Big Problems In ObamaCareLand

Everyone is aware of the problems with the roll out of ObamaCare, the ACA (Affordable Care Act) and how the Federal website just didn't work right and all.

Everyone can be happy now because the website works well.  We tried it today and it was a snap.

What everyone seems not to recognise is that the Federal site only was available to cover the people in those States that refused to comply with the ACA and set up their own exchanges.
So all the problems were in GOP governed states.  The states that set up their own exchanges had success from day one, with a few minor politically motivated obstructionist burps.

I am a proponent of single-payer health care aka Medicare For All, but we don't have that.

What we do have is a plan that pretends to provide for the poor specifically - those who could not afford or otherwise qualify for health insurance.

The ACA however has it's "plans for the poor" designed by rich idiots I guess.

There is no way a poor person can afford the premiums on even their most basic plan, much less the co-pays and $10,000 per year deductible.

This article in the Detroit Free Press explores this a little further.

 

Affordable Care Act won't solve all our health care problem

 

Part of the HealthCare.gov website is photographed in Washington on Nov. 29, 2013. / Associated Press

 

    
By Mary Ellen Howard
December 14, 2013
Detroit Free Press guest writer

 Many people in the community — even those close to our clinic — are asking what will be the effect of the Affordable Care Act on the Cabrini Clinic and other providers of charitable care around the state. Some wonder whether we will continue to be needed, and whether they should still support us.

There are a lot of myths out there about health care reform. But here are some facts. In 2014, the ACA will offer two new opportunities for insurance coverage:
■ One is to purchase insurance through the exchange. Small businesses and anyone whose income is below 400% of the federal poverty level may receive a tax subsidy to help them buy coverage. However, most of our patients at the Cabrini Clinic are too poor to take advantage of this option.
■ The second is Medicaid expansion, and that is more likely to affect the uninsured people served by free clinics. Up until now, many have been excluded from Medicaid, not because they have too much income, but because they are childless adults. Under the ACA, childless adults become eligible for Medicaid. In Michigan, this take effect in April.
Michigan is one of the 25 states where the legislature voted for Medicaid expansion, albeit reluctantly. Statewide, it is estimated that more than 400,000 of Michigan’s 1.3 million uninsured will people become eligible for Medicaid.
I was hopeful that about 80% of the uninsured patients we see at Cabrini Clinic would be among them. However, the Michigan Legislature asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for waivers on the program that it is calling Healthy Michigan. Federal approval is required because the Michigan plan varies from the Medicaid expansion outlined in the Affordable Care Act.
For the uninsured poor, these waivers will pose barriers. They require enrollees in Healthy Michigan to establish a health savings account from which the state will deduct an income-based monthly premium for those earning between 100 and 133% of the federal poverty level.
The premiums can be reduced through healthy behaviors. The plan also requires co-pays for basic services. These premiums and co-pays will be a barrier to poor people who need care. I wonder how many will actually sign up. I am beginning to think that my 80% projection was wildly optimistic.
To make matters worse, Michigan plans to seek a second waiver in the future, imposing a soft cap on coverage at 48-months, at which point recipients would be cut off from Medicaid for life.
Michigan still has not received a ruling from the federal government on the waivers, so we are stuck with a lot of unanswered questions.
What if the feds say “no” to Michigan’s requested waivers? Do we become the 26th state to refuse the opportunity to expand Medicaid? Enrollment is to begin in April. Now is when we should be educating the 1.3 million uninsured Michiganders regarding Medicaid expansion — what is coming, what it will mean, who is eligible, what do I have to do to enroll and what will it cost? Instead, we have no answers.
There are many unknowns, but the future of free clinics for the uninsured is not one of them. In fact, it appears that we are needed more than ever.

Mary Ellen Howard, RSM, is executive director of St. Frances Cabrini Clinic of Most Holy Trinity Church in Detroit.

Cash for Kids...Hmm....Isn't There Another Word For That?

From Democracy Now

If you'd rather watch the video, click this link.

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/23/cash_for_kids_firms_behind_juvenile

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

"Cash for Kids": Firms Behind Juvenile Prison Bribes Reach $2.5 Million Settlement in Civil Suit

We turn to the latest news in the so-called "kids-for-cash" scandal in Pennsylvania, in which judges took money in exchange for sending juvenile offenders to for-profit youth jails. In 2011, former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella was convicted of accepting bribes for putting juveniles into detention centers operated by the companies PA Child Care and a sister company, Western Pennsylvania Child Care. Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, are said to have received $2.6 million for their efforts. Now the private juvenile-detention companies at the heart of the kids-for-cash scandal in Pennsylvania have settled a civil lawsuit for $2.5 million. The state has also passed much-needed reforms aimed at improving its juvenile justice system and ensuring such abuses are not repeated. We are joined in Philadelphia by Marsha Levick, chief counsel of the Juvenile Law Center, which helped expose the corrupt judges and represented the families’ class action suit.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to the latest news on the so-called "kids for cash" scandal in Pennsylvania, in which judges took money in exchange for sending thousands of juvenile offenders to for-profit youth jails. In 2011, former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella was convicted of accepting bribes for putting juveniles into detention centers operated by the companies PA Child Care and a sister company, Western Pennsylvania Child Care. Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, are said to have received $2.6 million for their efforts.
Some of the young people sentenced under their watch were jailed over the objections of their probation officers. In 2009, Democracy Now! spoke with one of the young people who spent almost a year in one of the juvenile detention centers after being sentenced by Judge Ciavarella as a first-time offender. This is Jamie Quinn.

JAMIE QUINN: I was about 14 years old, and I got into an argument with one of my friends. And all that happened was just a basic fight. She slapped me in the face, and I did the same thing back. There was no marks, no witnesses, nothing. It was just her word against my word. My only charges were simple assault and harassment. And I didn’t even know that charges were pressed against me until I had to go down to the intake and probation and fill out a whole bunch of paperwork.

AMY GOODMAN: I asked Jamie Quinn in 2009 about the action Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella took in her case after taking bribes to do so. This was her response.

JAMIE QUINN: It just makes me really question other authority figures and people that we’re supposed to look up to and trust. I mean, Ciavarella has been a judge for a long time, from what I know, and a well-respected one, is what I thought. And obviously not. It just really makes me question and not trust other people. I mean, if someone like Judge Ciavarella could do this, then it makes me believe that anyone can betray the law and—I don’t know.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, now the private juvenile detention companies at the heart of the kids-for-cash scandal in Pennsylvania have settled a civil lawsuit for $2.5 million. The state has also passed much-needed reforms aimed at improving its juvenile justice system and ensuring that such abuses aren’t repeated.

For more, let’s go to Philadelphia to Marsha Levick, chief counsel of the Juvenile Law Center, which helped expose the corrupt judges and represented the families’ class action suit.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Marsha. Just lay out this latest settlement, which follows an earlier one a few years ago, and just the horror of this. These two judges who were found guilty of bribing are in prison now?

MARSHA LEVICK: The two judges are in prison. The latest settlement is a fairly straightforward settlement, as you described it: $2.5 million that will provide further compensation to the juveniles. I really think that this is an opportunity, obviously, to close another chapter on what happened in Luzerne County.

And I would add, I think, really listening to the story leading up to this about the private for-profit centers elsewhere, it’s really important, I think, for us as a country, I think, for your listeners, to know that while we can talk about what happens in private centers, some of which, frankly, are not-for-profit, the same kinds of abuses can occur in state-run facilities, as well.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: What do you see, Marsha Levick, as the wider implications of the settlement that was reached?

MARSHA LEVICK: I think that the wider implications are for us to continue to shine a spotlight on how we, as a country, treat children who are convicted of crimes. We treat them harshly. We—I think that this notion of whether or not private centers are providing the same services as public centers, we need to ask ourselves: What kind of services do we want to be providing for children?

