Tax (HMT). The HMT is the responsibility of the shipper. Multiple taxation of waterborne cargo not only increases cost but serves as a deterrent to shippers who are seeking more cost efficient ways to transport their goods to consumer markets.
The establishment of a short sea shipping industry is in our national interest. It would not only offer an additional option to move our ever increasing volume of cargo, it would also ease landside congestion and create new employment opportunities in the longshore industry.
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