DC City Council should protect consumers from deceptive automatically renewing subscriptions – National Consumers League

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Brian YoungThe scenario is all too familiar to thousands of District residents: while looking over a credit card bill, you notice a mysterious charge from a company or service you vaguely remember doing business with a year ago. Why do you keep getting charged for a cleaning service you only used once? If this sounds familiar, chances are that you are the unwitting victim of an automatic renewal clause.

These sneaky clauses typically state that unless you notify the company, your contract will automatically renew at the end of the term. Unsurprisingly, many companies love these clauses as it provides them with guaranteed income. Since consumers are often forced to go through the arduous process to cancel their subscriptions, even consumers who want out of these contracts can find it difficult to extricate themselves.

Not all automatic renewal contracts are wrong, however. For example, I am grateful that I do not have to write a check or pay an online bill each month just to keep using Netflix. However, many companies slip these automatic renewal clauses into the fine print and consumers do not know they have to cancel by a certain date (often as much as 3 months prior to the contract’s end date) to avoid being stuck with another year of service. This leaves consumers and businesses alike saddled with expensive contracts they have no desire to utilize and have no ability to cancel.

Fortunately, 22 states have laws on the books which require that automatic renewal clauses not be buried in pages of fine print. While the District does not yet have this consumer protection, Councilmembers Mary Cheh, David Grosso, and Anita Bonds recently introduced the Consumer Disclosure Act of 2017 which is currently pending before the Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety. This legislation would empower consumers by requiring businesses to provide notice to consumers if their contract is set to renew for a multi-month term. This reminder will need to include clear instructions on how and when consumers must cancel to prevent an automatic renewal of a contract.

The Consumer Disclosure Act of 2017 would not only protect consumers from unscrupulous business practices, but it would also help the District’s businesses and employers. For instance, my employer — the National Consumers League — recently found out that we were on the hook for a contract which automatically renewed for the year at the tune of $23,000. We were responsible for this large sum merely because we failed to provide a written notice of our intention to cancel the contract more than 90 days prior to the contract’s end. The person originally arranging for this service was no longer on staff and management wasn’t aware of the contract’s automatic renewal provisions. Had the Consumer Disclosure Act been law, not only would we have known before signing the contract that there was an automatic renewal clause, we would have received a notice prior to the contract’s 90-day cancellation window reminding us that we need to make a decision to cancel or renegotiate the contract.

Research suggests that the consumers has around 11 recurring charges. To help deal with this headache and avoid expensive surprises, we urge the DC Council to act quickly on this bill and begin giving residents in DC the protections from automatic renewal abuses that citizens in other states already enjoy.

FTC guidance to multi-level marketers highlights advocates’ priorities – National Consumers League

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January 9, 2018

Contact: Carol McKay, (202) 207-2831 or carolm@nclnet.org

Washington, DC – The National Consumers League (NCL) is pleased that the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) new guidance to the multi-level marketing (MLM) industry broadly reflects the priorities and concerns expressed by a broad coalition of advocacy organizations focused on fighting pyramid schemes. NCL also welcomed the Commission’s message that the benefit of relying on its existing authority under Section 5 of the FTC Act, as interpreted by decades of case law, rather than legislative action, is the best way to protect consumers from pyramid schemes. NCL, along with other national consumer advocacy and civil rights groups, pyramid scheme experts, and prominent direct selling companies, has opposed efforts by the MLM industry and its allies in Congress to weaken the FTC’s ability to investigate and prosecute pyramid schemes.

The following statement is attributable to John Breyault, National Consumers League Vice President, Public Policy, Telecommunications, and Fraud:

The FTC’s new guidance is consistent with existing case law and previous Commission guidance. In addition, it addresses topics such as income and product claim substantiation, internal consumption, and inventory loading that the MLM industry has frequently misinterpreted. Indeed, the guidance once again demonstrates that the FTC already has the tools it needs to do its job and protect consumers from pyramid schemes masquerading as legitimate MLMs.