In Pennsylvania, I think that by exposing what happened with the judges scandal, we’ve also had an opportunity to achieve great reforms. We have really changed statutory policies in Pennsylvania with respect to children’s right to counsel, with their ability to obtain appointed counsel on their own, presuming that they in fact don’t have financial resources to do that. We have eliminated, for the most part, shackling in Pennsylvania courtrooms. We have provided and required that judges give a statement of reasons. So when judges in Pennsylvania commit children to public or private-run centers, they need to have an explanation for why they’re doing that. And I think the kinds of stories that we’re hearing about what might be happening in Florida or California, for example, we don’t have the same kinds of protections. We don’t have the same kind of transparency in place.

AMY GOODMAN: In 2011, Sandy Fonzo confronted former Judge Ciavarella outside the courtroom after his sentencing. Fonzo’s son, Edward Kenzakoski, was sentenced by Ciavarella to a youth jail and then a four-month boot camp. Edward committed suicide in June of 2010. Confronting Ciavarella, Sandy Fonzo blamed the judge for her son’s death.

SANDY FONZO: My kid’s not here! He’s dead, because of him! He ruined my [bleep] life! I’d like him to go to hell and rot there forever!

SECURITY GUARD: Ma’am, come on.

SANDY FONZO: No! You know what he told everybody in court? They need to be held accountable for their actions. You need to be! Do you remember me? Do you remember me? Do you remember my son? An all-star wrestler? He’s gone! He shot himself in the heart! You scumbag!

AMY GOODMAN: That was Sandy Fonzo, whose son committed suicide after being put away by Judge Mark Ciavarella. She was yelling at him right outside the courtroom after he was convicted. Marsha Levick, we just have a minute. Do you feel that justice has been done in this case?

MARSHA LEVICK: Oh, I think we’re still in process. There are a couple of defendants whom we are still litigating against. I think that we have achieved remarkable progress. I think that the settlements, I think that the convictions of the two judges and their current incarceration are all putting pieces of the puzzle together. But I think—again, I think as the story leading up to our conversation this morning illustrates, there’s much more to be done across the country. This is a national story. It’s still a national problem. And I think that these conversations, hopefully, are wake-up calls about the kinds of reforms that we need to continue to be thinking about for our kids.

AMY GOODMAN: What’s happened to those prisons for kids in Pennsylvania, the ones that were involved with bribing the judges who are now in jail?

MARSHA LEVICK: They continue to operate. And they—the litigation was not about conditions within these facilities. They continue to bribe—to provide services. This was really about—really, primarily, the action of the judges, their behavior in the courtroom, and how they were so willing to remove children from their homes with really very little due process and very little regard for their rights or interests.

AMY GOODMAN: Marsha Levick, we want to thank you very much for being with us, co-founder, chief counsel of the Juvenile Law Center based in Philadelphia. The Juvenile Law Center helped expose the corrupt judges, is now involved in the families’ class action suit.

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Private Prison Blues - Corruption Loses CCA 4 Lucrative Contracts

06/20/2013

Corrections Corporation of America Loses Four Prison Contracts This Month

By Carl Takei, ACLU National Prison Project at 12:19pm

On Wednesday, news broke that Idaho is dumping the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and searching for a new company to run the state's biggest prison. The prison is so violent that prisoners call it the "Gladiator School," and it has been the subject of both an ACLU lawsuit and an Idaho State Police investigation. And earlier this year, CCA admitted that its employees had falsified nearly 4,800 hours of staffing records at the prison over a seven-month period, billing the state for security posts that they actually left unfilled.
Idaho's decision to end the Gladiator School contract with CCA will make it the fourth termination of a CCA prison contract that the company has announced this month.
The week before the Gladiator School announcement, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice announced that it would be closing down two CCA prisons for budgetary reasons. (One of the two prisons, the Dawson State Jail, was the site of multiple high-profile prisoner deaths, including a baby girl who was allegedly born into a prison toilet after staff ignored her mother's requests for medical assistance.)
The same week, CCA announced that the Mississippi Department of Corrections decided not to renew CCA's contract to run the state's Wilkinson County Correctional Facility. Earlier this year, a prisoner was stabbed to death during a prison riot at Wilkinson – which was the second riot in twelve months at Wilkinson and the third uprising at a CCA prison in Mississippi during the same time period.
The grisly records of these CCA prisons exemplify why handing control of prisons over to for-profit companies is a recipe for abuse, neglect, and misconduct. A study conducted by the Idaho Department of Corrections in 2008 found that there were four times more prisoner-on-prisoner assaults at ICC than at Idaho's other seven prisons combined. As detailed in the ACLU's 2011 report, Banking on Bondage, several studies suggest that prisoners in for-profit prisons face greater threats to their safety than those in publicly-run prisons – a possible reflection of the higher staff turnover in private prisons, which can result in inexperienced guards walking the tiers. Additionally, numerous religious groups – including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Presbyterian Church USA, and the United Methodist Church – have condemned the perverse incentives involved in for-profit incarceration, often emphasizing the inherent conflict between the goal of rehabilitation and the company's profit motive.
One worrisome aspect of the Idaho and Mississippi contract terminations, however, is that these prisons aren't actually being returned to state hands. In Idaho, Board of Corrections Chairperson Robin Sandy said that the state won't be allowed to take over the Gladiator School because that would amount to "expanding" state government. And in Mississippi, the state has awarded the new Wilkinson County contract to MTC – the same company that runs East Mississippi Correctional Facility (the subject of a new prison conditions lawsuit filed just last month by the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center) and the Walnut Grove Correctional Facility (which was recently found to have the highest inmate assault rate of any prison in Mississippi).
Rather than repeatedly handing off authority to a revolving door of contractors, states need to both take responsibility for their own prisons and reduce the number of people entering the criminal justice system in the first place. Only then can they unshackle themselves from the false promise of for-profit imprisonment.

Ayn Rand Had No Idea What Could Happen!

During the 2013 Election Cycle a favorite author and philosopher of the Far Right became famous all over again and it seemed that half the country was spouting "Ayn Rand" as the perfect and desirable example of  culture-think.  This extends to both the worship of, and blank check to... wealthy industrialists (or just rich capitalists in general) and overwhelming disdain for all the rest.

How aristocratic to be dismayed and disgusted by the filthy masses - they are like a plague of rats and roaches!

It seems to me that too many of Rand's fans see themselves kings and queens already...all too anxious to command..."OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!"...

While these titans of industry are understandably occupied by the full time job of counting their coin, how could anyone expect them to see the damage their greed (er...I mean Greatness!) has had to all those who live downstream!

As the ability to consider consequences is accepted as the defining achievement of "adulthood", this absolute ignorance or disregard of consequences - as critical as destroying the economy...destroying the environment...murdering millions in market-driven wars...enslaving more millions in labor camp/free trade zones...leaving the workers replaced by foreign slave-labor - homeless and starving...even ultimately causing mass extinction...all to make obscene and unjustifiable amounts of money  - really shows us that those people are not capable of rational thinking and should be constrained and/or contained...but...not...catered to.

Published on Monday, May 13, 2013 by Common Dreams

Atlas Shrugged Off Taxes

by Paul Buchheit

Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged" fantasizes a world in which anti-government citizens reject taxes and regulations, and "stop the motor" by withdrawing themselves from the system of production. In a perverse twist on the writer's theme the prediction is coming true. But instead of productive people rejecting taxes, rejected taxes are shutting down productive people.

Perhaps Ayn Rand never anticipated the impact of unregulated greed on a productive middle class. Perhaps she never understood the fairness of tax money for public research and infrastructure and security, all of which have contributed to the success of big business. She must have known about the inequality of the pre-Depression years. But she couldn't have foreseen the concurrent rise in technology and globalization that allowed inequality to surge again, more quickly, in a manner that threatens to put the greediest offenders out of our reach.

Ayn Rand's philosophy suggests that average working people are 'takers.' In reality, those in the best position to make money take all they can get, with no scruples about their working class victims, because taking, in the minds of the rich, serves as a model for success. The strategy involves tax avoidance, in numerous forms.

Corporations Stopped Paying

In the past twenty years, corporate profits have quadrupled while the corporate tax percent has dropped by half. The payroll tax, paid by workers, has doubled.

