BOSS ACT promises transparency for live event industry – National Consumers League

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May 4, 2012

Contact: NCL Communications, (202) 835-3323, media@nclnet.org

Washington, DC – The National Consumers League, the nation’s pioneering consumer advocacy organization, today released the following statement regarding U.S. Congressman Bill Pascrell for his plans to protect consumers by reintroducing the Better Oversight of Secondary Sales and Accountability in Concert Ticketing Act (“BOSS ACT”). The following statement is attributable to John Breyault, NCL Vice President of Public Policy, Telecommunications and Fraud:

“Sunshine is the best antiseptic for an opaque industry where the lack of information has given rise to a variety of anti-consumer practices. The average consumer has mattered far too little for far too long to the powerful interests that control the live event industry. The BOSS ACT has a number of good provisions that empower the ticket-buying public.  Restrictive paperless ticketing, speculative ticket reselling, undisclosed ticket holdbacks, and ticket-buying ‘bots,’ are all issues that the BOSS ACT will address to the benefit of consumers. We applaud Congressman Pascrell for his continued leadership on this issue.”

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About the National Consumers League

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

Corporate lawyers’ ‘Declining Prospects’ – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

Longtime corporate lawyer Michael Trotter has written a book called “Declining Prospects,” about the upheaval in the corporate legal profession and its prospects for the future. Trotter argues that not even big companies can afford – or want to pay – the inflated prices of high-priced lawyers. And young lawyers at the big firms are expected to put in ridiculously long days to bill out the expected 1,800-2,000 billable hours – that’s 50 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, and that’s just the billable time. In order to do this, they must work 65-70 hours a week. Not surprisingly, Trotter discovered through interviews, lawyers at every level are unhappy with this unsettling transformation of the practice.

We are turning out 45,000 law graduates a year, and Trotter says though the quality of their education is high, there aren’t enough jobs for them. Half the lawyers are sole practitioners, 70 percent are in firms with fewer than 20 lawyers, and those lucky enough (if you don’t mind 70 hours a week at the office) to get jobs at elite firms have only a 10 percent chance of making partner.

What does all this have to do with consumers? A lot, for several reasons. First, when business has to pay enormous legal fees, they of course pass those costs along to consumers. Some of the elite lawyers in Washington charge $1,000 per hour for their services; I was in a meeting recently where a lawyer was on-hand to work with the nonprofit – I asked the attorney what he was being paid and he said “$650 an hour.” Who pays those fees? We consumers do.

Then there is access to legal services for middle and lower income Americans. Most of us don’t have $250 an hour – which today is considered a modest rate – to spend on getting a will written, closing on a real estate deal, settling a legal dispute, getting a divorce, writing a living will, or for many parents and families, defending a relative on a DUI or drug possession case, which can truly break the bank.

Though Trotter’s book seems to be speaking largely to the legal community, it has implications for the rest of us. I’m encouraged that half the new lawyers are solo practitioners. Perhaps the upheaval and the oversupply of legal talent will mean that average Americans will have access to more affordable and basic legal services.

Mad Cow FAQ – National Consumers League

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By Teresa Green, Linda Golodner Food Safety & Nutrition Fellow

With the furor over a new case of Mad Cow disease, we thought it would be great to answer some common questions about the current situation.

What is Mad Cow?

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as Mad Cow disease, is a prion disease. Prions are “weird mutant proteins” found in the spinal cord and brain of animals. Prion diseases have an impact by slowly destroying the brain tissue of the infected organism. BSE is transmissible to humans and can cause the human version of the disease, known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Prions were discovered in the 1980s and are still largely a mystery to scientists.

Why are we hearing about this now?

The reason that Mad Cow has once again emerged on a national level is that USDA announced it found a cow with the disease. The cow in question was a dairy cow and the disease was discovered as part of the agency’s testing protocols. This is the fourth case of BSE confirmed in the United States and the first in six years.

What does this case of Mad Cow mean to me?