Despite industry claims to the contrary, pending bills in Congress — H.R. 3409 and a House appropriations rider sponsored by Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI) — would fundamentally weaken the FTC’s ability to hold MLMs accountable when they perpetrate fraud against prospective entrepreneurs. The Commission’s new guidance is clear and sound advice to the MLM industry about where the guardrails should be placed in order to avoid pyramidal behavior, and yet another indication that proposed legislation is unnecessary and, indeed, undermines the FTC’s authority.

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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.

For the Children’s Health Insurance Program, no news is NOT good news – National Consumers League

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Since its enactment in 1997, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which provides health coverage for low-income children, has enjoyed broad bipartisan support in Congress and in turn, been reauthorized regularly without issue–until now. It’s been more than two months since the September 30 deadline to reauthorize CHIP came and went without any Congressional action. While lawmakers maintain that CHIP will be reauthorized eventually, for the nine million children and pregnant women that rely on the program for their healthcare, “eventually” may be too late.

Like so much else in our current political climate, this lapse in CHIP funding is unprecedented. With Congressional Republicans hard-pressed for a legislative victory before year’s end, CHIP will likely continue to take a back seat to other must-pass measures such as tax reform and the government spending package. In the meantime, many states are scrambling to find funds to keep CHIP running. As of now, emergency reserves and temporary funding agreements have allowed states to maintain coverage for the millions of Americans who might otherwise be uninsured, but these short-term fixes are not sustainable. In fact, medical officials in some states have already sent notices to families informing them their coverage is in danger of being disrupted. According to Kaiser Family Foundation, 16 states are projected to deplete their federal CHIP funding by January 2018, and another 32 will exhaust their funds by March 2018.

Should Congress not renew CHIP, the response to the loss of federal funds will vary based upon how CHIP is implemented in that particular state. For states whose CHIP programs are funded through Medicaid expansion, they are still required to cover those beneficiaries, regardless of federal funding. However, with the cost burden shifted completely to state governments, funding for other critical programs such as infrastructure or education will likely be redirected. On the other hand, for the 1.2 million beneficiaries in states with CHIP programs not married to Medicaid, they are likely to lose coverage completely. At that point, families would have to seek more expensive employer-based or marketplace alternatives–but of course, there is no guarantee that they will be able to afford those options.

Despite the lack of urgency in Washington, state governors around the nation are urging Congress to read the writing on the wall. On December 12, a bipartisan group of 12 governors signed a letter to Congressional leaders imploring them to work across the aisle to find a solution that will provide funding for CHIP without a disruption in coverage for its millions of beneficiaries. The inaction by Congress in reauthorizing this vital program has not only already costed hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, but has caused unwarranted chaos and stress for states and families. Moreover, ensuring children have access to regular doctor visits, immunizations, essential prescription medications, and emergency services should not be a partisan issue or a bargaining chip. We have made historic progress in decreasing the number of uninsured children and ultimately improving their health outcomes–much to the credit of enrollment in CHIP. There is no question that if CHIP is not reauthorized, we will undo much of this success.

We must not leave farmworker women out of the harassment discussion – National Consumers League

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Norma Flores López is a member of the National Consumers League’s Board of Directors. She is also the Governance and Collaboration/Development Manager of the East Coast Migrant Head Start Project.

Today’s headlines and top hashtags are showing that a powerful movement is building, and its being led by women.

Women–fed up with the constant attack on our bodies, the sexual harassment prevalent throughout our communities and centuries-long inequities in our homes, at the workplace and in the voting booth– are saying, “Enough.” They are displaying courage by organizing, sharing their powerful stories, casting their votes, and creating an effect that can be felt in the halls of Congress, on the movie sets of Hollywood, and through the airwaves. This movement against misogyny and sexual harassment is indeed powerful. It has made influential men step down from their long-held positions of power, it has stopped an accused pedophile from being elected into the Senate, and even made it to the cover of Time magazine.

And we’re just getting started.

We have seen this type of grassroots movement before–a seismic shift in the power paradigm of society, moving us closer and closer towards equity. Yet, we have never achieved the full promise of equality. The work is left halfway done, and we can’t allow this to happen again. We need to make sure that the movement is able to reach the darkest corners of society, in the marginalized communities where the most vulnerable women work and live.

For me, this is in the fields.

