Team KateTeam Kate is back for its 12^th year.  A team of cyclists led by IBEW Local 2222's Steve Smith will ride to raise awareness of Team Kate’s efforts to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Massachusetts.  In years past Team Kate has biked thousands of miles all over the east coast, from Florida to Boston.  This years ride will take them through New England to help raise funds for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. 

The bike ride is in honor of Kate Smith of Methuen.  Kate had her wish to go on a family trip to Disney World fulfilled by the Make-A-Wish Foundation in May 1995 when she was battling Hodgkin’s disease.  Steve Smith of Methuen, Uncle of Kate Smith helps to organize the “Team Kate” bike ride to benefit the Foundation as a way to give back to the organization, which helped his niece and her family through a difficult time.  This event has proven to have a great track record raising over $200,000 for the Foundation.  We expect it will be another outstanding year for 2009!

The Make-A-Wish Foundation of Massachusetts has a simple mission -- to grant the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength, and joy. Your continued support will help us reach our goal of granting over 340 wishes this year.

Team Kate is in need of a place to sleep for one night.  If you know of a place in the Lake Winnipesaukee, NH area for Friday, July 17, 2009 it will be greatly appreciated.  Please contact Steve Smith @ 978-302-3690 for more info.  Thank You & Good Luck Team Kate!

Every Fourth of July is an opportunity to celebrate the freedom we have, while remembering the freedoms for which we are still fighting. Our key fight now is about whether the workplace is a place of dignity—or of absolute employer power.

It’s a fight over the basic question of whether workers’ rights at work, health care and pensions are fundamental to having a decent life—or luxuries that only CEOs and investment bankers get to enjoy.

This is why we are fighting for the Employee Free Choice Act.

We are fighting for the people who do the real work of our society—who build our cities, teach our children and run into burning buildings when everyone else runs out. The people who make power plants work, tend the mentally ill and collect garbage. The people who staff hospitals, fly planes, drive buses, build ships, harvest produce and perform thousands of other critical jobs.

These people are why we are fighting for the Employee Free Choice Act.

We can only win this fight together, so join me on this Independence Day weekend and send a message to your representatives in Washington: Pass the Employee Free Choice Act because every worker deserves the freedom to join a union and bargain for a better life.

Write your representative and senators today.

America’s workers need all of us to keep fighting for our freedom.
 

HANG TOUGH!

Single-payer is a term used to describe a type of financing system. It refers to one entity acting as administrator, or “payer.” In the case of healthcare, a single-payer system would be setup such that one entity—a government run organization—would collect all healthcare fees, and pay out all healthcare costs.

In the current US system, there are literally tens of thousands of different healthcare organizations—HMOs, billing agencies, etc. By having so many different payers of healthcare fees, there is an enormous amount of administrative waste generated in the system. (Just imagine how complex billing must be in a doctor’s office, when each insurance company requires a different form to be completed, has a different billing system, different billing contacts and phone numbers—it’s very confusing.)

In a single-payer system, all hospitals, doctors, and other healthcare providers would bill one entity for their services. This alone reduces administrative waste greatly, and saves money, which can be used to provide care and insurance to those who currently don’t have it.

For more information please click here.

The AFL-CIO today applauded rules proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to give shareholders better information about the potential conflicts of interest of compensation consultants who help set pay for senior corporate executives. 

A December 2007 congressional report found that CEOs of companies that use compensation consultants who have potential conflicts, such as providing management with other services, received considerably higher pay than CEOs of companies that used independent compensation consultants.

In a statement, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said “better disclosure is needed to bring these conflicts of interest out of the shadows.”

Outsized compensation packages for senior executives hurt shareholders, including pension plans investing the retirement savings of America’s working families.  Labor union members participate in pension plans with more than $4 trillion in assets.  Union-sponsored pension plans hold about $450 billion in assets.  Excessive pay packages for top executives are a giveaway of our members’ money. 

The proposed rules, developed under the leadership of SEC Chairwoman Mary Shapiro,  will be open for comment for as long as 60 days.

"I understand your job's on the line, and I understand that my job's on the line."  That's what Senator Arlen Specter said at a rally last week when workers told him his flip-flop on the Employee Free Choice Act could cost him their votes.  Workers across the country are telling Specter not to sell out America's middle class, and Specter's words show it's working – but his words are empty until he changes his position.

For years, Senator Specter was a strong supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act.  In 2005, he was a co-sponsor of the bill.  In 2007, he was one of the few Republicans to vote in favor of it.

But this year he gave in to pressure from corporate lobbyists desperate to maintain the status quo.  He even said he'd actively block the bill from coming to a vote.

Specter now says he is "committed to finding an answer" on making it easier to organize unions.  But by working against the Employee Free Choice Act, he's protecting a system that allows employers to intimidate, harass, and even fire workers (in 34% of cases!) when they try to form a union.

For more info please visit http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/.