Tag Archives: Open Thread

9/16-17 News Roundup & Open Thread

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Good morning Birdies!

We’ll start with a Common Dreams piece about Sanders and others reaction to three center-right House Dems voting against Medicare having negotiating authority for prescription prices.

After three House Democrats voted against a key plank of their party’s plan to lower prescription drug prices, Sen. Bernie Sanders said Wednesday that Congress must ensure the provision is included in the final budget reconciliation package despite objections from conservative lawmakers.

“The good news is that the full Congress must and will do far better,” Sanders added. “At a time when the drug companies are charging us by far the highest prices in the world, Congress must demand that Medicare negotiate prices with this extremely greedy and powerful industry.”

The Vermont senator’s statement came after a popular proposal to let Medicare directly negotiate prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies failed to pass the House Energy and Commerce Committee in a 29-29 vote. Reps. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.), and Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) joined their GOP colleagues in voting against the provision, which is backed by the White House and the Democratic leadership.

Medicare, the largest buyer of prescription medicines in the U.S., is currently barred by federal law from negotiating prices with drug manufacturers thanks to a “non-interference clause” that progressives have long sought to repeal. Democrats’ current proposal would amend the clause to allow the secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate drug prices on behalf of Medicare—a plan that could dramatically cut costs for patients and produce hundreds of billions of dollars in federal savings over the next decade.

A version of the plan was included in legislation (H.R. 3) that the House passed in late 2019 with the support of Peters, Rice, and Schrader. But the conservative Democrats are balking now that the proposal—once a mere messaging and campaign tool—actually has a chance of becoming law.

The pharmaceutical industry is fervently opposed to allowing the federal government to negotiate drug costs, which would threaten companies’ ability to set sky-high prices. The Government Accountability Office estimated earlier this year that in 2017, Medicare Part D paid twice as much for the same prescription medicines as the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is allowed to directly negotiate prices.

According to a study published last week by Gallup and West Health, more than 15 million U.S. adults under the age of 65 and 2.3 million seniors were unable to afford at least one doctor-prescribed medication this year.

“The pharmaceutical industry has spent over $4.5 billion on lobbying and campaign contributions over the past 20 years and has hired some 1,200 lobbyists to get Congress to do its bidding. They are the most powerful industry on Capitol Hill,” Sanders said Wednesday. “Nonetheless, the American people are demanding that Congress stand up to them and finally lower the outrageous price of prescription drugs by requiring Medicare to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry.”

“Now is the time for Congress to show courage and stand up to the greed of the pharmaceutical industry,” the Vermont senator added. “The American people will not accept surrender.”

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the industry’s top lobbying organization, applauded Peters, Rice, and Schrader for stopping the Medicare negotiation plan from passing out of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Peters and Schrader are both major recipients of pharma donations.

“This should be a strong signal to the House leadership that there is broad support for lowering costs for patients without sacrificing access to new cures and treatments,” the group said, deploying its favorite—and highly misleading—talking point against the proposal.

Aija Nemer-Aanerud, the Healthcare for All organizer at People’s Action, said Wednesday that the three Democrats’ votes were “a bald-faced display of corporate allegiance.”

“We’re living through a once-in-a-generation opportunity to win big for poor and working people,” said Nemer-Aanerud. “Today’s actions prove they want nothing to do with this vision.”

Despite the provision’s failure in the Energy and Commerce Committee, Sanders and other top lawmakers in the Democratic caucus voiced confidence that Medicare price negotiation will ultimately be included in the final reconciliation package. Nemer-Aanerud noted that the House Rules Committee has the ability to insert the Medicare negotiation language ahead of floor debate on the reconciliation bill.

Soon after the plan was rejected by Energy and Commerce, the House Ways and Means Committee—which also has jurisdiction over health policy—approved it, with Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) voting no. House Democrats can only afford three no votes on the final reconciliation package, which lawmakers hope to complete by the end of the month.

David Mitchell, a cancer patient and founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, applauded the Ways and Means panel’s vote and said Democrats must “fulfill their promise to pass strong Medicare negotiation to lower drug prices on behalf of Americans.”

“The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee stood strong with patients today by voting to advance H.R. 3 in the reconciliation package,” said Mitchell. “The inclusion of this strong Medicare negotiation legislation fuels momentum towards comprehensive, meaningful reform to provide relief to millions of Americans facing high drug prices in this country.”

More news, tweets, and perspectives along with your comments below. This also serves an open thread. Tomorrow night Benny’s Bar will be open for beverages and maybe a video jukebox!

