The Supreme Court just struck down a key campaign-finance restriction that bars corporations from pouring money into political ads, and the ruling divided the court along ideological lines with the newest justice, Sonia Sotomayor, joining the liberal wing in dissent.
The ruling is a victory for Washington-based Citizens United, the corporation that created "Hillary: The Movie." The 90-minute film, which creators sought to air on a video-on- demand channel during Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, features interviews with a number of prominent critics of the New York senator, including Ann Coulter and Newt Gingrich.
So, what's at stake? This is what a constitutional law expert had to say.
"American citizens have repeatedly amended the Constitution to defend democracy when the Supreme Court acts in collusion with democracy's enemies, whether they are slavemasters, states imposing poll taxes on voters, or the opponents of woman suffrage. Today, the Court has enthroned corporations, permitting them not only all kinds of special economic rights but now, amazingly, moving to grant them the same political rights as the people. This is a moment of high danger for democracy so we must act quickly to spell out in the Constitution what the people have always understood: that corporations do not enjoy the political and free speech rights that belong to the people of the United States." [emphasis added]
Voter Action, Public Citizen, The Center for Corporate Policy, and the American Independent Business Alliance have started an organization - Free Speech for People - in an effort to correct the damage the Supreme Court has done to the First Amendment, and the only way that's possible is to pass a constitutional amendment of our own that puts people ahead of corporations.
Please read their resolution and sign your name in support. What the Supreme Court did today dramatically dilutes the vote and the voice of every American who does not control a large corporate treasury. And the decision unleashes billions of dollars in corporate money to dominate legislatures and elections. The problem actually goes beyond money in politics and elections, "The courts have used the fabrication of the First Amendment corporate rights doctrine to strike down a range of democratic enactments in recent years, from those concerning clean and fair elections; to environmental protection and energy; to tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, and health care; to consumer protection, lottery, and gambling; to race relations, and much more."
Free speech is for people - not corporations. Please join their campaign and protect our democracy.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I wanted to pass along a few shopping tips before heading out to spend the holiday with family and friends.
If you're picking up a bottle of wine for your host or guests, consider buying Wine Spectator's 2009 Wine of the Year: Columbia Crest's Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley Reserve 2005. According to FDL, members of the United Farm Workers helped pick the grapes. If you don't like red wine, check out these other labels that use UFW members (as well as other products like strawberries, dates, and almonds).
Moving beyond Thanksgiving to Black Friday, you can show your support for union workers by clicking here and checking out the box in the left upper corner to find union made products and services.
Or maybe you want to avoid naughty companies that force their employees to labor long hours under dangerous working conditions for poverty wages? Then Working in These Times advises you to read the "Shop With a Conscience Consumer Guide" from Sweat Free Communities, as well as this Sweatshop Hall of Shame 2010 report that highlights some of the big apparel and textile companies that use sweatshops in their global production. (Ikea, Abercrombie and Fitch, Wal-Mart, Hanes, L.L. Bean, and Kohl's among others.)
And from Michael Whitney at FDL comes this reminder about shipping your packages:
Finally, before heading out the door, you might want to check out Gizmodo, because no matter where it's made and who makes it, some "deals" really aren't deals at all!
(I'm so thankful my family likes gift certificates and cash. It makes life much simpler.)
Robert Reich has an article on the disconnect between stocks and jobs that asks a great question: How can the stock market hit new highs at the same time unemployment is hitting new highs?
Simple. The market is up because corporate earnings are up. Corporate earnings are up because companies are cutting costs. And the biggest single cost they're cutting is their payrolls. So they let people go and, presto, their balance sheets look better and their stock prices rise.
Reich points to Caterpillar as an example. They earned $404 million in the third quarter, or 64 cents a share, yet analysts had only expected 5 cents. So how did Caterpillar manage to drive their stock up 165 percent since March? They cut 37,000 jobs.
The latest case in point: the just-announced $4.5 billion merger deal that will fold the 99-year-old Black & Decker tool-making powerhouse - the folks who brought us the world's first pistol-grip power drill - into its chief tool-making rival, Connecticut's Stanley Works.
"It's a match made in heaven," Stanley flack Tim Perra told reporters last week.
Heaven for who? Not consumers. The new "Stanley Black & Decker" may soon have enough marketplace dominance, says Morningstar business analyst Anthony Dayrit, "to raise prices" on do-it-yourself gizmos that range from power tools to window locks.
And workers won't find much heaven in the merger either. Black & Decker and Stanley together currently employ a workforce just over 40,000. The merger the two companies announced last week will eventually cost an estimated 10 percent of those workers their jobs, starting with staff at the Black & Decker headquarters just outside Baltimore.
And here's yet another example from economically depressed Las Vegas:
Last February, Las Vegas kingpin Steve Wynn announced an across-the-board wage and hour cutback for all employees at his resort empire. The total savings for Wynn Resorts: between $75 and $100 million. Last week Wynn Resorts announced a special $4-per-share dividend. Total cost of the dividend payout to Wynn Resorts: $492 million. Total dividend check that will go to Steve Wynn: $88.6 million.