I grew up in a migrant farmworker family, where I was taught at a young age the power men held over me. Sexual harassment wasn’t the only kind we experienced. The boss had the power to protect me, but also the power to destroy me. A lifetime of hard work earned my father a position of leadership in most of the fields we worked in, which he used to protect his wife and five daughters. While most women endured cat calls, inappropriate prepositions and harassment, we were spared. Still, we knew the dangers that lurked out there and took no chances. My sisters and I never walked to the portable bathrooms (when they were available) by ourselves, making sure a few of us were always together. We never went anywhere by ourselves, in the fields or on the migrant camp. Ever.

While my father did his best to shield us from these dangers, there were seasons that he wasn’t in charge and our family was separated. We were divided into different teams, each completing different tasks in different fields at any given moment. My mother and I mostly stuck together, and for years, we were in a team under the charge of a middle-aged white man who spoke no Spanish and made it known that he didn’t want to be there. As the season wore on, the work days got longer and his temper got shorter. He became a terror to all of the women working with him. It boiled over and from one day to the next, I became the focus of his fury. I was responsible for the team not completing the work at the pace he wanted. I was responsible for the mistakes made by my teammates. I was responsible for everything that went wrong in the fields. For all of this, I deserved his abuse. He began to hurl insults, curse words, and racial slurs on a daily basis, often at the top of his lungs for everyone in the fields to hear. My mother would stare at me in disbelief and fear, desperate to understand what was happening and to understand his English. “¿Qué te dice, Norma? ¿Qué pasa? (What is he saying? What’s happening?)” she would repeatedly ask me. “Nada, mami,” I would reply, trying to hide the hurt and fear in my voice.

He would often end his tirade with, “You can’t even do field work. What the f**k are you even good for? NOTHING.”

He made me feel worthless and helpless.

I knew that although I was miserable, my family was treated well by everyone else in that company and we were getting paid better than we had in other states where we worked. I knew that if I spoke up, we would get fired and end up homeless and stranded. I knew it would devastate my family financially for the rest of the year–possibly even longer. I knew I didn’t want to be responsible for this, and believed that if I just tried harder, he would leave me alone. I knew that I didn’t have it as bad as other women in the fields.

Women, who make up about 700,000 of the workers in American agriculture, are living in desperate poverty that leaves them especially vulnerable to assault and harassment. Situations can range from groping and propositions, all the way to systemic rape, and it often all goes unseen and unreported. They endure this in silence because they often don’t have any recourse, they are threatened, and their families depend of their incomes to put food on the table. Like in many other industries, the majority of the power in the fields is held by men–individuals who have the power to hire, fire, blacklist and otherwise threaten the economic, physical and emotional security of women.

In a 2010 study from the University of California, Santa Cruz, more than 60 percent of the 150 female farmworkers interviewed said they had experienced some form of sexual harassment. In a 2012 report, Human Rights Watch surveyed 52 female farmworkers–nearly all of them had experienced sexual violence or knew others who had. One woman told investigators that her workplace was called the “field de calzón,” or “field of panties.” As an Iowa immigrant farmworker told her lawyer, “We thought it was normal in the United States that in order to keep your job, you had to have sex.”

Two decades ago, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, along with California Rural Legal Assistance, a legal service program that promotes the interests of migrant laborers and the rural poor, created a joint project to concentrate on sexual harassment in the fields. In 2005, the commission won a $994,000 victory for Olivia Tamayo, a worker at one of California’s largest cattle-feeding operations, who was repeatedly raped by her supervisor. “He took advantage because he knew I wasn’t going to say anything,” she told Ms. Magazine. “It was a trauma that followed me everywhere.

In September of 2016, in one of the largest settlements of its kind, the commission won over $17 million for five farmworkers in Florida who had accused their supervisors of rape and harassment. Some 18 similar cases nationally after 2009 have given women farmworkers $4 million.

State and federal policies rob farmworkers of workplace protections that other American workers benefit from. They are not given the right to organize and are exempted from protections against retaliation. This leaves families, especially women, vulnerable to workplace abuses, which are seen as part of the business. In the fields, the “out of sight, out of mind” mentality allows for abuses of power to become common place. It leaves the women who work every day to feed America feeling worthless and helpless, and robs them of their dignity.

