Evergreene Digest A Journal of Progress for the Rest of Us

• Recently, some Conservatives in Congress have been standing in the way of extending unemployment benefits to the millions who’ve been hit by this recession, arguing it’s exacerbating the economic downturn. What?
• Long-Term Unemployment: 80 Percent Of People Jobless Last Summer Still Out Of Work

Senta Knuth, Minnesota 2020

Recently, some Conservatives in Congress have been standing in the way of extending unemployment benefits to the millions who’ve been hit by this recession, arguing it’s exacerbating the economic downturn.

What?

Right now unemployment benefits are one of the mechanisms keeping the economy afloat. Remember it’s a jobless recovery.  So if people aren’t collecting unemployment insurance, fewer of them will be buying necessary goods, like food.  Stimulus spending on extended unemployment insurance actually generates an estimated $1.61 in economic activity per dollar spent.  Without it, we’d have more layoffs and a slower recovery. Until a sufficient number of jobs are created, this insurance is necessary.

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“This is all about corporate greed,” said a Whirlpool employee.

Susie Madrak, Crooks and Liars

Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Ken Mitchell

You'll remember I wrote about this before, when I first found out Whirlpool took millions in bailout money and then announced they were moving this plant to Mexico.

Now they've closed the plant and soon the town will turn into a ghost town:

“We were considered the refrigerator capital of the world,” said Randall Reynolds, who was a forklift driver.

But that family tradition will soon end because Whirlpool plans to close the plant on Friday (June 25) and move the operation to Mexico, eliminating 1,100 jobs here. Many in this city in southern Indiana are seething and sad — sad about losing what was long the city’s economic centerpiece and a ticket to the middle class for one generation after another.

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• More than six years before the biggest sex discrimination lawsuit in history was filed against Wal-Mart Stores, the company hired a prominent law firm to examine its vulnerability to just such a suit.
• Best places to shop for everything

Steven Greenhouse, New York Times

Brad Seligman, center, a lawyer for plaintiffs in a gender discrimination case against Wal-Mart, spoke to the media in San Francisco in 2009.Kimberly White/Reuters

The law firm, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, found widespread gender disparities in pay and promotion at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores and urged the company to take basic steps — like posting every job opening and creating specific goals to promote women and minorities — to avoid liability.

The 1995 report said that women employed by Wal-Mart earned less than men in numerous job categories, with men in salaried jobs earning 19 percent more than women. By one measure, the law firm found, men were five and a half times as likely as women to be promoted into salaried, management positions.

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With the Twin Cities walkout, bedside nurses say they won't be ignored as they fight for a strict patient-nurse ratio.

Chen May Yee, Star Tribune | MN

From left, nurses Barb Warren-Bloms, from North Memorial Medical Center; Cheryl Regan, from United Hospital; and Modest Okorie, of Bethesda Hospital, listened as another nurse testified to the dire results of inadequate hospital staffing during a news conference Tuesday (June 8) .Elizabeth Flores, Star Tribune

Over the years, Jean Ross had become increasingly disenchanted with the national union that represents nurses.

She felt the American Nurses Association (ANA) had drifted away from the daily concerns of bedside nurses. She suspected it had become more interested in promoting nurses into management positions.

It appears to have been a common view. Last year, a breakaway group banded together to form a rival union: National Nurses United (NNU). In just a few months, it has grown to 155,000 members, approaching the century-old ANA's 180,000. It is now mobilizing across the country with one major goal: limits on the number of patients assigned to each nurse. Union leaders say nurses are stretched so thin that patients are in danger.

American Constitution Society for Law & Policy

On July 5, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) into law. As the 75th anniversary of the NLRA approaches, ACS convened a panel of experts to consider the legacy of the Act and discuss its future. The NLRA gave employees the right to form and join unions, and obligated employers to bargain collectively with unions selected by a majority of the employees in an appropriate bargaining unit. The Act also established an independent agency, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), to administer the Act and enforce employee rights.

How has the NLRA protected workers' rights and what has it accomplished? In what ways does its promise remain unfulfilled? What statutory, structural, or administrative reforms might be recommended to improve the NLRA or the functioning of the NLRB? Scholars and former NLRB Members will address these questions and more in a lively and candid panel discussion.

The May 17, 2010 event featured a noon keynote address by Deputy Secretary of the Department of Labor, Seth Harris.
A panel discussion was held and featured:
•    Moderator, Anne M. Lofaso, Professor of Law at West Virginia University College of Law; former Vice President of the NLRB Professional Association (2000-2003)
•    James J. Brudney, Newton D. Baker-Baker & Hostetler Chair in Law, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law
•    Dennis Walsh, Deput General Counsel, Federal Relations Authority
•    Marshall B. Babson, Partner, Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP; former Board Member, National Labor Relations Board (1985-1988)