The Great Recession has been a boon for corporations and CEO's. As Reich points out, "They're using this sharp downturn to cut payrolls even below where they were when times were good. Outsourcing abroad, setting up shop in China and elsewhere, contracting out, replacing people with software and automated machines - they're doing whatever it takes to get payrolls down so earnings bounce up."
Higher earnings may be good for Wall Street, but not so much for Main Street. More from Reich: "Yes, the economy is growing again, but the surge in productivity is a mirage. Worker output per hour is skyrocketing because companies are generating almost as much output with fewer workers and fewer hours." The bottom line: Higher productivity doesn't put money in the average worker's pocket. Since 1980, productivity has grown 70 percent, but wages only increased 5 percent.
But, but, but... I can hear the Jim Kramer's of the world already. Higher stock prices=higher fund balances for all Americans. That's true. But what good does a 5 or 10 percent increase do me if I'm out of work and have to live off of that money? It buys me short-term security today but leaves me financially insecure when I retire. Instead of worrying about stock market profits, we need policies that put people back to work at decent wages and keeps them working.
On October 3, Local 386 members employed at Country Fresh Dairy in Grand Rapids, Michigan, ratified a new contract. The new agreement increases wages and pension benefits, while protecting health care coverage and increases sickness and accident and life insurance coverage. [...]
The five-year contract contains wage increases totaling 11 percent over the course of the agreement, and the company's contributions to the employees' RWDSU pension will increase by $2 per week each year. By the last year of the contract, the company will be contributing $80 per week to the plan.
I've always liked and bought Country Fresh products, and now I have another reason to remain a loyal customer. Not only do I help the company's profits, but I help the 156 employees who overwhelmingly voted to ratify the contract.
The polar opposite of Country Fresh is Boeing. The company decided to put a new assembly line for the 787 Dreamliner in South Carolina. Boeing claims they chose right-to-work South Carolina in part "because of frustration with labor strife in Seattle, where four strikes in the past 20 years by the machinists union delayed deliveries." However, according to the Seattle PI, the union offered a 10-year, no-strike contract and was willing to discuss a longer agreement to get Boeing to commit to locating the second 787 line in Everett, Washington.
And this little tidbit from the same article will infuriate Muskegon Critic:
Boeing already took billions in tax credits and handouts... Now, the company is taking the jobs promised by the 787 program and leaving Washington workers and taxpayers high and dry.
What's the company getting from South Carolina? A package that eliminates income and other taxes for a decade and the state will provide low-interest construction bonds.
The problem with all these incentives according to this journalist is that they're a downward spiral on our race to the bottom.
Of course the problem isn't a lack of "commitment" to the aerospace industry in a region where generations of workers have devoted their lives to making Boeing planes. The problem is that people in Washington just don't come as cheap. We have this bad habit of paying people a decent wage, and providing good unemployment pay and benefits for people who are injured on the job--all things that apparently must change if we're to be competitive.
But then, if you consult the advocacy groups trying to insure the "competitiveness" of South Carolina, they say the same thing. "South Carolina's workers' compensation costs are the highest in the Southeast for small business" frets the South Carolina Civil Justice Coalition, a group that works to improve the business climate in Boeing's new home. They won't be satisfied until South Carolina's "climate" has been made as cheap as Georgia's, Tennessee's, and Virginia's.
And on down it spirals. It's not a winnable game, not if we want to keep any allegiance to our own values. In a few years, Boeing will be playing S.C. off Mississippi.
Boeing could learn a few things about values from Country Fresh.
...in a blazingly short amount of time, the Administration has forged a deal that could save thousands of jobs at Chrysler--the major banks are on board, the UAW has made more significant concessions. But all that may come crashing to a halt because of a few hedge funds who are holding the entire car industry hostage because, boo-hoo, they aren't getting enough out of the deal. What a spectacle.
Spectacle? Yeah, in a Bonnie & Clyde or Godfather sort of way.
As Tasini points out, the president lived up to his pledge, the UAW accepted concessions...
On top of concessions already given in 2005, 2007 and 2008, the UAW members have agreed to accept cuts in pay and benefits.
And even the major debt holders were on board.
Led by J.P. Morgan, the banks holding 70 percent of Chrysler's debt agreed to a deal that would effectively mean they would have to write-off a health chunk of change.
Everyone sacrificed and the administration even tossed more cash on the table and it still wasn't enough for the greedy hold outs.
Three of the bank-debt holders on the bank-steering committee, Oppenheimer Funds, Perella Weinberg Partners' Xerion Capital Fund and Stairway Cap Management, told J.P. Morgan and the other large lenders on a bank call Tuesday that they wouldn't support the deal and would advise other lenders not to support it.
I'm not a financial expert, but I think that's just dumb. Tasini thinks it's dumb too.