While a diagnosis of Mad Cow may cause alarm, officials from USDA have assured the public that there is no danger from this case. The cow, a dairy cow, never entered the food supply and BSE cannot be transmitted in milk. USDA asserts its continued confidence in the US meat supply. For right now there’s no reason to change consumption habits.

Child Labor Coalition: Withdrawal of Occupational Child Safety Rules Will Risk Children’s Lives on Farms – National Consumers League

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April 30, 2012

Contact: Reid Maki, (202) 207-2820, reidm@nclnet.org

Washington, DC–The 28 members of the Child Labor Coalition (CLC) and the millions of Americans they represent warn that the Department of Labor’s recent withdrawal of occupational child safety rules for agriculture will needlessly endanger children who work for wages in agriculture.

“Agriculture is by far the most dangerous industry that large numbers of teens are allowed to work in,” said Sally Greenberg, Co-Chair of the Child Labor Coalition and the Executive Director of the National Consumers League. “Nearly 100 kids are killed on farms each year. In 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 12 of the 16 children under age 16 who suffered fatal occupational injuries worked in crop production. For agricultural workers age 15 to 17, the risk of fatal injury is four times the risk for young workers in other workplaces. The Department of Labor’s sensible recommendations–based on years of research indicating the jobs in which teen injuries and deaths occur–sought to protect these hired farmworkers. Unfortunately, the proposed rules fell victim to misinformation and exaggeration from the farm lobby.”

“The U.S. Labor Department has caved in to Big Agriculture and its allies in Congress to abandon the most vulnerable working children in America,” said Zama Coursen-Neff, Deputy Children’s Rights Director at CLC member Human Rights Watch. “Instead of protecting child farmworkers, the Labor Department will look the other way when children get crushed, suffocated, and poisoned on the job.”

“We are profoundly disappointed the Administration will not be pursuing the proposed protections for children employed in agriculture,” said David Strauss, Executive Director of CLC member the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP). “These were common sense protections that would have saved many children’s lives.”

CLC members warn that the withdrawal will mean that one of the nation’s most vulnerable populations–migrant farmworker children–will continue to be exposed to farm dangers that other child workers do not face. “Farm work for many children is not a vocation,” said Norma Flores Lopez, Director of the Children in the Fields Campaign at AFOP. “The children of farmworkers will continue to be put in jeopardy to harvest America’s food. The rules withdrawal will leave them exposed and unprotected.”

“Children’s advocates expect better from national leaders than caving to political pressure from special interests and their lobbyists, when the facts are crystal clear and children’s lives are on the line,” said First Focus Campaign for Children President Bruce Lesley. “Members of Congress who are committed to putting children’s lives ahead of politics should overrule this decision by demanding legislation, like the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment (H.R. 2234), that increases protections for children working on farms.” 

“We owe it to our children to give them every opportunity to thrive, and to keep them out of harm’s way,” said Lorretta Johnson, Secretary Treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers and Co-Chair of the CLC. “It is our responsibility to educate the whole child. This means looking after the wellbeing of our children in and out of the classroom. We can not afford to let political pressure keep us from fulfilling this responsibility.”

The CLC estimates that the withdrawal of hazardous work rules for agriculture will lead to the loss of 50 to 100 lives over the next decade. More than 150 advocacy groups, including numerous health and safety organizations, farmworker advocates, and labor unions, have endorsed the child safety rules (a list may be found at www.stopchildlabor.org).

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About the Child Labor Coalition

The Child Labor Coalition is comprised of 28 organizations, representing consumers, labor unions, educators, human rights and labor rights groups, child advocacy groups, and religious and women’s groups. It was established in 1989, and is co-chaired by the National Consumers League and the American Federation of Teachers. Its mission is to protect working youth and to promote legislation, programs, and initiatives to end child labor exploitation in the United States and abroad. For more information, please call CLC Coordinator Reid Maki at (202) 207-2820 [reidm@nclnet.org].

