Rhodes surprised some observers by saying he would support the city in shaving pension expenses, a key bone of contention. The ruling on pensions has significant implications for others cities elsewhere. In California, for example, cities such as San Bernardino could seize the precedent, the Sacramento Bee suggested. "But one... |
On November 25, Fox News put it best: “Obamacare Policies Slam Smokers,” , noting that “smokers are the only group with a pre-existing condition that Obamacare penalizes.” THCB itself has headlined: Smokers Face Tough New Rules under Obamacare.
And these headlines are absolutely accurate — meaning that, with the possible exception of the e-cigarette, ACA is the best thing that has happened to employed smokers ever.
Here is how we arrive at this conclusion. The data is mixed on whether smokers incur much higher healthcare costs or just slightly higher healthcare costs during their working ages than non-smokers do. None of the data shows that their costs are lower, but let’s say there is no impact on health spending.
Nonetheless, the following is incontrovertible: smokers take smoking breaks.Remarkably, there are no laws specifically governing smoking breaks, and like most other quantifiable human resources issues, no one has quantified them. But we all observe these breaks, and about a fifth of us participate in them. They reduce productivity. By definition, if you are outside smoking, you are not inside... |
’Tis the season to be jolly — or, at any rate, to spend a lot of time in shopping malls. It is also, traditionally, a time to reflect on the plight of those less fortunate than oneself — for example, the person on the other side of that cash register.
The last few decades have been tough for many American workers, but especially hard on those employed in retail trade — a category that includes both the sales clerks at your local Walmart and the staff at your local McDonald’s. Despite the lingering effects of the financial crisis, America is a much richer country than it was 40 years ago. But the inflation-adjusted wages of nonsupervisory workers in retail trade — who weren’t particularly well paid to begin with — have fallen almost 30 percent since 1973.
So can anything be done to help these workers, many of whom depend on food stamps — if they can get them — to feed their families, and who depend on Medicaid — again, if they can get it — to provide essential health care? Yes. We can preserve and expand food stamps, not slash the program the way Republicans want. We can make health reform work, despite right-wing efforts to undermine the program.
And we can raise the minimum wage.
First, a few facts. Although the national minimum wage was raised a few years ago, it’s still very low by historical standards, having consistently lagged behind both inflation and average wage levels. Who gets...
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Seeking to increase pressure on McDonald’s, Wendy’s and other fast-food restaurants, organizers of a movement demanding a $15-an-hour wage for fast-food workers say they will sponsor one-day strikes in 100 cities on Thursday and protest activities in 100 additional cities.
As the movement struggles to find pressure points in its quest for substantially higher wages for workers, organizers said strikes were planned for the first time in cities like Charleston, S.C.; Providence, R.I.; and Pittsburgh.
The protests have expanded greatly since November 2012, when 200 fast-food workers engaged in a one-day strike at more than 20 restaurants in New York City, the first such walkout in the history of the nation’s fast-food industry.
“There’s been pretty huge growth in one year,” said Kendall Fells, one of the movement’s main organizers. “People understand that a one-day strike is not going to get them there. They understand that this needs to continue to grow.”
The movement, which includes the groups Fast Food Forward and Fight for 15, is part of a growing union-backed effort by low-paid workers — including many Walmart workers and workers for federal contractors — that seeks to focus attention on what the groups say are inadequate wages.
The fast-food effort is backed by the Service Employees International Union and is also demanding that restaurants allow workers to unionize without the threat of...
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Speaking at the White House on June 25, Vice President Joe Biden claimed that a higher federal minimum wage was practical and long overdue. "Just pay me [for] minimum wage what you paid folks in 1968," Mr. Biden said, echoing the argument numerous labor unions, left-wing think tanks and activist groups have made.