Even if the hold-out hedge funds refuse to make a deal by midnight tonight, forcing Chrysler to file for bankruptcy, they are unlikely to do any better in the swift bankruptcy proceedings envisioned. Do the geniuses at Perella et al. think that a bankruptcy judge, looking at a deal that has the blessing of the U.S. Treasury, the banks holding 70 percent of the debt, and the the union representing tens of thousands of workers (not to mention Fiat, which is waiting in the wings to scoop up Chrysler) will dramatically alter the outlines of the deal? No.
But, here we are: American workers, the Administration and the public generally is being held hostage by a few deal makers who run the very kind of financial firms that evaporated trillions of dollars in wealth. [emphasis mine]
And they wonder why a majority of the public believes corporate America (and particularly the financial industry) needs a new moral direction.
They're putting more money in their employees paychecks.
Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. announced wage increases effective immediately for all full-time, hourly workers earning up to $13 an hour. For some employees, the pay hike can mean more than a $2 an hour raise.
The company also said it was raising its minimum pay to $10 per hour for full-time, hourly workers, up from whatever the minimum wage is in a state. In Michigan, it is $7.40.
Nationwide, the chain has more than 400 arts and crafts stores, with 15 in Michigan, and the increase will boost the pay of more than 6,900 employees, some by nearly $600 month. In Michigan, 75 percent of their employees are full-timers.
This is a great way to help stimulate the economy and build employee morale at the same time.
It's also nice to hear a CEO say this about his employees:
"Our employees are the backbone of our company, and we believe that giving them the opportunity to share in our success is the right thing to do," David Green, CEO and founder of Hobby Lobby, said in a statement.
"This is part of our continuing efforts to reward our employees for their hard work and integrate them into the growth of our company."
A store spokesperson said they took the action because "they have had a profitable year and want to pass that on to their employees."
Hobby Lobby has a history of caring about their employees. When the the price of gasoline skyrocketed last year, they gave employees a permanent 25 cent per hour raise to help offset cost of living increases.
How do the right-to-work cheerleaders explain this? Using the February numbers, five of the 10 states with the biggest growth in unemployment are in the South.
State and percent increase in jobless rate since recession began (with current unemployment rate in parentheses)
This suggests that, as many other studies have found, unemployment rises and falls due to a vast array of changes in the economy -- and can't be pinned on unions.
FedEx could cancel contracts for $10 billion in American-made planes if Congress makes it easier for unions to organize the delivery giant's workers.
In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the Memphis-based company disclosed that purchases of Boeing 777s are contingent on FedEx Express' continued coverage by the National Railway Labor Act.
The disclosure serves as a warning shot to lawmakers seeking to put FedEx Express workers under the National Labor Relations Act, a move seen as helping the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
"It's FedEx political hardball at its finest," said analyst Donald Broughton with Avondale Partners. In a research note Monday, he wrote: "We see FedEx's action as a deft political move that aligns the interests of Boeing and GE with FedEx, and pits the interests of the Teamsters against the interests of the machinist and several other trade unions."
FedEx is threatening to buy French-made Airbuses to upgrade its fleet instead. Why does corporate America hate our country and its workers?
UPDATE: FedEx isn't the only corporation that likes to play hardball. Via Washington Monthly comes information about a recent WSJ article. It basically says banks sent the following message to President Obama after Congress moved to tax their bonuses:
When administration officials began calling them to talk about the next phase of the bailout, the bankers turned the tables. They used the calls to lobby against the antibonus legislation, Wall Street executives say. Several big firms called Treasury and White House officials to urge a more reasonable approach, both sides say. The banks' message: If you want our help to get credit flowing again to consumers and businesses, stop the rush to penalize our bonuses.
Real patriotic, huh? These bankers ruined our economy, put people out of work and literally on the street, and they still want to call the shots. And they wonder why Main Street is so outraged.
The latest Gallup Poll shows that 53 percent of respondents favor a new law that would "make it easier for labor unions to organize workers" versus 39 percent of respondents who oppose such a law. This is amazing support considering the efforts big business is taking to fight it.
Citibank, BOA, Wal-Mart, Burger King, and a couple hundred other U.S. Chamber of Commerce companies are prepared to spend $200 million on advertising and lobbying to block the Employee Free Choice Act. They're also saying some pretty strange things in the process, according to economist Dean Baker.
Recently, they have sought to promote the argument that unions lead to higher unemployment. To help push this case they have been circulating a study that examines differences in unionization rates and unemployment among Canadian provinces. This study purports to find that a 3 percentage point increase in unionization rates leads to a 1 percentage point increase in unemployment. Based on this study, the opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act argue that any resulting increase in unionization will cost millions of jobs.
This propaganda is actually being pushed by "something called the Alliance to Save Main Street Jobs" - an alliance that happens to include that bastion of "Main Street," the U.S. Chamber of Commerce."
Baker questions their reasoning:
Of course the immediate response might be to ask, if this study's findings are accurate, why Canada's unemployment rate isn't 7 percentage points higher than the U.S. rate? Canada's unionization rate is about 20 percentage points higher than in the U.S., yet its unemployment rate is somewhat lower.
He also goes on to point out that there's a large body of research on this topic, and the most recent research finds no link between unemployment and unionization rates.