We are reminded by history’s leaders that our greatness is measured by how we treat those in greatest need. It is not enough that our celebrities and middle class women are able to see their perpetrators held accountable for their abusive behavior. We must not leave the hardest work undone. We need to ensure this attention extends into the fields and all places that are out of sight to most of America, places where our women –the poor, the undocumented, the women of color—face this abuse daily and have been fighting back for years.

We can start by supporting the work of LCLAA’s Trabajadoras Program, Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, and CIW’s Women’s Group, to name a few. We can also remind leaders in the movement not to leave out our farmworker women from the discussion.

It is our unity that makes us stronger. We are all in this fight together, and as history has shown us, together, women can make a real difference. Let’s make sure that we finish the work we have started.

We are powerful.

Holiday shopping? Some strategies to consider if you are concerned about child labor – National Consumers League

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maki.jpgWith the holidays approaching and many Americans scrambling to buy presents, we get many questions from consumers who are interested in shopping responsibly. Newly released data suggests that there are about 40 million individuals in forced labor and 152 million children who are trapped in child labor around the world today. How can one avoid buying products that may contribute to this rampant exploitation?

Unfortunately, there is no clear and simple answer. The supply chains of many companies have multiple layers of production–even reaching into people’s homes—and it’s extremely difficult to monitor this work at all the levels.

Fortunately, there are some tools out there to help consumers make responsible holiday shopping decisions. One of the best is the U.S. Department of Labor’s “Sweat and Toil” mobile app. It informs consumers about 130+ goods that are produced with child labor or forced labor. It will also tell consumers which countries produce those goods and ranks those countries on how well their efforts to reduce child labor are going. You can access this information by clicking here. More than 1,000 pages of valuable information are contained on the site.

If you are about to go clothes shopping, you can quickly look up which countries have been identified as producing clothes with child labor: Argentina, Bangladesh, India, Thailand, and Vietnam. Seven countries used forced labor to produce garments—you’ll have to go to the site or use the app to figure out which ones. It’s actually remarkably easy to use. Please download the “Sweat and Toil” app now—before you forget!

The site and app will help you learn some of the most common products of child labor. Gold, for example, is produced by child mining in 21 countries. Cotton or cottonseed in 18 countries. Coffee is produced by child labor in 16 countries. The data, unfortunately has some limitations. For the most part, it does not list assembled products. For example, many of the metals and minerals that power your smartphone and the batteries that help it work are on the list, but assembled cell phones are not.

We get a lot of questions about product labeling. Why can’t consumers buy a product labeled “child-labor free?” GoodWeave, a nonprofit member of the Child Labor Coalition, issues labels that help consumers buy carpets (and other products coming soon) that are child-labor free. GoodWeave has strict standards and inspection systems, that reach every worker from the factory to village to home. When they find child labor they eliminate it and provide remediation and long-term rehabilitation for the former child laborers. Their programs go well beyond others, ensuring communities across South Asia are “child friendly” and that all children are going to school and learning. It wasn’t that long ago that there were one million children weaving hand-made carpets under slave-like conditions. That number today is believed to be less than 200,000. GoodWeave has transformed the lives of thousands of children in partnership with over 150 brands and retailers. In a few years, we may have several more product lines that we can say with some certainty are child-labor free.

It wasn’t that long ago that there were one million children weaving hand-made carpets under slave-like conditions. That number today is believed to be less than 250,000. The “GoodWeave” label is helping consumers buy carpets that are child-labor free. Goodweave, a nonprofit member of the Child Labor Coalition (CLC), has set up extensive monitoring systems and when they find child labor they eliminate it and provide remediation services for the former child laborers. GoodWeave has transformed the lives of thousands of children and is planning to expand their labelling program to other products. In a few years, we may have several more products that we can say with some certainty that they are child-labor free.