NCL: Withdrawal of Proposed Occupational Child Safety Rules for Agriculture Will Endanger Children Working on Farms – National Consumers League

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April 27, 2012

Contact: Reid Maki, (202) 207-2820, reidm@nclnet.org

Washington, DC–Those of us concerned with the safety and welfare of children and teens working in agriculture are deeply disappointed by the Department of Labor’s decision to pull back on its effort to protect kids on farms. “The all-out campaign of misinformation and distortion about the Department of Labor’s long overdue and important proposal to protect children working on farms will have an impact for years to come,” said Sally Greenberg, NCL’s executive director and a co-chair of the Child Labor Coalition, 28 organizations committed to protecting children from exploitative or dangerous work.

“Agriculture is by far the most dangerous industry that large numbers of teens are allowed to work in,” said Greenberg. “Nearly 100 kids are killed performing hazardous farm work each year. Many of those kids work for wages. The Department of Labor’s sensible recommendations–based on years of research indicating the jobs in which teen injuries and deaths occur–sought to protect them. Unfortunately, the proposed rules fell victim to misinformation and exaggeration from groups like the National Farm Bureau and others that should know better.” 

The reality is that agricultural work for teens is extremely dangerous:

  • Between 1995 and 2002, an estimated 907 youths died on American farms, well over 100 per year. (National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health)
  • Last year, 12 of the 16 children under age 16 who suffered fatal occupational injuries worked in crop production. (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
  • Between 1992 and 2000, more than four in 10 work-related fatalities of young workers occurred on farms.
  • Half of the fatalities in agriculture involved youth under age 15.
  • Just this past August, Oklahoma teens Tyler Zander and Bryce Gannon, both 17, each lost a leg in a grain auger accident. This accident would have been prevented by the proposed rules.
  • For agricultural workers 15 to 17, the risk of fatal injury is four times the risk for young workers in other workplaces, according to DOL’s Bureau of Labor Statistics 

In the U.S., children who work on their parent’s farms are exempt from child labor laws. They can perform any task at any age. Other exemptions allow children to work for wages on other farms at the age of 12—and sometimes even younger. DOL’s proposed rules would have restricted youth from working in only the most dangerous tasks, allowing them to perform a wide array of farm jobs. Teens working in 4H or other educational and training programs were exempted under the regulations as well.

“The Department of Labor made every effort to be reasonable and flexible in proposing these safety regulations,” said Reid Maki, NCL’s Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards and the coordinator of the Child Labor Coalition. “The rules continued to exempt kids working on their family farms and DOL indicated that the final rules would be expanded to exempt kids working the farms of relatives.” 

More than 150 groups supported the proposed child safety rules. A list of those organizations can be found at www.stopchildlabor.org. 

“We waited four decades for these badly needed safety updates and now they have been blocked by an overheated and exaggerated campaign of misinformation that trivialized critically-needed safety protections,” added Maki. “We estimate that 50-100 children could lose their lives without the added protections these rules provided.” 

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About the National Consumers League

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

NCL PRESS RELEASE: Withdrawal of Proposed Occupational Child Safety Rules for Agriculture Will Endanger Children Working on Farms – National Consumers League

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For immediate release: April 27, 2012
Contact: Reid Maki, (202) 207-2820, reidm@nclnet.org

Those of us concerned with the safety and welfare of children and teens working in agriculture are deeply disappointed by the Department of Labor’s decision to pull back on its effort to protect kids on farms.  “The all-out campaign of misinformation and distortion about the Department of Labor’s long overdue and important proposal to protect children working on farms will have an impact for years to come,” said Sally Greenberg, NCL’s executive director and a co-chair of the Child Labor Coalition, 28 organizations committed to protecting children from exploitative or dangerous work. 

“Agriculture is by far the most dangerous industry that large numbers of teens are allowed to work in,” said Greenberg. “Nearly 100 kids are killed performing hazardous farm work each year. Many of those kids work for wages. The Department of Labor’s sensible recommendations–based on years of research indicating the jobs in which teen injuries and deaths occur–sought to protect them. Unfortunately, the proposed rules fell victim to misinformation and exaggeration from groups like the National Farm Bureau and others that should know better.”