In effect, corporations have decided to let middle-class workers pay for national investments that have largely benefited businesses over the years. The greater part of basic research, especially for technology and health care, has been conducted with government money. Even today 60% of university research is government-supported. Corporations use highways and shipping lanes and airports to ship their products, the FAA and TSA and Coast Guard and Department of Transportation to safeguard them, a nationwide energy grid to power their factories, and communications towers and satellites to conduct online business.
In effect, corporations have decided to let middle-class workers pay for national investments that have largely benefited businesses over the years.

Yet as corporate profits surge and taxes plummet, our infrastructure is deteriorating. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that $3.63 trillion is needed over the next seven years to make the necessary repairs.

Turning Taxes Into Thin Air

Corporations have used numerous and creative means to avoid their tax responsibilities. They have about a year's worth of profits stashed untaxed overseas. According to the Wall Street Journal, about 60% of their cash is offshore. Yet these corporate 'persons' enjoy a foreign earned income exclusion that real U.S. persons don't get.

Corporate tax haven ploys are legendary, with almost 19,000 companies claiming home office space in one building in the low-tax Cayman Islands. But they don't want to give up their U.S. benefits. Tech companies in 19 tax haven jurisdictions received $18.7 billion in 2011 federal contracts. A lot of smaller companies are legally exempt from taxes. As of 2008, according to IRS data, fully 69% of U.S. corporations were organized as nontaxable businesses.

There's much more. Companies call their CEO bonuses "performance pay" to get a lower rate. Private equity firms call fees "capital gains" to get a lower rate. Fast food companies call their lunch menus "intellectual property" to get a lower rate.

Prisons and casinos have stooped to the level of calling themselves "real estate investment trusts" (REITs) to gain tax exemptions. Stooping lower yet, Disney and others have added cows and sheep to their greenspace to get a farmland exemption.

The Richest Individuals Stopped Paying

The IRS estimated that 17 percent of taxes owed were not paid in 2006, leaving an underpayment of $450 billion. The revenue loss from tax havens approaches $450 billion. Subsidies from special deductions, exemptions, exclusions, credits, capital gains, and loopholes are estimated at over $1 trillion. Expenditures overwhelmingly benefit the richest taxpayers.

In keeping with Ayn Rand's assurance that "Money is the barometer of a society's virtue," the super-rich are relentless in their quest to make more money by eliminating taxes. Instead of calling their income 'income,' they call it "carried interest" or "performance-based earnings" or "deferred pay." And when they cash in their stock options, they might look up last year's lowest price, write that in as a purchase date, cash in the concocted profits, and take advantage of the lower capital gains tax rate.

So Who Has To Pay?

Middle-class families. The $2 trillion in tax losses from underpayments, expenditures, and tax havens costs every middle-class family about $20,000 in community benefits, including health care and education and food and housing.

Schoolkids, too. A study of 265 large companies by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) determined that about $14 billion per year in state income taxes was unpaid over three years. That's approximately equal to the loss of 2012-13 education funding due to budget cuts.

And the lowest-income taxpayers make up the difference, based on new data that shows that the Earned Income Tax Credit is the single biggest compliance problem cited by the IRS. The average sentence for cheating with secret offshore financial accounts, according to the Wall Street Journal, is about half as long as in some other types of tax cases.

Atlas Can't Be Found Among the Rich

Only 3 percent of the CEOs, upper management, and financial professionals were entrepreneurs in 2005, even though they made up about 60 percent of the richest .1% of Americans. A recent study found that less than 1 percent of all entrepreneurs came from very rich or very poor backgrounds. Job creators come from the middle class.

So if the super-rich are not holding the world on their shoulders, what do they do with their money? According to both Marketwatch and economist Edward Wolff, over 90 percent of the assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk investments (bonds and cash), personal business accounts, the stock market, and real estate.

Ayn Rand's hero John Galt said, "We are on strike against those who believe that one man must exist for the sake of another." In his world, Atlas has it easy, with only himself to think about.

Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.

Five Poisons of Privatization

by Paul Buchheit

March 11, 2013 by Common Dreams

It gets more maddening every day. Essential human needs are being packaged into products to be bought and sold. The right to food and water, education, health care, public spaces, and unrestricted speech shouldn't be based on who can pay the most, or on who can generate profits with the slickest marketing pitch.
The free-market capitalism that drives our economy is a doctrine of individuals pursuing profit. Nothing else matters. An executive for Roche, a healthcare company, said "We are not in the business to save lives, but to make money."
With privatization of the common good we risk losing both our heritage and our humanness.
1. The Taking of Public Land

Attempts to privatize federal land were made by the Reagan administration in the 1980s and the Republican-controlled Congressin the 1990s. In 2006, President Bush proposed auctioning off 300,000 acres of national forest in 41 states.

The assault on our common areas continues with even greater ferocity today, as the euphemistic Path to Prosperity has proposed to sell millions of acres of "unneeded federal land," and libertarian groups like the Cato Institute demand that our property be "allocated to the highest-value use." Mitt Romney admitted that he didn't know "what the purpose is" of public lands.

Examples of the takeaway are shocking. Peabody Coal is strip-mining public lands in Wyoming and Montana and making a 10,000% profit on the meager amounts they pay for the privilege. Sealaska is snatching up timberland in Alaska. The Central Rockies Land Exchange would allow Bill Koch to pick up choice Colorado properties from the Bureau of Land Management, while neighboring Utah Governor Gary Herbert sees land privatization as a way to reduce the deficit. Representative Cliff Stearns recommended that we "sell off some of our national parks." One gold mining company even invoked an 1872 law to grab mineral-rich Nevada land for which it stands to make a million-percent profit.

The National Resources Defense Council just reported that oil and gas companies hold drilling and fracking rights on U.S. land equivalent to the size of California and Florida combined. Much of this land is "split estate," which means the company can drill under an American citizen's property without consent. Unrestrained by government regulations, TransCanada was able to useeminent domain in Texas to lay its pipeline on private property and then have the owner arrested for trespassing on her own land, and Chesapeake Energy Corporation overturned a 93-year-old law to frack a Texas residence without paying a penny to the homeowners. Most recently, the oil frenzy in North Dakota has cheated Native Americans out of a billion dollars worth of revenue from drilling leases.

Away from the mountains and the plains, back in the cities of Chicago and Indianapolis and L.A. and San Diego, our streets and parking spaces have been surrendered to corporations until the time of our great-grandchildren, with some of the highest profit margins in the corporate world.

2. Water for Sale

The corporate invasion of the water market is well underway. In May 2000 Fortune Magazine called water "one of the world's great business opportunities..[It] promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th." Citigroup is on board, viewing water as a prime investment, and perhaps the "single most important physical-commodity based asset class."

The vital human resource of water is being privatized and marketed all over the country. In Pennsylvania and California, the American Water Company took over towns and raised rates by 70% or more. In Atlanta, United Water Services demanded more money from the city while prompting federal complaints about water quality. Shell owns groundwater rights in Colorado, oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens is buying up the water in drought-stricken Texas, and water in Alaska is being pumped into tankers and sold in the Middle East.

A 2009 analysis of water and sewer utilities by Food and Water Watch found that private companies charge up to 80 percent more for water and 100 percent more for sewer services. Various privatization abuses or failures occurred in California, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.

Of course, water monopolization is a global concern, and a life-threatening issue in undeveloped countries, where 884 million people are without safe drinking water and more than 2.6 billion people lack the means for basic sanitation. Whether in the U.S. or in the world's poorest nation, the folly of privatizing water is made clear by the profit-seeking motives of business:

(1) Water corporations are primarily accountable to their stockholders, not to the people they serve.
(2) They will avoid serving low-income communities where bill collection might be an issue.
(3) Because of the risk to profits, there is less incentive to maintain infrastructure.

3. Owning Human Life

Monsanto and their agro-chemical partners call themselves the "life industry."

In 1980 a General Electric geneticist engineered an oil-eating bacterium, effective against oil spills, and in the first case of its kind the Supreme Court ruled that "a live, human-made micro-organism is patentable subject matter." Fifteen years later a World Trade Organization decision allowed plants, genes, and microorganisms to be owned as intellectual property.

