Kennedy Voice of Senate Reason on Health Care

Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) wrote an op-ed in the Boston Globe which was published in yesterday's paper, and today the talking heads have been doing their thing: speculating and making it sound like they have information no one else does.

Instead of looking at the spin, let's look the words from the lion's mouth and then look at what we here at the UFCW have said.

Kennedy outlines five major elements that are included in his health care plan:

* A choice in health insurance for every American, including a public health insurance option.
* Cost reduction.
* Emphasis on preventative care.
* Home-care of the elderly and those with disabilities.
* Investment in training doctors and nurses.

The choice of a new public health insurance plan is a guaranteed backup that will always be there to ensure quality, affordable health care coverage no matter what. We applaud Senator Kennedy on making this a priority in the legislation he is putting before the Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions, which the Senator chairs.

On cost prevention, the Senator stated:

"We'll go after fraud and abuse, cut red tape, and make sure that doctors and patients know of the latest, most effective therapies for their conditions."

Remember a few weeks ago when the health care establishment said it could cut $2 trillion off the cost of health care in 10 years? Well a few days later they took it back. Senator Kennedy's proposal might actually hold these groups accountable.

"The best way to treat a disease is to prevent it from ever striking. We'll promote early screening for diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and depression."

My grandmother, a font of New England wisdom much like the Senator, would give me the old "ounce of prevention" line when I didn't want to brush my teeth as a kid. There is a lot of truth to that.

One program focusing on prevention is the CDC's VERB campaign. VERB focused on getting "tweens" (what used to be call pre-teens) to be active to prevent childhood obesity and reduce risk to type-II diabetes, and by all measures has been successful.

These types of programs can reduce direct and indirect health care costs across the board.

Kennedy's proposal is also great for some of the things that is does not include.

There is no mention of a "trigger" option, which had been floated in some circles. The trigger idea was that there would only be a public option if certain specific criteria were met, completely ignoring the fact that our health care system is already in crisis.

Also, Senator Kennedy didn't mention anything about eliminitating the tax ememption of employer paid health care benefits, an idea that would do nothing to control the costs of health care while adding a huge burden to working Americans.

Congrats, NYC H&M Employees!

More that a thousand employees at hip clothing retailer H&M finally have a union contract! Workers at Manhattan H&M stores were organized by Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union Local 1102 and, as a result of the new contract, will have a 3% wage increase per year and scheduling protection, among other benefits.

The H&M organizing effort involved majority sign-up, where a majority of H&M employees signed union cards to gain recognition. Sometimes called "card check," majority sign-up is a provision of the Employee Free Choice Act which, if passed, would make it easier for more workers to get a union the way that the H&M workers did.

The majority sign-up model used to organize at H&M allowed workers to form a union more quickly than they would otherwise have been able to.

UFCW congratulates the members of RWDSU Local 1102 on their new contract!

How Much For a Worker's Life?

How much would you guess a worker's life is worth? Millions? Hundreds of thousands? Maybe you can't even contemplate a thing like measuring human life in terms of pure monetary value. Maybe, like the credit card commercials say, it's...priceless?

Or what about $7000?

If that last figure seems a little low to you, you'll no doubt be horrified to hear that that's the top rate. The maximum amount that OSHA is allowed to fine companies who've received citations subjecting their workers to preventable hazards that could result in death or serious physical harm.

This is the palty price WalMart has to pay after OSHA

cited Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for inadequate crowd management following the Nov. 28, 2008, death of an employee at its Valley Stream, N.Y., store. The worker died of asphyxiation after he was knocked to the ground and trampled by a crowd of about 2,000 shoppers who surged into the store for its annual "Blitz Friday" pre-holiday sales event.

This is what a worker's life is worth. Less than a fraction of 1 percent of those bonuses paid out to AIG executives.

Doesn't that reflect a problem with our labor laws? As Jason Lefkowitz at CTW Connect points out:

President Barack Obama has brought in a new team at the Department of Labor that is committed to ensuring that every worker has a safe workplace. But they can only do as much as they are empowered to do by the law. And the laws that govern worker protection on the job are shockingly toothless.

Lefkowitz goes on to make the same ask that I'll make here: Please tell Congress to pass the Protecting America’s Workers Act, which is currently before the House of Representatives. It's legislation that would put some teeth in our labor laws and strengthen many protections for employees at their workplaces--including upping the minimum fine for the type of citation WalMart received after their worker's trampling death.