The reality is that agricultural work for teens is extremely dangerous: 

  • Between 1995 and 2002, an estimated 907 youths died on American farms, well over 100 per year. (National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health)  
  • Last year, 12 of the 16 children under age 16 who suffered fatal occupational injuries worked in crop production. (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
  • Between 1992 and 2000, more than four in 10 work-related fatalities of young workers occurred on farms. 
  • Half of the fatalities in agriculture involved youth under age 15.
  • Just this past August, Oklahoma teens Tyler Zander and Bryce Gannon, both 17, each lost a leg in a grain auger accident. This accident would have been prevented by the proposed rules.
  • For agricultural workers 15 to 17, the risk of fatal injury is four times the risk for young workers in other workplaces, according to DOL’s Bureau of Labor Statistics

In the U.S., children who work on their parent’s farms are exempt from child labor laws. They can perform any task at any age. Other exemptions allow children to work for wages on other farms at the age of 12—and sometimes even younger. DOL’s proposed rules would have restricted youth from working in only the most dangerous tasks, allowing them to perform a wide array of farm jobs. Teens working in 4H or other educational and training programs were exempted under the regulations as well.

“The Department of Labor made every effort to be reasonable and flexible in proposing these safety regulations,” said Reid Maki, NCL’s Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards and the coordinator of the Child Labor Coalition. “The rules continued to exempt kids working on their family farms and DOL indicated that the final rules would be expanded to exempt kids working the farms of relatives.”

More than 150 groups supported the proposed child safety rules. A list of those organizations can be found at www.stopchildlabor.org.

“We waited four decades for these badly needed safety updates and now they have been blocked by an overheated and exaggerated campaign of misinformation that trivialized critically-needed safety protections,” added Maki. “We estimate that 50-100 children could lose their lives without the added protections these rules provided.”

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About the National Consumers League

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

Facebook privacy – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

The Wall Street Journal, of late, has done a very admirable muckracking job looking at privacy policies of Facebook, Skype, Yahoo and other sites. Why are privacy policies important to consumers? Because marketers want information about consumers so they can try to sell us stuff and in the process they dig deep for our personal data. And so the Facebooks, Skypes, and Yahoos of the world offer us access to their many fantastic applications – and many are fantastic – but only if we share information about ourselves.

The authors of a recent article in the Journal– Julia Angwin and Jeremy Singer-Vine, put it like this: “This appetite for personal data reflects a fundamental truth about Facebook, and by extension, the Internet economy as a whole: Facebook provides a free service that users pay for, in effect, by providing details about the lives, friendships, interests and activities.” And Facebook has 800-million-plus subscribers so that’s a lot of money.

You have to ask yourself why Facebook so highly valued – if it goes public it may be valued at $100 billion. Access to Facebook is free for consumers so we pay with our private information which Facebook then sells to advertisers. The Journal also says that Facebook isn’t always enforcing its own rules on data privacy. Dozens of apps apparently allow advertisers that haven’t been approved by Facebook.

Privacy proponents like Helen Nissenbaum, who wrote a book called “Privacy in Context,” are calling for digital “fences” around data usage and even the White House has called for consumers to be told how any data collected will be used. These are serious concerns for all of us who value our privacy and don’t want our personal data collected and sold. Hopefully this Journal series on privacy will get the ball rolling in that direction.

NCL congratulates HSUS and Burger King on move to cage-free eggs – National Consumers League

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April 25, 2012

Contact: NCL Communications, (412) 945-3242, media@nclnet.org

Washington, DC–The National Consumers League (NCL), the oldest consumer advocacy organization in the nation, congratulates the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and Burger King for reaching an agreement which would phase out cages in egg production over the next five years.

Research has shown that cage-free eggs have lower rates of foodborne illnesses, such as salmonella and campylobacter. This is due to several factors, including lower levels of stress for laying hens. “Consumers demand the highest levels of food safety available,” said Sally Greenberg, NCL’s executive director.

