This July 4, It Seems that All Men are NOT Created Equal – National Consumers League

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

This Independence Day, I took a moment to reflect on words of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

How ironic then to the see in the July 3 edition of the New York Times that Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing talk show host, is soon going to earn $38 million per year, for a total of $400 million.

This country seems to have endless millions for the lucky few who become ultra rich, while we walk past homeless people who line the sidewalks of our big cities, and allow working men and women to lose their jobs at an astounding pace during yet another economic downturn. Without a hint of irony, the New York Times reported on Limbaugh’s bloated salary on the same page as it described the painful layoffs among Detroit autoworkers. Detroit has lost more than 100,000 jobs since 2006 and will lose another 25,000 this summer and fall. And these workers are among the lucky ones. Through union contracts, even though they will not be working, they will earn their salary for some period of time.

The Limbaugh article also noted the salaries other celebrities are earning: Ryan Seacrest, $12 million a year; Oprah Winfrey, $18 million a year for her three-year satellite radio contract alone; Katie Couric, $15 million a year; Jay Leno, $24 million a year.

What is wrong with our culture that we heap these financial windfalls upon a very select few, while gas prices, at an all-time high, force some people to choose between eating and getting to their jobs. Forty-six million Americans go without health care, millions of children attend crumbling schools and get a substandard education, and many working parents are paid less than $10 an hour in wages and are forced to take two, even three jobs to make ends meet.

What does one do with $38 million each year? Why does any one individual need that kind of money? I fear we’ve lost all our sense of outrage about the terrible wage discrepancies that exist. It turns out the founders were wrong – all men are apparently not created equal; some are entitled to make $38 million a year, while others, despite a lifetime of hard work at a factory job, just get laid off.

Dive In! The Water’s Warm – But Is it Healthy? – National Consumers League

Clean Pools Required for Underwater Fun

By Tara Moore, Communications Intern

Summer swimmers, your time of year is here!

Let’s go over the checklist:

  • Bathing suit? Check.
  • Towel? Check.
  • Waterproof sun block? Check.
  • Sense-able swimming tips to stay healthy? Where are those?

Right here, at HealthyPools.org! Once again this summer, NCL has teamed up with the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), WQ&HC (Water Quality and Health Council), ACC (American Chemistry Council), and APSP (Association of Pool and Spa Professionals) to educate the public about recreational water illness prevention.

These illnesses, also known as RWIs, have been increasing over the last decade in children, pregnant women, and people with compromised immune systems. The Healthy Pools partners are offering advice to help keep swimmers safe, whether in their backyard or community pool.

So before diving head first into any pool, use your senses!

Sight: Look for water that’s clean, clear, and blue.

Touch: Check for tiles that feel smooth and clean.

Smell: Make sure there are no strong odors.

Sound: Listen for pool cleaning equipment.

Leave your last sense at home, never “taste” (or swallow) pool water. Healthy or not, it’s still pretty icky.

NCL Hosts Historic Conference on Landmark Supreme Court Case – National Consumers League

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

Last month, at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC, the National Consumers League (NCL) hosted a historic gathering of labor leaders, labor historians and gender discrimination lawyers to debate the 100th Anniversary of a landmark Supreme Court Case, Muller v. Oregon, which set a 10 hour workday for women in the state of Oregon. Decided by the Court in 1908, the great Louis Brandeis, 8 years before he ascended to the Supreme Court himself, argued Muller at the urging of Florence Kelley, general secretary of the League, and her right hand, Josephine Goldmark, who also happened to be Brandeis’ sister-in-law. They say his argument was so brilliant that the Justices didn’t interrupt him once – very unusual for the Supreme Court – and decided the case unanimously.

The case involves Portland laundry owner Curt Muller, who in violation of Oregon law required one of his female laundry employees to stay at work beyond 10 hours. She objected. The Oregon courts supported her, upholding the state’s 10 hour workday, and Muller appealed to the Supreme Court. Which raises the question, why did the NCL support hours regulations for women only? Because three years earlier the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down a New York law regulating the hours men could work. Kelley and Goldmark determined that the choice was either getting the Court to uphold a law regulating hours for women only or getting no law at all. They considered Muller to be an “entering wedge” – if laws regulating hours for women were adopted, soon those rules would apply to all workers. They were right, the entering wedge strategy worked, and in the next decade hours regulations for men were upheld by the court.