We ask consumers to educate themselves about the intersection of consumer goods and child exploitation. We ask them to support companies that are taking the extra step to eliminate child labor and forced labor. One company that we know well is Divine Chocolate. It works with farmer cooperatives in West Africa to produce Fairtrade chocolate, from locally produced cocoa. Farmers actually own a major share of this company and earn more income which, along with other measures, helps them avoid the use child labor which is rampant in the region’s cocoa production.

We’re a fan of Fairtrade America, also a member of the CLC, because it pays a premium price to farmers for engaging in better labor and environmental practices. Helping farmers prevent child labor and forced labor is one its stated goals and addressing endemic poverty is clearly part of the solution, thanks to committed companies and consumers like you. The incredible difficulty of monitoring remote farms, often hidden under jungle canopies, makes it difficult to say with certainty if products are produced without child labor. But, we love that groups are tackling this issue and working hard with farmers at finding solutions. Fairtrade embraces a “continuous improvement” model as it pursues its goal of child-labor and forced-labor free products.

Patagonia is one of several companies that are taking extra steps to produce products through a clean supply chain. How do consumers find such companies? We recommend checking out the efforts of individual companies online to ensure products are produced responsibly and that workers, including children, are not exploited.

We love that when they became aware of rampant child labor and forced labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields, many apparel companies began signing the “cotton pledge” promising to avoid buying Uzbek cotton for their clothing. To date, more than 270 companies have made this promise. We generally do not support the use of boycotts, which can lead to deprivation for impoverished rural communities, but when state-sponsored forced labor is in play, we make an exception.

We should note that it’s important that consumers have a critical eye when researching companies, because, as many advocates have noted, some companies talk about “corporate social responsibility (CSR)” but their efforts may not go far enough to address issues of child and forced labor. It can be difficult for consumers to tell the difference between CSR efforts that are “window-dressing” versus those that are substantive.

We also ask consumers to support legislation that helps address the problem. In 2012, California passed the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act, which requires large companies to post information online about their efforts to fight human trafficking, slavery, and child labor if the companies are, in fact, engaged in those efforts. The legislation is not a panacea, but it is an important step in the right direction. The CLC and its members have worked on federal legislation that would do the same thing. Unfortunately, the bill has not been re-introduced in the current Congress. We need consumers to call their member of Congress and tell them how important such initiatives are. In the Netherlands, legislation is being considered that would require companies to remove child slavery and child labor from their supply chains—not just report on efforts.

We dream of a day when consumers will be armed with the knowledge they need to make informed shopping decisions and that child labor will become a thing of the past. We ask for your help in bringing about these goals by expressing your concerns to retailers and supporting existing efforts. When consumers make it clear that they expect products to be produced without the taint of child labor and child slavery, we believe companies will work harder to achieve that goal.

Reid Maki is the Director of Child Labor Advocacy for the National Consumers League, America’s oldest consumer advocacy organization; he also coordinates the Child Labor Coalition, which NCL co-chairs. The CLC includes 38 groups fighting to reduce child labor in the U.S. and abroad.

Ambulance costs need regulation, transparency – National Consumers League

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One worry people facing life-threatening emergencies shouldn’t have is the cost of an ambulance. Yet a recent article in the Washington Post highlighting a study by Kaiser Health News notes the wildly varying charges of taking an ambulance and the emergence of venture capital firms in owning ambulance services, of which there are 14,000 across the country.

One patient was billed $3,606 for a 4-mile ride; another was charged $8,460 for a ride from one hospital and then to another. These are generally out-of-network charges that patients can neither predict nor control, resulting when the insured’s company can’t come to an agreement on proper reimbursement for the ambulance and so it is left to outside services to charge whatever they want.

Think about this: most ambulances use to be free! Provided by local volunteers or town fire departments. But today, private companies or venture capital firms often run what have become lucrative businesses, putting patients at risk of exorbitant bills they aren’t able to pay. Two scenarios are particularly common: calling 911 or being transferred between hospitals.

Once the service is provided and billed to the patient, the insurance company pays what it deems to be a fair charge and leaves the patient with the balance. The Better Business Bureau received 1,200 complaints on ambulances over three years. And United Health Care has said: “Out of network ambulance companies should not be using emergencies as an opportunity to bill patients excessive amounts when they are at their most vulnerable.” Yet that is exactly what is happening to unwitting patients who think calling 911 is a service provided by their municipality.