The results, not surprisingly, have been disastrous. One-fifth of the human genome is privately owned through patents. Strains of influenza and hepatitis have been claimed by corporate and university labs, and because of this researchers can't use the patented life forms to perform cancer research. Thus the cost of life-preserving tests often depends on the whim (and the market analysis) of the organization claiming ownership of the biological entity.

The results have also been otherworldly. In 1996 the U.S. National Institutes of Health attempted to patent the blood cells of the primitive Hagahai tribesman of New Guinea. U.S. companies AgriDyne and W.R. Grace tried to gain ownership of the neem plant, used for centuries in India for the making of medicines and natural pesticides. Other examples of 'biopiracy': The University of Cincinnati holds a patent on Brazil's guarana seed; the University of Mississippi holds a patent on the Asian spice turmeric.

Most tragically, tens of thousands of Indian farmers, charged for seeds that they used to develop on their own, and forced to repurchase them every year, have been driven to suicide after experiencing crop failures and ruinous debt.

Monsanto is at the forefront of GMO seeds and litigation against vulnerable farmers. To date the company has won over half of its patent infringement lawsuits. The Supreme Court is currently weighing the arguments in Bowman vs. Monsanto, which asks if a company can have a claim on a farmer whose crops were derived from a seed already paid for. More significantly, the question is whether a company can claim the rights to a form of life that has been nurtured by communities of farmers for centuries.

4. Owning the Air

In polluted Beijing, wealthy entrepreneur Chen Guangbiao is selling "fresh air" in a soft drink can for about 80 cents.

While Americans are not yet dependent on (real or imagined) breathing supplements, we have relinquished public access to the air in another important way: the 1996 Telecommunications Act led the way to a giveaway of the transmission airwaves to the broadcast media. Through an effective lobbying campaign the communications industry gained all the benefits of a lucrative public space without even a licensing fee. Objected former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, "The airwaves are a natural resource. They do not belong to the broadcasters, phone companies or any other industry. They belong to the American people."

Closely related is our right to freedom of expression on the Internet, which has been repeatedly threatened, despite the presence of existing copyright laws, by aggressive proposals like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). Privacy is at risk with the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), passed in the House despite objections by Ron Paul and others who recognize the "Big Brother" implications of government monitoring of Google and Facebook accounts. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has facilitated the monitoring of foreign communications in the name of anti-terrorism.

A 2011 UNESCO report offered this worrisome insight: "..the control of information on the Internet and Web is certainly feasible, and technological advances do not therefore guarantee greater freedom of speech."

5. Children as Products

Leading capitalists like Bill Gates and Jeb Bush and Michael Bloomberg and Arne Duncan and Michelle Rhee, who together have a few months teaching experience, have decided that the business model can pump out improved assembly line versions of our children.

Charter schools simply don't work as well as the profitseekers would have us believe. The recently updated CREDO study at Stanford concluded again that "CMOs (Charter Management Organizations) on average are not dramatically better than non-CMO schools in terms of their contributions to student learning." Approximately the same percentages of charters and non-charters are showing improvement (or lack of improvement) in reading and math. In addition, poorly performing charters tend not to improve over time.

Nevertheless, charters remain appealing to poorly informed parents. The schools like to represent themselves as equal opportunity educational options, but the facts state the opposite, as many of them have strict application standards that ensure access to the most qualified students. Funding for such schools drains money out of the public system.

Children are viewed as products in another way -- on the school-to-prison pipeline. Many school districts employ "school resource officers" to patrol their hallways, and to ticket or arrest kids who disrupt the academic routine, no matter the age of the offender or the nature of the "offense":

• A twelve-year-old was arrested for wearing too much perfume.
• A five-year-old was handcuffed for committing "battery" on a police officer.
• A six-year-old was called a "terrorist threat" for talking about shooting bubbles at a classmate.

Along with these bizarre instances is the frightening precedent set by a private prison, Corrections Corporation of America, which despite having no law enforcement authority was allowed to participate in a drug sweep at a high school in Arizona.

An Antidote?

A successful society doesn't derive from a few Ayn-Rand-type individuals. It's the other way around, as philosopher John Deweyreasoned in the 1930s. It's easy to forget that our country's greatest success was due to a collaborative effort in the years during and after World War 2, when advances in manufacturing and technology made us the strongest economy the world had ever seen. It was a shared success. The common good was not for sale.

Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.

Michigan Students — Prepare to be Assimilated

Another excellent article by Michigan's Amy Kerr Hardin.
Michigan has had it's cyber school program in place for less than a year with a handful of schools being opened or privatized to achieve that.
Even though there has not been time to evaluate the program, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is pushing hard to get the whole state turned over to privatization, especially for cyber schools to replace traditional public school.
While Michigan has not had the opportunity to evaluate it's cyber program, other states have and so far it is a dismal failure.
In spite of the corruption of some public school  administrations, especially the notoriously corrupt Detroit Public Schools (DPS), the privatized schools open a path for even more corruption and lack of transparency - touted as the privilege of Capitalism and protected by trade secrets laws.
So instead of reforming a weak or corrupt system that runs at no profit, ALEC model legislation, sponsored by the GOP which has been unstoppable in a Republican, Tea Party dominated state as in many states and Congress, has  provided a new opportunity for white collar criminals to eviscerate more public services, enriching themselves off of their victims all while publicly flaunting their behavior under the guise of acceptable, desirable Capitalist success.
When the DPS school board and some supervisors all had chauffeur-driven limos, and somehow lived well beyond expectations for public service - it was recognized as corrupt.
When private boards of directors have the same, it is seen as legitimate.  

http://www.democracy-tree.com/michigan-students-prepare-assimilated/

Posted on January 21, 2013 
by Amy Kerr Hardin   

As the Education Achievement Authority awaits its much anticipated legislative knighthood – codifying the institution through protection found in Michigan Compiled Law, they still want more money.
Currently comprised of 15 former Detroit Public Schools, the EAA is already in receipt of an additional $5.8M from the state, atop the $7,190 per pupil foundation grant that followed the 8,824 students. The new, soon to be, statewide district only captured about $6M in Title I funds, leaving the bulk of the $24.7M behind in a one-year deal with DPS. Next year, they’ll take the mother-lode.
They now clamour for another $2M, in the form of an advance on state aid money, to purchase computer equipment for online learning. Which on the surface sounds fine enough — technology is an important part of our lives. Last year, as the Snyder Administration stood poised to roll-out plans for broad expansions of both charter and cyber school programs, my friend Brit Satchwell, President of the Ann Arbor Education Association, explained to me that some online learning was a good thing, but only as a supplement to real classroom instruction.
The EAA plans to grow by leaps and bounds, as revealed in their recent grant application, they are projected to become the largest school district in the state — with a budget to show for it. A cash cow for eager corporate vampires with their well-honed privatization sales pitches and the full approval of Snyder under his “best practices” for schools — urging (insert air-quotes) districts to privatize wherever they can as a condition of receiving state funding.
Rolfe Timmerman, Superintendent of Saugatuck Public Schools, believes that Snyder has cooked the books in evaluating school performance by manipulating college readiness through creative interpretation of ACT scores. Timmerman says “Gov. Snyder and our Legislature have a vision to reinvent public education in Michigan through expansion of the Education Achievement Authority, eliminating the cap on for-profit charter and cyber schools, and the really frightening education finance rewrite project.”
The EAA is ostensibly meant to aid academically under-achieving schools through various innovations — among them, cyber learning. The sales pitch is the flexibility of learning at one’s own pace, the reality is something else entirely.
Too much online learning leads to an increased academic slump, with full-time cyber learning being an educational train wreck.
Dr. Michael Barbour, a recognized cyber school expert testified last year before the Michigan House Education Committee on the topic. He was very clear in expressing his concerns about the deleterious effects of excessive cyber schooling. Barbour said “On average, there is a decrease in the percentage of students achieving proficiency the longer they are enrolled in full-time online learning.”  Cyber schools often make the claim that they enroll more students that lag academicaly as their excuse for lower scores, but it is apparent that online learning exacerbates the existing problem. Additionally cyber schools do not have the tools to address, one-on-one, individual learning deficiencies.
Barbour cites an extensive and disturbing survey of 10,500 students in Colorado where they found that cyber schools are so bad that they have three times as many drop-outs as they do actual graduates. The study focused on the top cyber schools. Only 27% of cyber students met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).
Cyber Schools are a virtual, pardon the pun, invitation for corruption. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, where lawmakers opened the door for cyber school expansion, both states experienced a flurry of court cases involving cyber school fraud. The schools where falsifying enrollment reports to receive funding for non-existent students– education tax dollars which went directly into the pockets of the same greedy millionaires that fund cyber school lobbyists and their political action committee, Digital Learning Now, headed by former governor Jeb Bush.
Enter the dragon…
Michael Milken, junk bond dealer, ex-con — you know the guy.  He’s interested in educating our precious children. Or, perhaps it’s more accurate to say he is interested in profiting off the tax dollars we pay to educate our precious children.
Milken is a primary investor in K12 Inc. an online school, and a very profitable one at that. It is the leading cyber scheme in a growing market of for-profit “schools” preying on state legislatures through heavy lobbying to open up their coffers for corporate pillaging in the name of school choice.
K12 currently has 81,000 students in 27 states, including at least one school in Michigan, with more to come in the works, as his company advertises their wares to unsuspecting families.  K12′s net profits in 2011 alone topped $21.5 million, while it’s CEO, Ron Packard, bagged a cool $5 million in 2010. That’s money going into the pockets of the rich at the expense of our children. Money that formerly went towards actual face-to-face education with real teachers earning on average 1% of Packard’s salary.
It’s not difficult to imagine why these profiteers think this is a real sweet gig.  National estimates of net profit in cyber schools range from $2,000 to $3,000 per child each year. Couple that with the fact that accountability in these corporate-owned schools is nearly non-existent, both in performance evaluation and in the disclosure of operating costs and profit margins.  In fact, we know very little about their budgets, but we do know a thing or two about their legally required student achievement measurements.
Cyber schools would just love to get a foot in the door of the EAA, capitalizing on their “innovative” business model.
Amy Kerr Hardin  This article also appears in Voters Legislative Transparency Project