“Increasingly research is showing that cage-free is the best way to go,” said Teresa Green, the Linda Golodner Food Safety and Nutrition Fellow at NCL.

While Burger King has shown leadership on this issue, there are still many companies that have not switched to cage free-eggs. NCL urges these companies to follow the research of HSUS and leadership of Burger King on this issue and to consider switching methods of production. “All companies should work to make food as safe for consumers as possible,” added Greenberg.

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About the National Consumers League

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

Maryland takes 2012 national LifeSmarts title – National Consumers League

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April 24, 2012

Contact: Carol McKay, (724) 799-5392, carolm@nclnet.org

Philadelphia, PA—The student team from Frederick, MD was crowned national LifeSmarts champions in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Tuesday, April 24. After a tough final match against the second-place team from Jacksonville, FL, the teens from the Maryland Home Schoolers outscored their opponents and did it with great sportsmanship. Teams from Pennsylvania and Rhode Island placed third.

“We are so proud of these students from Maryland, who represented their state program with class and pride,” said LifeSmarts Program Director Lisa Hertzberg. “They played hard and demonstrated their consumer smarts throughout the four-day event. They are true LifeSmarts champions.”

LifeSmarts is a program run by the Washington, DC-based National Consumers League (NCL), the nation’s oldest consumer advocate. It competitively tests high school students’ knowledge of coansumer awareness, with subjects including personal finance, health and safety, consumer rights and responsibility, technology, and the environment.

Teens from each of the 32 state champion teams represented at nationals competed as individuals, and the top five scorers received $500 scholarships from NCL. This year’s winners were:

 

  • Environment: Morgan Macumber, AZ

 

  • Personal Finance: Christopher Carsey, AZ

 

  • Health and Safety: Maura Taylor, MD

 

  • Consumer Rights and Responsibilities: Noah Shute, AZ

 

  • Technology: Nathaniel Anderson, TN

“NCL’s LifeSmarts program is allowing us to rear a generation of consumer-savvy teenagers who often outsmart their parents on issues related to avoiding fraud, credit and debt, and complicated health care decisions,” said NCL Executive Director Sally Greenberg. In the 18 years that LifeSmarts has been educating high school and middle school teens on consumer issues, it has grown dramatically, with more than 3 million consumer questions at www.lifesmarts.org in the online competition during the 2011-2012 academic year.

Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden addressed the consumer savvy state teams and helped crown Maryland the 2012 National LifeSmarts Champions. “I’d like to start by congratulating the winners from the state of Maryland who I had the privilege of sitting with. Congratulations, Maryland.”

Biden applauded the state champion teams for “being so engaged and educated about your finances and how to be a good consumer and how to teach your brothers and sisters and classmates and sometimes your parents. You have to know what your rights are, and what you’re entitled to. We deal with people all the time who don’t feel empowered to question the negative answer or nonresponse. Behind the 10,000 or so complaints my office receives are, I’m confident, many times more citizens who don’t know what their rights are. That’s why what we do here is so critical, not just for young people but for old people.

For team photos, event schedules, grid standings, and more, log on to the official event blog.

All winners at the national LifeSmarts Competition received valuable prizes donated by sponsors to the National Consumers League, including scholarships, savings bonds, gift cards, and more. To learn more about the program, contact NCL’s Lisa Hertzberg at 202-835-3323. For a complete listing of this year’s prizes, visit www.lifesmarts.org.

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About LifeSmarts and the National Consumers League

LifeSmarts is a program of the National Consumers League. State coordinators run the programs on a volunteer basis. For more information, visit: www.lifesmarts.org, email lifesmarts@nclnet.org , or call the National Consumers League’s communications department at 202-835-3323. The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

Maryland takes title! – National Consumers League

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In a tough final match against the state champs from Florida, the Home Schoolers from Frederick, MD has taken the 2012 national LifeSmarts championship. Head over to our official event blog to learn how the exciting weekend of competition and fun unfolded.