It won't bring workers who've died on the job back to their families and friends. But it would at least give companies pause to think about the consequences of not adequately protecting workers from on-the-job hazards.

Making workers safer on the job? That really would be priceless.

Health reform: the "trigger" has already been pulled

Last week, I wrote about a how the state of the health insurance industry in this country has gotten so bad, Health Care for America Now has requested that the Justice Department conduct an investigation into the companies that dominate the health insurance markets in most states. Basically, a study came out that said if you want to buy health care on the free and open market you can a choice between…pretty much “Option A” or “Option A.” More than 94% of insurance markets in this country are highly concentrated and offer few options for consumers.

What response do we get from our senators? Despite overwhelming evidence that not only does the American public support the option of a public health insurance plan and that it would actually help fix the private insurance mess, some politicians (like Senator Ron Wyden) are backing away from offering the American people more choices through a solid public health insurance plan. Why?

Real reform is scary. Because what if, you know, it changes things?

The media is calling the compromise they have come up with a trigger proposal. What this means is that if certain conditions are met in a state, that will trigger the set up of a public health insurance plan in that state. I'm assuming the logic is that this way, if private insurance is doing ok in a state, then there isn't any need to rock the boat or go about making yourself unpopular with the insurance companies.

I've shopped the individual health insurance market before. When I graduated from college, I wasn't able to get a job right away that offered health benefits. As broke as I was, I kept having nightmares about getting hit by a bus and my parents selling the house to pay for medical bills. I tried to shop around for a plan I could afford, but which would protect me if something really bad happened. I was willing to go without basic care for a few years because, after all, I was young and healthy.

I comparison shopped as best I could, but at the end of the day, you don't really learn exactly what your insurance specifically covers until youve bought it and are juggling doctor visits and medical bills. Plus there really only seemed to be two companies I could chose from and the different kinds of plans those offered looked pretty much the same to me. All I could tell was that most of the plans seemed overpriced for what they offered, and all of the plans I looked at charged me more for being a woman-despite not covering reproductive or urinary care. Didn't make any sense, but then again, what were my options? In the end, I just went with what I could afford.

I would have loved a public health insurance option, even if it was just to have something I felt like I could trust to compare the other plans to. When there are no real options in front of you, you feel powerless. No one deserves to feel powerless when it comes to their health.

Even if political wonks want to pretend there are places in the US where private insurance is working, the "trigger" proposal still leaves us with an arbitrary set of standards that denies the option of a public health insurance plan to people in one state while those living in its neighboring state do not have access to a public plan because their private insurance is just a tiny bit less dysfunctional.

This gets even more problematic when we take a closer look at how insurance works within a state. For example, New Yorks statewide market is more competitive than in most states. Statewide, the top insurer (GHI) controls 26% of the market, but in Ithaca, the top insurer has 76% of the market and the top two insurers control 91% of the market.

Under the trigger plan, it is likely that those people in Ithaca would be told they didn't qualify for a public health insurance option. But even though New York has one of the more competitive markets, if you are an individual living in Ithaca, youre still stuck with what is available.

And what if you live in a state with a public option, then move to one that doesn't?

We don't need 50 different state plans. We need one, stable, federally-backed public health insurance plan that will ensure all Americans have access to quality, affordable care and which can be managed efficiently and effectively.

I spent well over 50% of my income on medical and premium expenses that first year out of college. I ended up being unable to afford the premiums because of medical bills for procedures that my insurance didnt cover but that I could not do without. I dropped my coverage entirely. I decided to go without tests to see if a tumor that developed was cancerous, because I was afraid if tests were positive, I could be locked out from future coverage due to a pre-existing condition. So I waited.

Our representatives in Washington might be scared to make real decisions, but we really need them to step up to the plate on this one. If they need us to hold their hands and remind them what real health reform looks like, then that is what we are going have to do. America needs a public health insurance option. We've waited long enough.

Call your representatives. Let them know you oppose any trigger style compromises and support the right of every American to have the option of a public health insurance plan.

Nothing At All 'Fine' About 'Fine Foods' Company

How would you like to make $8 an hour and have no health care benefits, but rub shoulders with the super-rich?

The Upper East Side in New York City, UES to Manhattanites, is one of the most expensive places to live in the country. $1,200 per square foot is about what it's going to cost someone to buy space in the neighborhood, and renting a one-bedroom apartment runs about $2,200 per month.