Who is this ALEC that is making our laws?

Myths And Facts About "Right-To-Work" Laws

This last week saw Michigan pass a host of unpopular laws promoted not by the electorate but instead by mostly out of state corporate interests, especially ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), who's proposed legislation models are followed nearly word for word in Michigan's new laws, just as they are in other Tea Party, GOP dominated State Legislatures.

In the November 2012 election just passed, Michigan residents showed huge support for democratic policy (policy of democracy - not necessarily of the Democratic Party) by repealing the dictatorial PA4 (Emergency Manager Law) and proposing amendments that supported collective bargaining, demanded sustainable energy policy, protected the sick and elderly, rejected the requirement for a super-majority in legislative tax reform and rejected an unnecessary new international bridge.

It has been proposed that much of this rejection of every single ballot proposal was due in large part to a "vote no on everything" advertizing blitz initiated by the Governors Office and funded by out of state Super Pac money that supports Tea Party/ALEC objectives.

The defeat of the proposals to support collective bargaining, implement sustainable energy and protect the elderly were narrowly defeated, showing that nearly half the state supported those proposals - defeat coming at the hands of overwhelming and misleading advertising.

That the Governors pet "dictator" law, PA4 was also rejected seemed like a victory for democracy and it was odd that the Governor would issue ads promoting "say no to everything" without making exception for proposal 1, but we found that he already had planned a nearly identical replacement law which he succeeded in getting passed within 5 weeks of the recinding of PA4, so he had planned on getting his way knowing that his favorite legislation would not stand up to voter approval.

Many unpopular bills, all proposed by ALEC and Corporate Interests, including the most restrictive Women's Health Law in the Nation, were passed in a single week of the December "Lame-Duck" session of the legislature because the GOP majority will be reduced on January 1st by a number significant enough that guaranteed passage of GOP sponsored ALEC bills could be threatened by a stronger legislative minority presence.

Also, the public, already weary from the exhaustive politiking of the last election and distracted by the holiday season, was expected - and to a large degree rightly so - to be uninterested in devoting attention to a massively overwhelming bundle of restrictive laws, most of which were sprung on the legislature, seemingly from nowhere, without committees, debate or public input - introduced and immediately voted on and rushed through to the Governor for his signing into law.

These bills, which all passed into Law nearly simultaneously were not even revealed to the public until after they had been sent to the Governor for his guaranteed signature into law, the Legislature staying in session until 4:30 AM on the last day of this session to be sure of their success before the GOP legislative strength is diminished come the new year.

This selling out and selling off of Michigan is deplorable and is an obvious effort to both benefit  Corporate Interest at the expense of  "the people" and to gain support of the Tea Party to encourage continued GOP support in the future.

One of the most contested bills was the so called "Right To Work" law which seeks to weaken and eventually eliminate Collective Bargaining, not to benefit workers, as there is no discernable benefit and there are obvious and overwhelming detriments to workers by these laws, but to benefit Corporations and more importantly to eliminate the single major financial backer of the Democratic Party - the Unions, thus leaving the GOP Super Pacs holding all the cards in future elections. 

Media Matters has prepared a good overview of the RTW issue, showing both the deceptive marketing of this concept and the opposing facts that show RTW to be bad for the general population. 

This RTW legislation was so unpopular that the GOP actually and illegally locked the doors to the House of Representatives to keep the public out during it's passage, as well as restricting, arresting and pepper-spraying those who had already gained entrance to what is legally mandated an Open House.

By the time a Court had ordered the doors be unlocked and the public re-admitted, the damage had already been done.

I suppose that the GOP figures the public is so depressed, demoralized and occupied with just trying to keep up with the basic requirements of life that they will not be up to the task of revolting against this surprise attack on Michigan democracy.

I hope they are wrong and that all of these Tea Party/ALEC bills and their Corporate Puppet supporters get thrown out in the new year.

The 2010 election saw Michigan democracy locked in the closet as all major offices, including the courts and the legislature coming under GOP control.  Let's hope that between now and the next election Michigan can break free and that "the people" will be interested enough to learn the truth that will set them free.    

Please keep in mind while reading the following report that the initial statements are the "Myths" told to deceive the public, which are well presented and then followed by the Facts. 

Myths And Facts About "Right-To-Work" Laws

Research December 12, 2012 8:19 AM EST ››› ALESSANDRA DIMONDA, ANDY NEWBOLD, & BRIAN RABITZ 

From Media Matters http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/12/12/myths-and-facts-about-right-to-work-laws/191810 

In the wake of Michigan passing a so-called "right-to-work" law, which significantly weakens the ability of unions to bargain on behalf of workers, right-wing media pushed numerous myths about the anti-union policy.

Are workers in states without right-to-work laws forced to join unions?
Do right-to-work laws lead to higher wages and benefits?
Will right-to-work laws lead to lower unemployment in states that adopt them?
Do right-to-work laws protect workers from supporting political activities they disagree with?