4/24-25 Weekend Open Thread

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

It’s all too easy for employers to interfere in union elections

When workers at the Kumho Tire plant in Macon, Ga., petitioned for a union election on Sept. 18, 2017, they thought they were in good shape. Nearly 80 percent of them, 250 total, had signed cards showing support for unionizing. In the lead-up to the vote, management made clear where it stood. “My supervisor would stop me every day and say, ‘How you gonna vote, man? You gotta vote no!’ ” one worker, who remained anonymous out of fear of retaliation, told labor scholar Gordon Lafer. “No question I was going to vote yes, but I couldn’t let them know that, ’cause I was in fear for my job security.” One month later, when the ballots were counted, workers voted 164 to 136 against unionization.

Earlier this month, we saw a more prominent example of this phenomenon, when workers at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., voted by more than 2 to 1 against joining a union. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) It followed several other high-profile organizing defeats in recent years, including autoworkers at Volkswagen in Tennessee and Nissan in Mississippi, as well as Boeing employees in South Carolina.

Employers publicly interpret these results to suggest that workers simply don’t want unions. “Labor bosses should understand that when workers vote against forming a union, it signifies that the arguments made by organizers were not compelling or persuasive,” Kristen Swearingen, chair of the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, an anti-union lobby group, said after the Amazon defeat.

The evidence suggests otherwise. Current polling data shows that nearly two-thirds of Americans approve of unions, and nearly half of nonunion workers would vote to join one if given the opportunity. But if unions are so popular, why don’t workers vote for them?

The problem is that union elections today are nothing like the elections we learned about in civics class. We would rightly question the outcome of an election anywhere else if monitors reported that one side was surveilling and interrogating voters, forcing them to attend propaganda meetings denouncing its opponents, restricting the opposition’s ability to campaign, and threatening voters’ livelihood. But all of this is the normal, largely legal course of events for union elections in the United States, where competing parties do not get equal time to make their cases and voters do not have freedom of expression without retaliation. Even when employers cross the line — as they do in more than 40 percent of elections — the penalties are so trivial that it pays to break the law. Given the obstacles, it’s remarkable that unions win as many elections as they do.

Spending millions on anti-union consultants, companies like Amazon, Google and Boeing unleash “union avoidance” campaigns that all follow the same playbook. Even before the election gets underway, employers try to game the outcome in their favor, starting with legal maneuvers to block or delay the vote. They gerrymander the voting district (known as the “bargaining unit”), trying to pack in workers they believe lean anti-union and to carve out those they think are more pro-union. In Amazon’s case, the company insisted that the Bessemer bargaining unit include temporary and seasonal workers, nearly quadrupling its size from 1,500 to 5,800 members.

Meanwhile, management ramps up its anti-union campaign. Supervisors track and surveil workers to suss out union support, often taking them aside for one-on-one interrogations. Employees are subjected to barrages of anti-union texts and phone calls, while management plasters the workplace with “vote no” propaganda — even the bathroom stalls.

Workers are frequently pulled off the job to attend mandatory “captive audience” meetings — a feature of nearly 90 percent of all union elections. As Amazon worker Jennifer Bates testified before the Senate Budget Committee in March about the Bessemer campaign: “We were forced into what they called ‘union education’ meetings. We had no choice but to attend them. They would last for as much as an hour and we’d have to go sometimes several times a week. The company would just hammer on different reasons why the union was bad. And we had to listen. If someone spoke up and disagreed with what the company was saying they would shut the meeting down and told people to go back to work. Then follow up with one-on-one meetings on the floor.”

After one meeting where Bates asked managers some pointed questions, an Amazon official asked to photograph her employee badge. “I think it’s to show you’ll get in trouble for bringing up these types of questions,” she said.

Meanwhile, union supporters have to figure out creative ways to reach workers off the clock to avoid management interference. Union representatives are usually not allowed equal time in captive audience meetings, nor are they typically allowed anywhere on company property. Workers cannot communicate using company email or chat systems. Alternatives include visiting workers at home, although this is more difficult in a pandemic. During the recent Amazon union drive, union supporters tried catching employees driving out of the parking lot at the end of their shifts. In response, Amazon pressured Jefferson County officials to change the timing on the traffic lights, which reduced the time workers had to talk, according to reporting from More Perfect Union.

Faced with management’s intimidation campaigns, many pro-union workers become wary of expressing their support publicly — and not without reason. Research from the pro-labor think tank Economic Policy Institute shows that workers are fired in 1 out of 5 union election campaigns.

Clearly the election process needs to be fixed. But doing so leaves unanswered a more fundamental question: Why are employers allowed to intervene in union elections at all?