One zip code in the UES gives more money to political candidates than any other zip code in the nation. Average income in that area is about $176,000.

This is where Bravo's Real Housewives of New York City live.

You would think that an uber-gourmet grocery store that serves this neighborhood--the kind that charges an arm and a leg for special pepper spread from some place none of us have ever heard of--would be willing to pay their employees a decent wage.

Think again.

Agata and Valentina, the fine food grocery where foodie icon Rachael Ray got her start, fired Roberto De La Cruz in March because he had begun organizing to unionize the grocery. De La Cruz, who worked at Agata and Valentina for six years, knew that some employees only made $8 an hour and that many worked without health care benefits. So he contacted the UFCW, the grocery workers' union. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1500, to be exact.

De La Cruz said he believes he was let go for one reason: "I was called into the office and fired. They told me it was because I supported a union."

Hundreds of community supporters, concerned shoppers, and UFCW members are rallying this afternoon to call attention to the way Agata & Valentina unfairly treats their employees.

If you are in New York, please show up today at 3:30 on the corner of 1st Ave and E 79th St. for a rally to call on Agata and Valentina to rescind their immoral and unlawful termination of De La Cruz. The rally, 'Nothing 'Fine' About It," will help highlight the irresponsible behavior of this so-called "fine foods" company.

All workers should have the right to organize free from harassment and intimidation. But Agata and Valentina seems to think it's more important to have the best cheeses in the world than it is to treat their workers with dignity and respect. And there's nothing "fine" about that.

On Sotomayor

U.S. Court Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the SCOTUS is praiseworthy for many reasons. She's bright, she seems fair-minded, she's got lots of experience, not to mention a compelling personal story for women, Hispanics, and all who aspire to the American Dream.

Sotomayor was:

raised in a housing project in New York's South Bronx by Puerto Rican parents who came to the United States during World War II. Her father was a factory worker who had a third-grade education and spoke no English. He died when she was 9, a year after she was diagnosed with Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes.

Sotomayor said she was strongly influenced by her mother, who served in the Women's Army Corps and often worked two jobs to support Sotomayor and her brother, Juan.

"I have often said that I am all I am because of her, and I am only half the woman she is," Sotomayor said, recognizing her mother and other family members seated in the audience as the president announced her nomination.

And she just happens to be fair-minded when it comes to labor laws, too. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney on Sotomayor:

Sotomayor has consistently interpreted our labor laws in the manner in which they were intended. She has enforced the right to be free of all types of discrimination in the workplace, to be paid the correct wages and to receive health benefits to which employees are entitled. She has recognized that persecution for union activity can be a basis for granting asylum in
this country.

Congratulations to Sotomayor, and to Obama for a wise choice. For many reasons.

Health Care Battle Heats Up on Capitol Hill

The battle on health care is heating up between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. Republicans have proposed a health care plan with numerous flaws that will continue to hurt working America. Among other problems with their health care plan: they want employer provided benefits to be taxed as income to help fund the nation’s health care system.

Every 30 seconds someone goes bankrupt due to the high cost of health care. Taxing health care benefits this will only extend the current crisis.

Republicans also believe implementing a “trigger” proposal will help the health care crisis. Of course, a trigger proposal is not effective if the trigger never gets pulled. What this plan is really doing is not giving people the freedom to choose a health care plan that they feel best suits them and their needs and raising the cost of much needed health insurance.

This is not the correct approach to mending the broken health care system. It will only continue to drive more people away from affordable health insurance. Having a health care plan where no one is left out is what we truly need. People should have options when it comes to health care such as private insurance plans, keeping your current plan, or public health insurance that offers affordable coverage.

Help us fight on the right side of the health care debate. Join President Obama and Health Care for America Now in the fight for quality, affordable health care for all at Health Care for America Now!

New Study Shows Employers' Anti-UnionTactics Have Increased

A new study illustrates what workers have known for years--it's become harder to get a union than ever, thanks to an increase in opposition to unionization by employers.

The study, by Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, is titled “No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing." The study was

based on a random sample of 1,004 unionization elections from early 1999 to late 2003 and relied on a review of National Labor Relations Board cases and documents, as well as surveys of 562 lead union organizers.