MYTH: Workers In States Without Right-To-Work Are Forced To Unionize

Fox Graphic Declared States Who Haven't Passed Right-To-Work Laws "Forced-Unionism" States. During the December 10 edition of Fox's America's Newsroom, Fox News aired a graphic contrasting states who have passed right-to-work laws with "forced-unionism" states:

[Fox News, America's Newsroom, 12/10/12, via Media Matters]
On Fox, Dobbs And Mallory Factor Describe States Without Right-To-Work Laws As "Forced-Union" States. During the December 10 edition of Fox Business' Lou Dobbs Tonight, host Lou Dobbs and his guest, anti-union activist Mallory Factor, were highly critical of states that do not have right-to-work laws, repeatedly calling them "forced-union" states. Graphic from the show:

[Fox Business, Lou Dobbs Tonight, 12/10/12]

FACT: Workers In States Without Right-To-Work Laws Are Not Forced Into Unions

Economist Dean Baker: "Workers At Any Workplace Always Have The Option As To Whether Or Not To Join A Union." In a 2011 post for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, economist Dean Baker pointed out that workers always have a choice whether to work for a union, whether or not their state has passed right-to-work laws:

"Right to work" is a great name from the standpoint of proponents, just like the term "death tax" is effective for opponents of the estate tax, but it has nothing to do with the issue at hand. It is widely believed that in the absence of right-to-work laws workers can be forced to join a union. This is not true. Workers at any workplace always have the option as to whether or not to join a union.
Right-to-work laws prohibit contracts that require that all the workers who benefit from union representation to pay for union representation. In states without right-to-work laws unions often sign contracts that require that all the workers in a bargaining unit pay a representation fee to the union that represents the bargaining unit. [Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2/28/11]

Maine Center For Economic Policy: "Right-To-Work Laws Are Essentially Unfair" And "Not Needed To Protect Nonunion Workers." The Maine Center for Economic Policy similarly found that right-to-work laws are not fair because nonunion employees in a unionized workplace would have a "free ride" and the laws are "not needed to protect nonunion workers" because federal laws already protect workers from being forced into joining a union:

Right-to-work laws are essentially unfair. If Maine passed a right-to-work law, nonunion employees in a unionized workplace would have a "free ride." They would receive the benefits of union representation, in terms of job protections, wages and benefits, without paying for any of the costs.
[...]
A right-to-work law is not needed to protect nonunion workers. Several federal laws already protect the rights of nonunion employees in unionized workplaces, such as the NLRB vs. General Motors Supreme Court decision in 1963, and the Communication Workers vs. Beck decision of 1988. Under federal labor law, workers cannot be legally required to join a union as part of a collective bargaining contract. [Maine Center for Economic Policy, 2/19/11]

Center For American Progress: "Right-To-Work Has Nothing To Do With People Being Forced To Be Union Members." The Center for American Progress report titled "Right-to-Work 101" explained that federal laws already guarantee that no worker can be forced to join a union:

In states where the law exists, "right-to-work" makes it illegal for workers and employers to negotiate a contract requiring everyone who benefits from a union contract to pay their fair share of the costs of administering it. Right-to-work has nothing to do with people being forced to be union members.
Federal law already guarantees that no one can be forced to be a member of a union, or to pay any amount of dues or fees to a political or social cause they don't support. What right-to-work laws do is allow some workers to receive a free ride, getting the advantages of a union contract -- such as higher wages and benefits and protection against arbitrary discipline -- without paying any fee associated with negotiating on these matters.
That's because the union must represent all workers with the same due diligence regardless of whether they join the union or pay it dues or other fees and a union contract must cover all workers, again regardless of their membership in or financial support for the union. In states without right-to-work laws, workers covered by a union contract can refuse union membership and pay a fee covering only the costs of workplace bargaining rather than the full cost of dues. [Center for American Progress Action Fund, 2/2/12]

NLRB: Workers That Don't Want Full Union Membership "Pay Only That Share Of Dues Used Directly For Representation" Of Union Contract They Work Under. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) explains that workers do not have to be full union members, but instead must only pay for the union representation they receive by working at a union shop, regardless of their membership status:

The NLRA allows employers and unions to enter into union-security agreements, which require all employees in a bargaining unit to become union members and begin paying union dues and fees within 30 days of being hired.
Even under a security agreement, employees who object to full union membership may continue as 'core' members and pay only that share of dues used directly for representation, such as collective bargaining and contract administration. Known as objectors, they are no longer full members but are still protected by the union contract. Unions are obligated to tell all covered employees about this option, which was created by a Supreme Court ruling and is known as the Beck right. [National Labor Relations Board, accessed 12/6/12]

MYTH: Right-To-Work Leads To Higher Wages And Benefits

USA Today Op-Ed: Right-To-Work Creates Higher Wages, Which Help Grow Economy. In a December 6 opinion article in USA Today, Mackinac Center for Public Policy's F. Vincent Vernuccio claimed:

In other words, though Michigan's economy is going in the right direction, it can't let up now. And that's where a right-to-work law comes in to play.
Consider a few top-line facts about right-to-work states. Private-sector employee compensation in right-to-work states has grown by an inflation-adjusted 12.0% between 2001-2011, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor Statistics. That compares with just 3.0% over the same period in states where workers can be forced to join a union as a condition of getting a job.
With growing paychecks come growing populations. Between 2000 and 2011, right-to-work states have seen an increase of 11.3% in the number of residents between the ages of 25-34 according to the Bureau of the Census. Non right-to-work states, over that same period, have seen an increase of only 0.6%. [USA Today, 12/6/2012]

On Fox, Guest Said Right-To-Work Legislation Increases Compensation And Improves The Economy. In a December 7 segment on Fox News' America's Newsroom, Penn State Financial Group's Matt McCall pushed the same numbers Vernuccio cited to suggest right-to-work laws bolstered wages and reduced unemployment:

McCALL: Well, If you look at the numbers, Bill, Steve's hit it right on the head. If you look from 2001 to 2011, look at the right-to-work states. Inflation adjusted compensation rose for employees, private sector employees, about 12 percent versus the non-right-to-work states only increased by 3 percent. So what happens when you're making more money? You then increase the amount of people that want to move to your state. In that same time frame -- you take a look again at right-to-work states -- you saw the population from 25-34 increase by 11.3 percent. In non-right to work states, increase by .6. So what that means is as more people move to your state, it's more tax revenue, you have more jobs, more companies coming there. So really, if you put it all together, it's great for the local economy. [Fox News, America's Newsroom, 12/7/2012 via Media Matters]

WSJ: Michigan GOP Lawmakers Consider "Right-To-Work" Law "To Help The Lagging State Economy." In a December 5 editorial, The Wall Street Journal claimed that there are "economic benefits" to a so-called "right-to-work" law for Michigan and promoted it as a "happy possibility":

Unions lost big in Michigan in November when voters rejected Proposal 2, Big Labor's plan to canonize collective bargaining in the state constitution. Now they are facing a backlash with the happy possibility that Michigan could become the 24th right-to-work state.
Lawmakers have been preparing to introduce a right-to-work bill in the state legislature, and the labor cavalry is heading to the Wolverine state.
[...]
[T]he economy has languished. Michigan is the fifth most unionized state in the country and the birthplace of the UAW. According to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Michigan has lost 7,300 jobs since January, while next-door Indiana, which became a right-to-work state earlier this year, has been on the upswing.
[...]
[I]f a right-to-work law passed the legislature, unions could still try to repeal it on the ballot, as they did this year with the emergency manager law, which let the Governor appoint emergency financial managers who could redo collective-bargaining agreements. By the time a similar fight could be waged against right to work, voters could have had more than a year to see the law's economic benefits. [The Wall Street Journal, 12/5/12]

FACT: Studies Show Right-To-Work Laws Lead to Lower Wages and Benefits For Workers

Economic Policy Institute: Right-To-Work Laws Force Employees To "Work For Lower Wages And Fewer Benefits." Elise Gould and Heidi Shierholz, researchers at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), studied what they called "the compensation penalty of 'right-to-work' laws" and concluded:

[O]ur findings -- that "right-to-work" laws are associated with significantly lower wages and reduced chances of receiving employer-sponsored health insurance and pensions -- are based on the most rigorous statistical analysis currently possible. These findings should discourage right-to-work policy initiatives. The fact is, while RTW legislation misleadingly sounds like a positive change in this weak economy, in reality the opportunity it gives workers is only that to work for lower wages and fewer benefits. For legislators dedicated to making policy on the basis of economic fact rather than ideological passion, our findings indicate that, contrary to the rhetoric of RTW proponents, the data show that workers in "right-to-work" states have lower compensation -- both union and nonunion workers alike.

EPI estimated that right to work leads to a 3 percent decrease in hourly wages and a decrease in benefits for all workers.