Employers argue that they must play a role in the election process to ensure that workers make a fully informed decision when it comes to the consequential act of joining a union. They certainly have reasons to oppose unions, which create checks and balances against management’s untrammeled authority in the workplace. But that doesn’t mean they should have a say in whether or how their workers decide to join one — let alone engage in campaigns of threats, intimidation and retribution.

Joining a union is a federal right, one that employers have no business infringing upon. As with any relationship between parties with competing interests, the way to handle those differences is to negotiate over them. So if employers have a problem with unions, the place to deal with it is at the bargaining table.

More perspectives, news, tweets, videos, etc in the comments. This is a weekend open thread.

1.27 Open Thread

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Good morning, y’all. Food for thought: we’ve got an important Anniversary coming up this spring. LD started this site as the Bernie News Report in 2015. It has grown and evolved into our beloved Progressive Wing aka the Nest. 😊☮️ So, how about a cyber celebration? It would be a lot of fun, and a needed positive in these troubled times. The Nest is swept and Open for action. Treat yourselves, my friends. 😊

11.28 and 29 Open Threads

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Well, it’s the Saturday after 🦃. I hope everyone is slowly recuperating from a good and healthy 🦃😊. Can you believe it is December 1st next Tuesday? Wow, where did the year go? The Nest is Open. Enjoy!👍 11/29: I know everyone is busy with the beginning of the Holiday Season, so I combined the 2 threads. Everyone, be well.

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5/22 TGIF – Long Weekend News Round-up and Open Thread

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Politicians still separate climate issues from the wedge ones, not seeing the intersectionality.

Perez had come out against amending the rules to allow for a climate debate in a June blog post, although he later unilaterally changed other sanctioned debate qualifications, such as the individual donor threshold. At the time of the climate protests, Sludge reported the DNC was accepting large donations from fossil fuel executives, placing the party outside of the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge endorsed by every leading Democratic presidential candidate.

Who, then, are the DNC members of the Resolutions Committee who first voted against recommending a climate debate?

The DNC does not make the membership lists of its standing committees available to the public, but Sludge obtained a full DNC committee roster as of September 2019 from a DNC member.

The 28-member Resolutions Committee contains at least five members with backgrounds in advancing corporate interests: three current corporate lobbyists, one of them a co-chair of the committee and another a News Corp lobbyist put forward by Tom Perez; one past electric utility lobbyist and drug industry consultant, who established a Democratic precedent of corporate PAC fundraising; and one principal with a consulting firm whose current clients include large corporations and whose past clients include BP. The committee also includes Symone Sanders, a senior advisor for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.

Crucially, at least 13 of the standing committee’s 28 members are at-large DNC members, which means they were put forward as a slate by Perez and approved by a voice vote, not individually elected. Of these 13, ten committee members voted against a climate-focused debate when the matter was voted on by the full DNC membership, as tracked by a publicly-viewable spreadsheet released by Michael Kapp, a pro-transparency DNC member from California, as well as Kenji Yamada, also from California. (The previous roll call of the 17-8 Resolutions Committee vote to not recommend endorsing a climate debate is not available online.)

The party Charter states that the Resolutions Committee “shall receive and consider all resolutions proposed by a member of the DNC on matters of policy proposed for adoption, by the Democratic National Committee, and shall report in writing.” However, no written records of deliberations around party resolutions are made available online or to anyone outside of a DNC member who requests them, and video is not recorded and put online for later viewing of committee proceedings.

The Resolutions Committee is co-chaired by Hon. Lottie Shackelford, an at-large DNC member who was mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas from 1987-1988. As one of three senior advisors at consulting firm Global USA, Shackelford’s past lobbying clients include Allstate Insurance, Hyundai, and from 2000-2008, a coalition of Big Bank trade groups called FM Watch.

According to records maintained by ProPublica, Shackelford and Global USA lobbied for several months in 2006 for Strategic Communication Company on “Taxes pertaining to oil and gas companies.” Shackelford did not respond to an email inquiry requesting more information about this lobbying activity, or seeking comment on how her committee evaluates and discusses potential conflicts of interest among members with corporate clients.

The committee’s other co-chair is Stuart Appelbaum, a DNC member from New York who is the current chair of the DNC Labor Council. Appelbaum is president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) and was appointed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to the state’s Regional Economic Development Councils.

Both co-chairs, Shackelford and Appelbaum, voted against approving a climate-focused presidential debate in the full DNC member vote in August 2019.

Below is a rundown of several other members of the Resolutions Committee and their affiliations with corporations that engage in lobbying.