A similar study done 12 years ago found that employers used 10 or more types of anti-union tactics in 26 percent of unionization drives. Bronfenbrenner's study shows that 10 or more antiunion tactics were used by employers in 49%, or almost half of all organizing efforts. In 12 years, companies have doubled their efforts to oppose unionization among their workers.

The report includes confirmation that there has been an increase in more coercive and retaliatory tactics, such as:

plant closing threats and actual plant closings, discharges, harassment and other discipline, surveillance, and alteration of benefits and conditions.

And it shows that even workers who have the determination and strength to fight through may not be guaranteed a contract, since:

Even for those who do win the election, 52% are still without a contract a year later, and 37% are still without a contract two years after an election.

For most workers who've tried to get a union at their workplace, the report simply confirms the bitter truth they've been aware of for a long time--and demonstrates the increased importance of passing the Employee Free Choice Act.

When Joanne Fowler, a Certified Nursing Assistant at Lake Village Health Care in Wilmot, Ark.,and her co-workers tried to organize their workplace, management threatened workers with layoffs and tried to bribe workers with raises if they would vote against the union. She said that:

under the Employee Free Choice Act, it will be the workers’ free choice to organize. You won’t have to worry about the company threatening you.

At a briefing today on Capitol Hill to unveil the study, California Rite Aid worker Angel Warner, who is trying to form a union and get a contract with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union spoke out about anti-union tactics and intimidation:

We wanted to form a union so we would be treated with dignity and could speak up without fear of losing our jobs. Now we finally got through the harassment to form a union and we still don't have a contract. It shouldn't be like this. If my coworkers and I want a union, we should have one.

Cure CVS Releases Report, Slams CVS Drugstores

Don't you hate it when you get to the counter at the drug store and the items on your receipt total more than the items on the shelves? If the Dymatapp Children's syrup is advertised at $3.25, it shouldnt ring up at $12.49, right?

If you are a bit confused by something like that, then you get a taste of what it feels like to be a CVS customer.

The Boston Globe is reporting on Change to Win's Cure CVS campaign, which held rallies in 9 states across the country today to protest CVS's pricing inaccuracies and the sale of expired goods.

Goods like children's medicine and baby formula.

Nice job.

Cure CVS has been taking a closer look at some of CVS's business practices. In the report they just released, CVS Still Selling Expired Goods and Violating Health Codes at Stores Across the Country: A warning to consumers and a call to action (click here to see the full report) they outline specifically the practice of selling items past their expiration date.

From the report:

• More than half of the CVS stores surveyed in the Metro Chicago are had expired products for sale including milk that was three weeks past its sell-by date.
• 69 percent of CVS stores surveyed in Metro Atlanta had some expired products on their shelves including CVS-brand medication more than two years past its sell-by date.
• Over 40% of CVS stores surveyed in the Houston Metro area stocked expired infant formula.

Cure CVS is hoping to build on the cross-country support it already has. Please take a minute to sign their petition.

Health care coalition asks Justice Department Antitrust Division for comprehensive investigation into health insurance market

A report today released by Health Care for America Now reveals shocking levels of concentration in the private health insurance market in most states, spurring the grassroots health care coalition to issue a request to the Justice Department to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the state of the private health insurance market.

According to the report, more than 94 percent of all insurance markets in the United States are “highly concentrated,” a term defined by the U.S. Justice Department as a market in which one company holds more than a 42 percent share.

Where one or two companies dominate, competition suffers. And in this case, the American people suffer, too. The report states:

Without competition among insurers, insurers have no reason to drive costs down, and without additional choices in the marketplace, consumers have no choice but to continue to pay inflated prices.

In an environment where they can pretty much set the prices and rules, insurance companies have done very well for themselves.

Profits at 10 of the country’s largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007 (from $2.4 billion to $12.9 billion). In 2007 alone, the chief executive officers at these companies collected combined total compensation of $118.6 million—an average of $11.9 million each. That is 468 times more than the $25,434 an average American worker made that year.

That’s right. 468 times more than the average worker, who has also witnessed health insurance premiums jump 120% from 1999-2007 while wages grew only 29%. If companies are doing so well, why do they keep hiking up our premiums?

“They are taking money out of the pockets of consumers and putting it into their own pocketbooks,” says David Balto, former Policy Director of the Federal Trade Commission and now a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, who co-drafted the letter to the Department of Justice.