[Economic Policy Institute, 2/17/11, 4/5/11]
McClatchy: "Numerous Studies Have Found That Wages For Both Union And Non-Union Workers Are Lower In States With Right-To-Work Laws." McClatchy Newspapers reported that wages are lower for all workers in states that have passed right-to-work laws:

Numerous studies have found that wages for both union and non-union workers are lower in states with right-to-work laws. Others have found that workplace safety suffers in right-to-work states, where workers are less likely to secure job safety enhancements beyond federal and state regulations. [McClatchy Newspapers, 2/16/12]

Congressional Research Service: Workers In Right-To-Work States Make An Average Of $7,000 Less Than Those In Non-Right-To-Work States. Citing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Congressional Research Service reported that the average wage in a right-to-work state was $42,465, compared with $49,495 in "labor security" states. [Congressional Research Service, 6/20/12]
Economic Policy Institute: Wages for Union And Non-Union Workers Are Lower by "An Average of $1,500 a year." In an EPI article, political economist Gordon Lafer explained that right-to-work laws not only lead to lower wages, but also led to reduced benefits for workers:

RTW laws lower wages for union and non-union workers by an average of $1,500 a year and decrease the likelihood employees will get health insurance or pensions through their jobs. By lowering compensation, they have the indirect effect of undermining consumer spending, which threatens economic growth. For every $1 million in wage cuts to workers, $850,000 less is spent in the economy, which translates into a loss of six jobs. [Economic Policy Institute, 9/16/11]

Hofstra University's Lonnie Stevans: "Wages And Personal Income Are Both Lower In Right-To-Work States." In an analysis of the economic impact of "right-to-work" laws, Hofstra University professor Lonnie Stevans wrote:

Wages and personal income are both lower in right-to-work states, yet proprietors' income is higher. As a result, while right-to-work states may maintain a somewhat better business environment relative to non-right-to-work states, these benefits do not necessarily translate into increased economic verve for the right-to-work states as a whole -- there appears to be little 'trickle-down' to the largely non-unionized workforce in these states. [Review of Law & Economics, Volume 5, Issue 1, 2009]

MYTH: Right-To-Work Leads To Higher Employment

Fox's Jarrett Suggests Numbers Show States With Right-To-Work Laws Have More Jobs. During the December 11 edition of Fox's America's Newsroom, guest host Gregg Jarrett listed off a series of employment statistics he claimed proved right-to-work benefits job growth:

JARRETT: Advocates for right to work legislation say it means more jobs for the states, and the numbers seem to bear that out. Take a look at this: over a 10-year period of time, employment increased 10.3 percent in right-to-work states and increased only 1.9 percent in non-right-to-work states. Looking at the national average over the last decade, employment increased by about 5 percent, and the current unemployment picture showing the same trend. As of October, the average unemployment rate in right-to-work states is 6.9 percent but 7.6 percemnt unemployment in non-right-to-work states. The national rate for that month, 7.9 percent. [Fox News, America's Newsroom, 12/11/12]

On Fox, Guest Said Right-To-Work Legislation Creates More Jobs And Improves The Economy. In a December 7th segment on Fox News' America's Newsroom, Penn State Financial Group's Matt McCall suggested right-to-work laws bolstered wages and reduced unemployment:

McCALL: Well, If you look at the numbers, Bill, Steve's hit it right on the head. If you look from 2001 to 2011, look at the right-to-work states. Inflation adjusted compensation rose for employees, private sector employees, about 12 percent versus the non-right-to-work states only increased by 3 percent. So what happens when you're making more money? You then increase the amount of people that want to move to your state. In that same time frame -- you take a look again at right-to-work states -- you saw the population from 25-34 increase by 11.3 percent. In non-right to work states, increase by .6. So what that means is as more people move to your state, it's more tax revenue, you have more jobs, more companies coming there. So really, if you put it all together, it's great for the local economy. [Fox News, America's Newsroom, 12/7/2012 via Media Matters]

FACT: "Right-To-Work" Laws Have Little Impact On Employment

Center For American Progress: "Researchers Find That "Right-To-Work" Laws Have "No Significant Positive Impact Whatsoever On Employment." The Center for American Progress report titled "Right-to-Work 101" explains that "[r]ight-to-work laws don't create jobs":

Researchers who study the impact of right-to-work laws find that these laws do not create jobs--despite supporters' claims to the contrary. The Indiana Chamber of Commerce, for example, claims that "unionization increases labor costs," and therefore makes a given location less attractive to capital. The purpose, then, of right-to-work laws is to undermine unions and therefore lower wages in a given state, thus attracting more companies into the state.
But in practice this low-road strategy for job creation just doesn't pan out. Despite boosters' promises of job creation, researchers find that right-to-work had "no significant positive impact whatsoever on employment" in Oklahoma, the only state to have adopted a right-to-work law over the past 25 years-until Indiana did so days ago-and consequently the best example of how a new adopter of right-to-work laws might fare in today's economy. In fact, both the number of companies relocating to Oklahoma and the total number of manufacturing jobs in the state fell by about a third since it adopted such a law in 2001.
Indeed, most right-to-work advocates' purported evidence of job growth is based on outdated research and misleading assertions. An Indiana Chamber of Commerce-commissioned study found right-to-work states had higher employment growth between 1977 and 2008 compared to states without a right-to-work law, but much of that growth could be attributed to other factors. Those factors included the states' infrastructure quality, and even its weather--which the study ignored. [Center for American Progress Action Fund, 2/2/12]

EPI: Evidence Shows "Right-To-Work" Legislation "Has No Statistically Significant Impact Whatsoever" On Job Growth. The Economic Policy Institute analyzed employment growth in states with and without "right-to-work" laws and found that "the evidence is overwhelming" that "right-to-work laws have not succeeded in boosting employment growth in the states that have adopted them." The report also stated:

[T]he history of right-to-work studies has a clear trajectory. The more scholars are able to hold "all other things" equal, the more it becomes clear that these laws have little or no positive impact on a state's job growth. The most recent and most methodologically rigorous studies conclude that the policy has no statistically significant impact whatsoever. [Economic Policy Institute, 3/16/11]

Hofstra's Stevans: "Right-To-Work" Laws Result In "Little Or No Gain" In Employment And Economic Growth. Hofstra University professor Lonnie Stevans analyzed the economic impact of "right-to-work" laws and concluded that "from a state's economic standpoint, being right-to-work yields little or no gain in employment and real economic growth." [Review of Law & Economics, Volume 5, Issue 1, 2009]
AP: Experts Say It's "Nearly Impossible" To Show Impact Of "Right-To-Work" Laws On State Economies. From an Associated Press article on "right-to-work" laws:

The evidence on the issue is abundant, but also conflicting and murky. The clearest conclusion, according to many experts, is that the economies of states respond to a mix of factors, ranging from the swings in the national economy to demographic trends, and that isolating the impact of right-to-work is nearly impossible.
Obscuring the answer is "the difficulty of distinguishing the effects of the RTW laws from state characteristics, as well as other state policies that are unrelated with these laws," said economists Ozkan Eren and Serkan Ozbeklik, who conducted a major study last year of the right-to-work laws in Oklahoma and Idaho.
For major industries, the chief factors in choosing locations tend to be access to supplies, infrastructure, key markets and a skilled workforce, according to business-recruitment specialists. For a state's workers, the impact of the laws is limited because only about 7 percent of private-sector employees are unionized. Over the years, job growth has surged in states with and without right-to-work laws.
"The reason we don't have clear views (on right-to-work laws) is because it's always being debated at its extremes," said Gary Chaison, a professor of labor relations at Clark University in Massachusetts, who assigns his students to analyze the issue each year. In the end, when it comes to jobs and the law, "we don't know causation," he said. [Associated Press, 1/28/12]

MYTH: Right-To-Work Laws Protect Workers From Supporting Political Spending

Fox News' Steve Doocy: "Right-To-Work" Means You No Longer Have To Pay Union Dues That Go To "Political Causes You Don't Support." On Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy hyped right-to-work laws, saying these laws will make it so that workers aren't compelled by unions to pay money that go to causes they do not support:

DOOCY: Later on today, the Michigan House of Representatives is going to take up two bills, they were passed by the state senate in Michigan on Thursday. They're right-to-work bills. And what they would do is they would make, effectively, Michigan the 24th right-to-work state in the country, which means you would not have to join a union as a pre-condition of employment. For instance, if you are a teacher, and you don't like the fact that, you know, you got to pay union dues and it goes to political causes that you don't support, going forward, you won't have to, in Michigan. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 12/11/12]