The Muller case contributed something else invaluable to social reformers. The brief that Kelley and Goldmark wrote with Brandeis didn’t use law to persuade the Court – instead, it contained reams of social evidence gathered from England and other industrial countries about the evils of 15, 16, or 17 hour work days on women, on their children, their families, their health, and their communities. This style of brief – long on social documentation but short on law – is called a “Brandeis Brief.” And when Thurgood Marshall argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court, he and his team of lawyers submitted a Brandeis Brief.

At the conference NCL hosted, labor leaders talked about Muller’s place in history and the problem today of Americans working long hours, often two jobs, to make ends meet. Gender discrimination lawyers talked about Muller’s appeal to sexist stereotypes about women in the workplace and the specific cases in which subsequent court decisions relied on Muller to discrimination against women. A board member of the NLRB cited the need for overhauling our labor laws, which haven’t been updated or upgraded in decades. Other panelists talked about the need for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which will restore the rights of workers join unions free from intimidation by employers. According to workplace surveys conducted by professors Richard Freeman of Harvard University and Joel Rogers of the University of Wisconsin, 42 million employees who are not represented by a union would like to have representation at work, but under the National Labor Relations Board election process, management has almost unlimited and mandatory access to employees, while union supporters have almost none. According to a survey of 400 NLRB election campaigns in 1998 and 1999, 36 percent of workers who vote against union representation explain their vote as a response to employer pressure. The problem of “wage theft” workers toiling long hours without getting their due compensation continues today.

Though Muller remains controversial today, we come down on the side of the historians, who argued at the conference that Muller did far more good than harm. It was all the women of the NCL had – get hours regulated for women or get nothing for any workers. And they picked a brilliant lawyer whose record of winning cases before the Court was impeccable. Finally, in their work on behalf of workers, Kelley, Goldmark, and other NCL leaders fought not just for white women and men– they fought for the lowest paid workers as well, black women and black men, whom the unions were not interested in representing at the time. That should be a source of pride for all who support the NCL today. The legacy of Muller lives on today in the struggles that working families face as they try to earn a living wage.

Save the planet! (And some money) – National Consumers League

July 1, 2008

Contact: 202-835-3323, media@nclnet.org

Washington, DC – Global warming is a major challenge, but consumers can take simple steps to be a good global citizen, help protect the planet, and save money in the process. This month, the National Consumers League is helping consumers adopt environmentally-friendly practices that are also friendly to their wallets in NCL’s “2008 Consumer Calendar: Do We Have Tips for You!”

NCL offers a list of tips for going green, such as:

  • Tune up. Keep your call well-tuned and your tires properly inflated to get better gas mileage and cut pollution.
  • Switch to energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs, which last longer.
  • Turn off the TV and other appliances when you’re not using them. Use appliances’ — like computers’ — energy-saving modes.

The nation’s oldest consumer advocacy organization, NCL works to educate people about how to make wise decisions in today’s marketplace. Each month, NCL’s Web site, www.nclnet.org, will feature the calendar and tips for the month. Covering a range of subjects from medication safety, to avoiding scams, the tips are sponsored by major companies, government agencies, and organizations. The July tips about global warming were sponsored by Microsoft.

The print version of the calendar was distributed to consumers free of charge through agencies and organizations around the country. There are no printed copies of the calendar remaining.

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About the National Consumers League
Founded in 1899, the National Consumers League is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Its mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. NCL is a private, nonprofit membership organization. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

Going Away? Better Pack Lightly – National Consumers League

Planning a vacation over these next few warm months?Why not! The kids are home, the office is slow, you can afford a few days away, can’t you?

Well, maybe not…

Some airlines, American Airlines most recently, are starting to charge passengers taking domestic flights fees for their first piece of checked luggage, and even higher ones for their second piece of checked luggage. That’s assuming your luggage is within the weight limit restrictions; going over that will result in more charges.

There are ways to minimize your luggage weight, and not every airline has adapted these new baggage regulations, at least not just yet anyway. For a how-to on packing more efficiently and saving cash for the actual vacation, CNN offers tips for Packing smart for flights this summer, featuring advice from a couple of flight attendants on what not to pack, and what to pack compactly.