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), blasted the current state of the private insurance market, but maintained all is not lost and that giving Americans the option of a public health insurance plan will help restore our broken system.

This is the starkest evidence yet that the private health care insurance market is in bad need of some healthy competition. A public health insurance option is critical to ensure the greatest amount of choice possible for consumers. We believe that it is fully possible to create a public health insurance plan that delivers all the benefits of increased competition without relying on unfair, built-in advantages. If a level playing field exists, then private insurers will have to compete based on quality of care and pricing, instead of just competing for the healthiest consumers.

Balto also emphasized that the report underscored the dire need for a public health insurance option to fix the current mess, stating “The public plan will restore the two elements necessary for a competitive market: choice and transparency. “

Today’s report comes just as conservative Republicans -- led in the Senate by Sens. Tom Coburn (Okla.) and Richard Burr (N.C.) and in the House by Reps. Devin Nunes (Calif.) and Paul Ryan (Wisc.) -- issue their own plan for health care reform under the name the “Patients' Choice Act.”

Problem is that their new “plan” hinges on the idea of preserving the right of the individual to buy what plan they want on the private insurance market. A choice that we just learned is basically imaginary.

Other than that, their plan is mostly the same thing we’ve heard from conservatives before-- tax credits that don’t even begin to cover the actual cost of paying for your own health insurance, taxing your health care benefits as a way of funding said credits, yadda yadda yadda. Wasn’t a good idea before. Still isn’t.

Sam Stein writes on the Huffington Post that critics are not only concerned that the plan does not deliver real reform, but may actually make our current crisis even worse and encourage employers to drop health benefits.

The Patients' Choice Act of 2009 effectively ends tax breaks for employers who provide health coverage to their workers, choosing instead to give a $5,710 tax cut to families and a $2,290 cut to individuals to help them pay for health insurance coverage. Critics insist that this system would end up costing both business and consumers more over the long term. And some objective analysts have agreed. After all, families are currently paying approximately $12,300 a year for health care today.

So, just to get this straight. We have a broken private insurance market and the best conservatives can come up with is encouraging employers to drop employer-sponsored plans and push even more people into the individual insurance market -- alone -- with a bunch of greedy monopolies? Really.

I wonder, can you FAIL Blog proposed legislation?

Now That's Sickening

When I used to work at a retail store, (I'll refrain from saying which one or what kind) I came to work when I was sick. Yep, coughing all over the customers, sneezing on their money, wiping all my germs all over the register and generally doing my best to spread colds and flu like they were going out of style.

Was I an evil villain from a cartoon series, working in cahoots with Captain Congestion and Lady Laryngitis to incapacitate the whole world for the sheer joy of it? Or an undercover agent paid by Big Pharma to boost sales? Not exactly. I had no paid sick days--so time away from work was money lost. And with bills to pay and no room in the budget to spare, a loss of money was not really a viable option.

And I was far from unusual. Millions of American workers are in the same boat: no paid sick days and no way to rest and recover from an illness, without taking a financial hit. As Ezra Klein says of companies today (in his new blog for The Washington Post):

Many don't offer paid sick days because they don't think doing so will make them money. That is to say, they make marginally more money by letting their workers fall ill. That may be a good decision for the employer. But it's not good for the worker. And it's an appalling state of affairs. Residents of the world's richest nation should be able to stay home when they have the flu.

And IS it a" good decision for the employer?" What if many of their employees fall ill? What if their customers start getting sick, and business drops once word gets out? What if the sick employee doesn't just have the flu--but the swine flu? What then?

I don't have to come to work as a human infection any more, thanks to the union I belong to and the paid sick days I get as a result. And many union members around the country are greatful for their sick days--as are their co-workers and, though they may not realize, the company's customers. But many other Americans don't have a union or anyone looking out for them--and they don't have the "luxury" of staying home when ill.

And articles like the one in the New York Times last week don't help. That article admonished workers for going in when sick, and the author--a doctor--offers that "if you show up to work sick these days, you are not going to earn anyone’s admiration."

Maybe not, but you'll earn a paycheck. And an awful lot of people can't get by without one. We need real solutions, not scolding. How about paid sick days for everyAmerican worker? It's the only solution that makes sense.

Comcast Doesn’t Pull HCAN’s Ads

You know your thinly-veiled front-group isn’t really getting much traction when you start to outright lie about throwing your weight around.