There’s also evidence of waste and fraud in the ambulance business, where providers bill Medicare or Medicaid for rides never provided or rides to the wrong facilities to the tune of $50 million. But the Kaiser Health News report is focused on the fleecing of patients who need an ambulance and are unaware  of the  outrageous charges they will be asked to pay. The biggest ambulance company, American Medical Response, charged a man $7,109 for a 20 mile ride between hospitals. When he couldn’t pay it, they sent the bill to a collections agency. Kaiser Health News documents how debt collectors hound patients for the extra fees once their insurance company pays a base amount.

California passed a law in July that protects consumers from surprise medical bills by out-of-network providers that could offer some protections. Congressman Lloyd Doggett  (D-TX) has been pushing a bill to protect patients from out-of-network charges, but it doesn’t seem to be moving.

Patients should check with their local fire department, which might provide ambulance services and with their health plan to see what ambulances are in network. Without those protections, patients are vulnerable to being fleeced by ambulance providers in it for the money. Bottom line: Ambulance services are there to save lives. They should not be a lucrative profit center for venture capitalists or anyone else.

DOT’s gift to the big three airlines is coal in passengers’ stockings – National Consumers League

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December 7, 2017

Contact: Cindy Hoang, (202) 207-2832 or cindyh@nclnet.org

Washington, DC–The Department of Transportation (DOT) *today announced that it will abandon efforts to address rampant add-on fees that are major irritants for millions of consumers. By withdrawing two key rulemakings — the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Ancillary Airline Passenger Revenues and the Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Transparency of Airline Ancillary Service Fees — the DOT is signaling that it will allow airlines to continue taking money from consumers’ pockets and generating billions of dollars worth of add-on fees without any meaningful oversight.

The following statement is attributable to Sally Greenberg, Executive Director of the National Consumers League:

“The Big Three airlines just got an early Christmas present from the DOT and airline passengers got scrooged. The fees juggernaut driven by the legacy airlines that saddles consumers with add-on fees shows no sign of slowing. In 2017, the Big Three U.S. airlines — American, Delta, and United — collected more than *$11 billion dollars in ancillary revenue in the face of growing outrage by the flying public over this rampant nickel-and-diming.

Under the Obama Administration, at the urging of consumer advocates, the DOT began the long overdue process of examining the effect of these fees on the flying public and ways to ensure that airlines can’t hide these fees in fine print. Since 2010, these fees have increased by 13%. Because these fees are exempted from excise taxes, they are doubly lucrative for the airlines, costing taxpayers $309 million annually, according to the GAO.

The administration’s decision, a top priority of the industry, will lead to decreased competition, and add needless cost and confusion to consumer’s shopping experience. Simply requiring airlines to publish the full price of a ticket, including baggage fees, is not too much to ask. In its recent study, the GAO identified the differences in airlines’ a la carte systems, as pain points for consumers and a contributor to the rising cost of airline travel for consumers.

Today’s actions show that the risk of regulatory capture at the Trump DOT is very real. Congress must step in and take action to protect consumers through the passage of the *FAIR Fees Act, a bill that would ensure that ancillary fees are reasonable and proportional to the cost of providing a service.“

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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.

 

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings.

 

Consumer group objects to unlawful transition of power at CFPB – National Consumers League

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November 28, 2017

Contact: Cindy Hoang, (202) 207-2832 or cindyh@nclnet.org

Washington, DC—The National Consumers League (NCL), the nation’s oldest consumer and worker advocacy organization, announced it support for the actions of former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Richard Cordray appointing his Deputy at the Bureau, Leandra English, as acting head of the agency. Director Cordray stepped down from the Bureau on November 24. NCL is calling on President Trump to respect the leadership process outlined in the Dodd Frank Act for independent agencies such as CFPB, which he failed to do when he appointed Mick Mulvaney as acting director.