The logic goes something like this: Had the minimum wage tracked inflation since 1968, it would today be over $10 an hour, so Congress should seek to bring it up to at least that amount. There are two problems with this logic. First, it is inconsistent with other Labor Department inflation data. And second, it presumes that entry-level employees can't get a raise unless the government gives them one. The federal minimum wage was first set in 1938 at 25 cents an hour. Had it tracked the cost of living since, it would today be $4.07 an hour, based on Labor Department data and the Bureau of Labor Statistics' inflation calculator. This is the only logically consistent "historic" value of the minimum wage, and it's 44% less than the current amount of $7.25. Advocates of a higher minimum wage arbitrarily selected 1968 as the historical reference point. It's no wonder: That's when federal minimum wage hit its inflation-adjusted high point. How about picking other arbitrary years to track the minimum wage and inflation? If you used 1948 instead of 1968, the minimum wage's inflation-adjusted value would only be $3.81 an hour. If you chose 1988, the adjusted minimum wage would... |
| Medical delivery costs continue to soar and workers' compensation claims costs are running out of ontrol. Cost for emergency medicare are not usually regulated by workers' compensation prorams, eve where balance cillig is removed from the equation. Todays post is shared from the NYTimes.org With blood oozing from deep lacerations, the two patients arrived at California Pacific Medical Center’s tidy emergency room. Deepika Singh, 26, had gashed her knee at a backyard barbecue. Orla Roche, a rambunctious toddler on vacation with her family, had tumbled from a couch, splitting open her forehead on a table.  On a quiet Saturday in May, nurses in blue scrubs quickly ushered the two patients into treatment rooms. The wounds were cleaned, numbed and mended in under an hour. “It was great — they had good DVDs, the staff couldn’t have been nicer,” said Emer Duffy, Orla’s mother. Then the bills arrived. Ms. Singh’s three stitches cost $2,229.11. Orla’s forehead was sealed with a dab of skin glue for $1,696. “When I first saw the charge, I said, ‘What could possibly have cost that much?’ ” recalled Ms. Singh. “They billed for everything, every pill.” In a medical system notorious for opaque finances and inflated bills, nothing is more convoluted than hospital pricing, economists say. Hospital charges represent about a third of the $2.7 trillion annual United States health care... |
| The Washington Post: Consumer Tips For Healthcare.gov Show Administration's Cautious Optimism The Obama administration on Sunday reported vast improvement with the HealthCare.gov health-insurance portal that opened with extensive glitches in October, while acknowledging that the site still needs more work. One sign of ongoing problems came in the form of a blog entry and infographic that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius published on Huffington Post. Both items provide tips for consumers visiting the site, most notably by encouraging them to use it during off-peak hours — mornings, nights and weekends (Hicks, 12/2). Kaiser Health News: With Three Weeks Left, Consumers Fear They May End Up Without Health Coverage On New Year’s Day For people in the states with well-functioning insurance websites, such as California, New York and Kentucky, this appears to leave plenty of time. But making the deadline could be dicier for people in Arizona and the 35 other states where the federal website healthcare.gov is the path to coverage, as well as Oregon and Hawaii, which have struggled to get their sites functioning. On Sunday, the government reported progress in improving healthcare.gov, saying the site now allows more than 800,000 visits a day with the rate of timeouts or crashes reduced to below 1 percent. Officials said repairs continue (Rau, 12/2). And for employers - The Washington Post: New... |
Finding out how much an X-ray costs sounds like a simple question. But it is actually very difficult to get an answer. In Massachusetts, a new state law requires insurers to be able to tell members how much a test, treatment or surgery will cost.
But while the new law pulls back the curtain on prices of health procedures to some degree, the burden is still on the patient to ask for information. And, as a recent test drive of the new law showed, there are quite a few hoops for patients to jump through.  The recorded menu option doesn't mention health care prices, so I press zero, for all other inquiries. Eventually, I connect with Jamie D. (customer service reps at Blue Cross don’t give their last names). I explain that I'd like to compare the price of lower back X-rays at a few facilities. She starts in with the questions: What's the doctor's name? What's the facility where I want to have the X-ray? I have the doctor's name and facility, but I’m stuck on the next question. Blue Cross wants the procedure codes for each X-ray I may need, my doctor's national ID number and the name, address and ID number for my hospital or lab, so it can consolidate all the charges into one estimate. Jamie directs me to a form online. I call my doctor and get the info. If I... |
Violence in the workplace, despite OSHA warnings, occurred as "Black Friday" store sales began. Today's post is shared from the washingtonpost.com
Shoppers look at televisions at a Best Buy store late in the evening on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, Nov. 28, 2013, in Dunwoody, Ga. Instead of waiting for Black Friday, which is typically the year's biggest shopping day, more than a dozen major retailers opened on Thanksgiving this year. (AP Photo/David Tulis)
The incident began shortly past 10 p.m. on Thursday, when security officers with one Kohl's department store in Romeoville, outside Chicago, called police to report two men who were suspected of shoplifting. Police arrived on scene and tried to apprehend the men in the parking lot, Fox News reported. But the suspects ran to their car and tried to drive off — and one officer followed on foot, grabbing hold of the vehicle. Fox News reported that the officer and the driver were recovering in a nearby hospital on Friday. Meanwhile, both of those suspected shoplifters — as well as a third suspect who was apprehended in the store — were arrested.The driver continued to accelerate, dragging the officer, Fox News reported. Police then fired into the vehicle’s... |
The FCWA estimates that almost 8 million workers throughout the food system would benefit from a national minimum wage boost, and that 29 million workers over all industries would get a raise. In a Thanksgiving-themed "menu" of ways to help improve the lives of food workers, the FCWA asks foodies to sign its petition to raise the wage to $10.10, to spread the word via social media, and to write their members of Congress to urge passage of the raise.
Food workers are also mobilizing to win on three more fronts: they want nationally guaranteed paid sick days, so that they are not forced to show up to work while sick, thus contributing to the spread of infectious disease. They are demanding the right to safe workplaces: Many agricultural employers could easily provide better protections from harmful pesticides for harvest workers. Finally, the workers are demanding their right to a voice on the job, protesting against the abuse and intimidation that frequently occur in the restaurant industry when workers try to unionize. To push for these rights, the FCWA's member groups are reaching out to consumers with messages about specific bad-actor employers in each of these areas. These employers include Wal-Mart, which has allegedly stolen wages from workers and routinely quashed unionization drives at its stores; and the Darden restaurant group, which owns Red Lobster, Olive Garden and other family-style chains. Workers at Darden establishments are still denied any paid... |