Last week Health Care for America Now ran this ad targeting disgraced Columbia/HCA CEO Rick Scott and his organization Conservatives for Patients’ Rights:



HCAN bought ad space for “Shady” from May 6 to May 13 so, according to their blog, they weren’t surprised when it stopped running after their purchase expired.

But according to Rick Scott, the ad came down because he wrote an angry letter to Comcast.

I'm sure we've all written angry letters to media service providers before to no effect, but Rick Scott believes he is special. In an email to CPR supporters Scott wrote:

“As you may know, the liberal group Health Care for America Now recently started running a mudslinging TV ad against me personally. After reviewing HCAN's ad, Comcast has determined that it is misleading and has been pulled off the air.”

In a statement, Comcast's Executive Director for Corporate Communications and Government Affairs Sena Fitzmaurice said:

“To clarify -- Comcast has not pulled any ads produced by Health Care for America Now off our systems. The media buy for the ad in question expired on May 13.”

This just goes to show the truth in the statement: “You can try to change the subject, but you can't lie to change the subject.”

Rick Scott said that.

And when he did he was talking about HCAN.

And he was lying.

Opps.

Fixing the Gender Gap in Health Care Costs

I am lucky enough to still be covered under my parents insurance as a full time college student. Out of curiosity I went online to check out insurance rates for men and women with the same criteria as me. Insurance rates for women were up to 141% higher then for men. Due to the high costs about 38% of all women opt to not purchase health insurance.

Upon continuing my search for health care rates I discovered it was cheaper for a 30 year old male smoker to buy health insurance then a 20 year old female non-smoker. To me it makes no sense how a younger, healthier female could possibly be charged more for insurance.

According to the US Department of Health & Human Services, a 22 year old woman can be charged up to 1.5 times the premium for a male peer in the individual insurance market. More than half the women surveyed by HHS reported delaying care because of cost.


This week we celebrate National Women's Health Week. Unfortunately there are many flaws with current women’s health care such as high cost for women. We need to focus on and prevent discrimination that women face when purchasing health care. Women should not be charged higher rates for insurance simply because they have a reproductive system.

In California, legislators are at least proposing to do something about this gender bias in health care, and both the house and senate are considering bills to ban charging people different rates based on gender

But more needs to be done to prevent this discrimination to women from being continued.

Go to http://www.healthcareforamericanow.org/ to join the fight for equity in health care.

Chamber of Horrors...eeeeek!!!!!! (w/Video)

Say two workers met on the street and just happened to discuss the Chamber of Commerce's totally intimidating new efforts to oppose the Employee Free Choice Act. We think that conversation might go a little like this...

Artists Support Employee Free Choice (w/video)

Broadway talent, TV stars, movie stars and other artists--forty seven of them--have just released a new video in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. People don't always realize that most artists are also union members, and that unions are the reason those working in showbiz can support a family and pay the bills.

Check out the great video and be sure to spread the word.

Biden Restates Support for Employee Free Choice

Just in case you were wondering what the White House thinking was on Free Choice as of late: they're still very much in support of it. AP reports that at an AFL-CIO event, Joe Biden strongly reiterated the administration's support for the bill and for unions:

Biden said it's time to "level the playing field" for unions by passing a bill that would make it easier for workers to organize.

"You've got to climb up a hill with so many roadblocks on the way to organize that it's just out of whack," Biden told a conference of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which has about 1.6 million members.

"If a union is what you want, then a union is what you should get," Biden said.

Biden also said that he and the President would not consider economic recovery efforts successful unless that growth creates "good, sustainable, livable jobs in the process:"

A key element, he said, is rebuilding the American labor movement, which has steadily declined since the 1950s.

"We will not consider it a success unless the middle class is growing, taking a piece of that productivity," Biden said.

Would You Wear a Dorky, Anti-Worker Wristband?

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't wear this dorky thing. I mean, we believe in capitalism--in fact, I'm sure most Americans do. However, as most of us are workers and are happy to go to work for a paycheck, we feel we don't really need to wear a daily shout out to capitalism around our wrists, you know? Especially since the captains of industry haven't exactly been doing a stellar job lately.

Oh, and also, we don't really want to fund the increasingly desperate opponents of Employee Free Choice who will do anything to get a few bucks for their anti-worker campaign. (Hint: scroll down to the very bottom of the page.)

Just sayin'.