Congress, in drafting Dodd-Frank, set out to harmonize the law with the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, which states that its general provision for presidential appointment of an acting official without a Senate vote in the event of a vacancy does not apply to agencies where “a statutory provision … designates an officer or employee to perform the functions and duties of a specified office temporarily in an acting capacity.” The statutory delegation of leadership authority over the CFPB to the Deputy Director in the event of the Director’s absence is exactly what the statute’s drafters had in mind.

The following statement can be attributed to NCL’s Executive Director Sally Greenberg:  

The CFPB statute, created under the Dodd-Frank Act, specifically notes that the Director ‘shall appoint a deputy to run the agency if the director slot is vacant.’ It’s directive, not permissive language. We question President Trump’s direct and immediate designation of a new head of the agency without following the process for independent agencies. That process would include a nomination of an individual to lead the agency, followed by Senate hearings, followed by a vote in the Senate to confirm.

The CFPB, like the Federal Reserve Board Chair and its respective appointments, was designed to do its work free from Congressional pressure or special interests. The Bureau is a watchdog over financial sector abuses like payday lending, predatory student loan and debt collection policies, and the opening of phony bank accounts like the activities Wells Fargo engaged in.   

President Trump has circumvented appropriate procedure by naming Mick Mulvaney, his Office of Management and Budget Director, as the Acting Director of the CFPB. The move is an affront to CFPB independence and is constitutionally and procedurally wrong. The federal courts will need to rule on the interpretation of the statute.

Mick Mulvaney is the wrong choice for additional reasons, as well. He is already serving as head of the Office of Management and Budget. He is on record as having said the Bureau, which has returned $12 billion to 29 million American consumers, is a “sad, sick joke” and that he wants to see it abolished. He is a threat to the CFPB’s track record as an independent agency working on behalf of consumers. Consumers would be seriously harmed by Mulvaney, who is not an independent actor and lacks any record of supporting consumer protections.

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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.

The world gathers to fight child labor at the 4th Global Conference on the Sustained Eradication of Child Labour – National Consumers League

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The world is making significant progress in removing the scourge of child labor—there are 94 million fewer child laborers today than there were 16 years ago. I believe one of the reasons for this progress is the coming together of governments, worker groups, and human rights and child rights groups every four years for an international conference for focused strategy sessions on reducing child labor. I realize that there might be some skepticism that a conference could make much difference, but hear me out.

This year’s conference, organized by the government of Argentina and the International Labour Organization (ILO), took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina November 14-16 and brought together over 150 countries and nearly 3,000 individuals who are in some way involved in the fight against child labor. I was there representing the Child Labor Coalition (CLC), which is co-chaired by the National Consumers League (NCL) and the American Federation of Teachers, and has been fighting to reduce child labor for nearly three decades.

We heard many great panels. Several were about trying to confront work in agriculture—the most ubiquitous form of child labor (comprising 70 percent of the problem.) Others confronted hazardous work, which involves 73 million children—almost half of the child labor population which is currently 152 million. The CLC’s chair of our Domestic Issues Committee, Norma Flores Lopez, the, spoke movingly about her own experiences working in U.S. fields as a child farmworker. Norma stated her belief that racial discrimination plays a part in persistence of child labor. Most children impacted by child labor are children of color, she noted. Authorities, she suggested, feel less pressure to remedy the exploitation of racial and ethnic minorities. Conference participants seemed stunned to learn that the U.S. has a child labor problem—our lax child labor laws allow children to work in agriculture beginning at age 12 and kids are allowed to work unlimited hours as long as they do not miss school. Some children work 80-90 hour weeks, performing back-breaking labor in stifling heat. 

Jo Becker, a child rights specialist for Human Rights Watch and an active member of the CLC, spoke about hazardous work and the dangers children are routinely subjected to in the fields and other dangerous locations. Becker has been a leader in campaigns to remove children from combat, from mines, and from tobacco farms in recent years. She noted that Brazil lists child tobacco work as hazardous but the U.S. does not—something that the U.S. government needs to fix. In 2014, Human Rights Watch published a ground-breaking report, “Tobacco’s Hidden Children: Hazardous Child Labor in US Tobacco Farming,” based on interviews with children working on American tobacco farms found that more than half had suffered symptoms that correlated with nicotine poisoning.