Charlie King—at-large DNC Member

King is a partner at lobbying firm Mercury Public Affairs and a former senior advisor to New York Gov. Cuomo’s re-election campaign. Mercury was hired by 68 clients to lobby the federal government in 2019, including the Government of Qatar and defense company United Technologies, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, receiving a total of $9.5 million in lobbying fees. In 2018, reporter Lachlan Markey found eight additional foreign-registered clients signed by Mercury after it succeeded in getting Russian aluminum parent company En+ removed from the Treasury Department’s sanctions list.

Mercury Public Affairs had several lobbying clients last year in the energy and natural resources sector and the oil and gas industry, including natural gas company PennEast Pipeline ($120,000), methanol maker Yuhuang Chemical ($420,000), and EnVen Energy Ventures ($80,000), an oil and gas exploration and drilling company in the Gulf of Mexico. This year, EnVen and Yuhuang continue to use Mercury for lobbying, and the public affairs firm keeps large clients in industries adjacent to fossil fuel production. Last year, these clients included the South Carolina Ports Authority ($160,000), Hyundai motor company ($240,000), and defense contractor General Dynamics ($290,000).

King explained his vote against a climate-focused debate to the San Francisco Chronicle in September 2019 as a vote to keep other fundamental civil rights issues in the spotlight, saying, “I can’t remember the word ‘poverty’ mentioned in any of the debates. For us to elevate to one critical issue over every other critical issue, I just can’t do.” King’s firm did not respond to an email inquiry for comment on how he addresses conflicts of interest with fossil fuel clients in his work on the Resolutions Committee.

Hon. Tony Coelho—at-large DNC member

Coelho is a former U.S. representative from California who in 1986 was elected House majority whip. After being named chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 1980, Coelho pioneered aggressive party fundraising from corporate PACs that had business before Congress. In 1985, a profile in The New Republic reported that he fought to retain tax breaks enjoyed by independent oil and gas drillers, lining up their financial support for the Democratic Party.

After resigning his House seat in 1989 due to a brewing loan scandal, Coelho later lobbied the federal government as a founding partner of Vectis Strategies in 2013 and 2014 for electric provider Edison Utilities. His many corporate board seats have included being elected chair of consulting services company ICF in November 1998 and commercial bank Esquire Bank.

Joanne Dowdell—at-large DNC member

Dowdell, who ran as a Democratic candidate for a U.S. House seat in New Hampshire in 2012, has been since April 1, 2016 a registered lobbyist for News Corp, where she is senior vice president of global government affairs. Dowdell was one of several corporate lobbyists put forward as at-large DNC members by Perez in an October 2017 “purge” of party leaders who had supported Perez’s rival, then-Rep. Keith Ellison, and greater transparency measures within the DNC. At the time, Bloomberg reported, “A DNC aide who asked not to be identified defended including the lobbyists, saying they were all carry-overs from the last presidential election cycle and were renominated because of their service to the party.”

Symone Sanders—at-large DNC member

A senior adviser to the Biden campaign and previous press spokesperson, Sanders had called a climate-focused debate “dangerous territory in the middle of a Democratic primary process,” saying it “would fundamentally change the game” of what the campaigns had been told. Sanders defended her position on Twitter in the days before the full DNC member vote, saying she does not represent the Biden campaign as part of her responsibilities on the DNC’s Resolutions Committee. Sanders then voted with the majority against holding a climate debate.

Craig Smith—at-large DNC member

A Democratic strategist since Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign, Smith is currently a principal at PSB, a research firm and consultancy for businesses, governments, and politicians. PSB’s current corporate clients listed on its website include the California Chamber of Commerce, Coca-Cola, Ford, pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, McDonald’s, and Microsoft. At the time of the firm’s 2001 sale to advertising giant WPP, PSB’s corporate clients also included American Express, BP, and Novartis. Founded by pollster Mark Penn, the firm is known for its services to centrist Democrats such as Joe Lieberman’s 2004 presidential bid and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s runs in 2001 and 2005, as well as Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Five DNC officials have not responded to multiple requests for comment over the past several months on how DNC members implement the party Charter’s commitment to a political ethics where officials “shall refrain from acting in their official capacities when their independence of judgement would be adversely affected by personal interest or duties.”

https://prospect.org/politics/corporate-lobbyists-on-the-dnc-committee-blocked-climate-debate/

Good thing it is a long weekend ahead. What’s on your radar? Join us in the comments below!

5/14 Sanders Panel Discussion on Climate Change; Open Thread

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

One of the guests is on one of the Biden-Sanders Task Forces.

Jibber Jabber, tweets, videos, etc in the comments. This serves as an open thread.