Wall Street Journal: "Right-To-Work" Ends Union's Ability To "Coerce Workers To Join And Pay Dues That They Then Funnel To Politicians Who Protect Union Power." A Wall Street Journal editorial claimed that if states adopt "right-to-work" laws, unions could not "coerce workers to join and pay dues that they then funnel to politicians who protect union power." [The Wall Street Journal, 12/10/12]

FACT: Workers Can Opt Out Of Full Union Membership And Prevent Fees From Supporting Political Spending  

NLRB: Workers That Don't Want Full Union Membership "Pay Only That Share Of Dues Used Directly For Representation" Of Union Contract They Work Under. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) explains that workers do not have to be full union members, but instead must only pay for the union representation they receive by working at a union shop, regardless of their membership status:

The NLRA allows employers and unions to enter into union-security agreements, which require all employees in a bargaining unit to become union members and begin paying union dues and fees within 30 days of being hired.
Even under a security agreement, employees who object to full union membership may continue as 'core' members and pay only that share of dues used directly for representation, such as collective bargaining and contract administration. Known as objectors, they are no longer full members but are still protected by the union contract. Unions are obligated to tell all covered employees about this option, which was created by a Supreme Court ruling and is known as the Beck right. [National Labor Relations Board, accessed 12/11/12]

CWA v. Beck: Unions Cannot Force Non-Members To Pay Dues For Political Action. In the 1988 U.S. Supreme Court case Communications Workers v. Beck, the majority found that the Communications Workers of America (CWA) could not charge non-members in work places they organize fees that paid for political action by the union. [U.S. Supreme Court,CWA v. Beck, 6/29/88]
Locke v. Karass: Non-Union Workers At Organized Work Places Cannot Be Forced To Pay For "Political, Public Relations, Or Lobbying" Activities By Unions. In a 2009U.S. Supreme Court decision, the majority, echoing past precedent, reaffirmed that non-union members in work places are only to pay a service fee that equaled to the amount collective bargaining services and contract maintenance services cost. [U.S. Supreme Court, Locke v. Karass, 1/21/09]


Another good, shorter review of ALEC's history in RTW.

American Legislative Exchange Council's - ALEC's Decades of 'Right-to-Work' Efforts Pay off in Michigan

The Center for Public Integrity
   
Article By:
Paul Abowd
Center for Public Integrity
posted on: Saturday, December 15, 2012
Think tank’s 32-year 'right-to-work' campaign succeeds in union stronghold

Amid protests by labor unions, and objections from the state’s congressional delegation and even the president, Michigan’s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder signed a “right-to-work” bill into law Tuesday, drawn word-for-word from a 32-year-old “model bill” pushed by a corporate-funded, conservative think tank.

The legislation deals a severe blow to organized labor in a state that has the fifth-highest union density in the country, and it marks the revival of an effort long promoted by the influential American Legislative Exchange Council, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that has seen its share of controversy recently.

Since 1973, ALEC has hosted corporate-sponsored meetings where state legislators and lobbyists meet behind closed doors to write and vote on model legislation. In a 1992 annual report, the free-market think tank boasted that it “provides the private sector an unparalleled opportunity” to influence state legislation.

One of its first priorities was passage of “right-to-work” laws, which now exist in 24 states. The 16 states with the lowest union density in the country have right-to-work laws, mostly in the American South and West, while the 13 states with the highest union density do not, until this week.
‘Forced unionism’

In a publication celebrating its 25th year, ALEC said it “began striking out against forced unionism and for the right to work in 1979.” ALEC members endorsed the law as model legislation and began introducing it in states in 1980.

Federal law prohibits workplaces from requiring employees to belong to a union and pay dues. However, employees, be they union members or not, may still enjoy the benefits of a union-negotiated contract.

While labor organizations cannot compel workers to join the union, they can require workers at a unionized workplace to pay an “agency fee” to cover the cost of negotiating contracts on a worker’s behalf.

Unions argue that these fees, which are less than membership dues, prevent “free riders” who would reap the benefits of union representation without chipping in.

Right-to-work laws ban this arrangement, creating “open shops,” where new employees at a workplace that is unionized do not have to join the union, pay dues or pay the lesser agency fee.
Back to work

At its November conference in D.C., ALEC members on the Commerce, Insurance, and Economic Development Task Force voted to re-endorse 55 pieces of model legislation it has passed over the years, including the “right-to-work” bill, according to documents released by the liberal watchdog group Common Cause.

Since 2010, members of the task force have included some of the nation’s largest non-union and anti-union companies, including McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Bank of America and MillerCoors. All four of the companies quit the organization this year after ALEC faced scrutiny for its sponsorship of voter ID legislation.

Though long on ALEC’s agenda, “right-to-work” has been a tough sell in the states for decades. Since ALEC created the model legislation, only four states have passed it into law. In 1992, ALEC members introduced the bill in 11 state legislatures, including Michigan.

None of them passed.

In 1995, ALEC reported that its legislator-members introduced the bill in nine states, but again none passed new laws, according to ALEC annual reports. Idaho passed the law in 1985, but no state would pass it again until 2001, when 54 percent of Oklahomans approved a “right-to-work” constitutional amendment. The text of the Oklahoma law matched, word-for-word, that of ALEC’s model bill.

In 2012, a slew of ALEC members sponsored the bill in Indiana, which Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels signed into law in February.

Key parts of the Michigan law are identical to the text in the ALEC model bill.
Snyder flip flop

Michigan’s governor reversed his stance on what he had repeatedly called a “divisive” law that was not on his agenda. But last week, hours before the bill introduced, Snyder announced he would sign a bill if it arrived on his desk.

In a press conference, Snyder said the measure would help the state compete with “right-to-work” Indiana by enticing businesses to set up shop in a state plagued by the sustained flight of manufacturing jobs. He also passed the microphone to three “real Michigan workers” who gave support for the law. Hours later, the Michigan House and Senate, in a lame duck session, made a preliminary vote to approve the legislation without committee hearings.

At the time, Michigan state police locked protesters out of the state Capitol building in violation of a court order, while legislators prepared to vote. Some of Michigan’s Democratic state representatives briefly walked off the floor of the House chamber in protest.

When the Legislature reconvened a few days later to take final votes on the bills, which will apply to both public and private sector workers, thousands of pro-union protesters met them at the Capitol. After House members approved the bills, some began a sit-in at Gov. Snyder’s Lansing office, urging a veto.
Failed referendum

The “right-to-work” measure comes after 57 percent of Michigan voters rejected a union-backed ballot initiative in November which would have made “right-to-work” laws unconstitutional. Union membership in the state has dropped significantly since 1989, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A month later, the measure’s opponents mobilized. The Chamber of Commerce, which backed a $26 million effort to sink the ballot initiative, endorsed the “right-to-work” bill soon before it was introduced in the Legislature.

The Michigan chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a national organization funded by the conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch (who are also backers of ALEC), pitched a tent on the Capitol lawn that broadcast speeches by former President Ronald Reagan.

A nonprofit group called Michigan Freedom Fund cropped up in November. Run by an adviser to former Republican gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos of the Amway family fortune, the group bought radio and television ads supporting the bills in December.

Another supporter of “right-to-work” laws on the ALEC Commerce, Insurance, and Economic Development Task Force is a Michigan-based think tank called the Mackinac Center. Mackinac’s Director Michael LaFaive wrote in December that the center has been pushing “right-to-work” laws since 1990.

In 2007, Mackinac released a “model” constitutional amendment for the law, which mirrored the text of the ALEC model bill.

Opponents and proponents disagree about the economic impact of the laws.

A study by the liberal Economic Policy Institute reports that right-to-work laws push down wages for all workers in a state “by an average of $1,500 per year” and that the rate of employer-sponsored health coverage was 2.6 percent lower in states with the law.

If Michigan adopted a “right-to-work” law, it would lead to lower wages, less access to health insurance and weakened pension benefits, wrote University of Oregon professor Gordon Lafer in a report on the potential impact of the law in Michigan.