Both Norma Flores Lopez and Sue Longley of the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Association spoke about sexual harassment that girls and young women experience in agriculture.

Tim Ryan, representing the Solidarity Center, the Global March Against Child Labor and the CLC, spoke about the importance of freedom of association and collective bargaining. Workplaces where unions exist, he suggested, typically have no child labor. Collective bargaining also empowers workers and increases wages. If parents can earn a living wage, there is much less need to bring children into the workforce, Ryan suggested.

We learned about progress in helping children that is being made around the world. Officials from Pakistan told us that child labor in brick kilns has been reduced by 83 percent. A Ghanaian official told us that 95 percent of children in his country are now in school, although there is still a great deal of child labor.

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Kailash Satyarthi, a close friend of the CLC, noted that child and indentured labor in Asian carpets has been reduced from one million to 250,000. Satyarthi spoke about the importance of educating the world’s out-of-school youth, noting that $22 billion would be sufficient to get all children into school. Without access to education, the elimination of child labor cannot happen, suggested Satyarthi.

There were many valuable insights at the conference, but I believe that the conference’s importance has a lot to do with bringing governments to the same place where inevitably the governments feel pressure to report progress. The countries—more than 150 of them—know that they will meet again in four years and will need to account for their lack of progress in reducing child labor.

The conference’s plenary session on its last day featured nearly 100 pledges from over 90 countries, worker rights groups, and nonprofits. In these pledges, participants identified strategies that they think will reduce child labor over the next four years as we move to the 2025 deadline set under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 8.7, which calls for the complete elimination of child labor. I had the privilege of making a pledge for the CLC. We pledged to work with Congress and the U.S. government to close the loopholes in child labor law that allow children to work at 12 in agriculture and to work to reduce hazardous work in US agriculture that is harming the health of thousands of children every year.

Kailash Satyarthi confided in participants that he hoped there would be no need for another global child labor conference—that we might end the scourge of child labor in the next four years. That is his dream—one we all share.

 

Americans support unions – National Consumers League

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Sally2017_92px.jpgOne of the great stories of 2017 is that despite what the business community would have us believe, 61 percent of adults in the U.S. say they approve of labor unions. This is the highest approval rating since the 65 percent approval recorded in 2003. And currently, the labor union approval is up five percentage points from last year, according to polling by Gallup.

Historically, unions have enjoyed strong support from the American public. In 1936, 72 percent of Americans approved of labor unions. Union approval peaked in the 1950’s when it reached 75 percent in 1953 and 1957.

It’s impressive that despite consistent efforts to undermine the union movement by ALEC and the Chamber of Commerce, the same poll showed that Republicans’ approval of unions rose since last year, possibly due to the presidency of Republican Donald Trump.

Even among young Republicans, 55 percent of those younger than 30 looked favorably on unions, compared to 32 percent of those 50 and older. Meanwhile, 49 percent Republicans without a college degree favored unions, compared to 28 percent of college-educated Republicans.

The same poll showed that 39 percent of Americans would like unions to have more influence–the highest figure recorded in the 18 years Gallup has surveyed this question.

For the past 80 years, unions have been an integral part of the American labor force. Since 1936, shortly after Congress legalized private sector unions and collective bargaining, U.S. adults have approved, sometimes overwhelmingly, of labor unions. Ten percent of Americans report personally being a union member, while 16 percent live in a union household, according to the poll.

The United Steelworkers, which represent 850,000 U.S. workers, issued this statement:

“It is gratifying to see that the popularity of unions has risen 13 points since 2009, particularly when wealthy, right-wing groups like ALEC and the State Policy Network are working every day to crush unions. The USW, the AFL-CIO and all of its member unions will continue working to end income inequality and improve the lives of all workers by ensuring they receive a fair share of the bounty created by their labor.”

When given the choice free from employer intimidation and anti-union messaging, unions win the day with workers, and why wouldn’t they? They give workers a say in things like decent raises, affordable healthcare, safer workplaces, job security, and a stable schedule.

Industries leaders big and small would benefit from having someone to talk to across the table. We can only hope that these promising new poll numbers will lead the way to greater worker access to unions and fairer distribution of wages and benefits.