High fives from California team
After a day of meeting fellow LifeSmarts competitors and exchanging gifts from back home with sister teams, the competition heats up today as we embark on a full day of events. Today will feature both individual assessments and team matches. After a good night’s sleep the students are fired up and ready to start competing.
Students have begun arriving for the 2013 LifeSmarts National Championship in beautiful Atlanta. Students from 39 teams from every corner of America will travel to Atlanta to flex their consumer knowledge muscles at the four-day tournament. Check out LifeSmarts on Facebook and follow the competition on Twitter using #LifeSmarts2013 to see if your state will take the title of LifeSmarts 2013 champion.
By Michell K. McIntyre, Director of NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft
Yesterday was another frustrating day in Congress. Not only did the Senate cave with the gun vote, but a troubling bill advanced through the House of Representatives Education and Workforce Committee and will soon land on the House floor for a full vote. This measure passed unanimously along party lines in Committee and will presumably do the same in the full House.
The so-called “Working Families Flexibility Act” (H.R. 1406) is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It is NOT family friendly nor does it offer workers REAL flexibility in the workplace. The bill looks to change the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) overtime section by allowing private sector employers to “offer” employer-controlled compensatory (“comp”) time in place of paid overtime.
Last week, during the bill’s introduction, a parade of majority witnesses were singing the virtues of H.R. 1406, but under questioning it was revealed that those witnesses did not understand what the bill really said – it does not give employees the right nor protection to use their earned comp time when they want; rather it leaves the decision up to employers. It does not allow employees to easily take off to watch their children’s games or recitals nor does it allow them to stay home with a sick child.
What the “Working Families Flexibility Act” offers are empty promises of flexibility at work while doing an end run on the Fair Labor Standards Act. H.R. 1406 does not assure that the decision to substitute comp time for cash overtime payments will be voluntary. While the bill nominally makes it unlawful for an employer to coerce or intimidate an employee into accepting comp time, it does nothing to prevent an employer from discriminating – in hiring or in the award of overtime –against those employees who choose overtime compensation. Nor does it provide penalties that would deter employers from coercing employees into accepting comp time – a much cheaper alternative for employers than paying overtime wages, which can be one and half or twice the hourly wage.
This bill is an invitation to engage in wage theft. The reality is that employers have a lot more power in the workplace than employees and all too many workers are victimized by “wage theft” because of unscrupulous employers and because the Department of Labor does not have the resources to investigate many of the violations of the wage and hour laws. This bill gives employers another vehicle to exploit their employees.
The FLSA established the 40-hour workweek to limit exploitation of workers and overly long work days and work weeks. . These were hard won victories with NCL in the forefront of these battles. The landmark 1908 case of Muller vs. Oregon establishing the legality of limiting the work-week to 60 hours is a case in point.
The FLSA also encourages employers to hire more staff when workloads increase. Sadly, this odious bill would encourage employers to set the clock back by allowing them to receive the benefits of overtime work at no additional cost. Employers could pay workers nothing at all for overtime when the work is performed, and schedule comp time only at their convenience and not the employee’s convenience.
Employees deserve fair wages, safe working conditions, and more flexible schedules to meet both workplace and family needs. There are far better bills to support. They include the Healthy Families Act (H.R. 1286), Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 377), Fair Minimum Wage Act (H.R. 1010), and paid family and medical leave insurance so that all employees will be afforded more equitable, flexible and predictable working conditions. For more information on H.R. 1406 please look at the National Consumers League’s letter to House members and visit the Democratic Ed & Workforce Web site.
By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive DirectorLast month, the Federal Communications Commission announced that Julius Genachowski would soon be stepping down after four years as chairman. Now, all eyes are on the White House as it prepares to nominate his successor.
The FCC serves a critical role as a government watchdog and is charged with the important task of protecting the public interest in the telecommunications industry. Though the FCC is bound by law to weigh the interests and concerns of all parties, it is clear that consumers depend on the FCC to protect them and the public interest first and foremost.
Any consumer who has opened their mobile phone or cable bill in recent years understands the importance of having an FCC chair that is on their side. While the Obama Administration will undoubtedly consider a number of worthy candidates, we believe that the next FCC chair should have significant experience in public interest advocacy.
In the coming months and years, the FCC will consider a wide range of issues that impact consumers on a daily basis. Spectrum auctions will determine the shape of our mobile broadband future. The transition from a copper-based to IP-based telephone system will be felt by all Americans. Enforcement actions against fraudsters will protect millions of consumers.
The next FCC chair will play an enormous role in shaping how these and the myriad other issues the Commission handles on a daily basis are addressed. A background in public interest advocacy is therefore critical to helping that person understand how these issues affect consumers at a very basic level.
Washington is filled with lobbyists who have deep backgrounds in telecommunications and technology policy. They play an important role in helping the Commission address the often complex issues that it faces on a daily basis. That said, the FCC’s mission is to defend the public interest, not corporate bottom lines. Having someone at the top of the agency’s leadership who comes out of the public interest community will ensure that the FCC’s decisions reflect that critical responsibility.
By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive DirectorHurrah for Elizabeth Warren! The new Senator from Massachusetts is shining a bright light on so-called financial regulators from her perch on the Senate Banking Committee. This past week Warren asked officials from the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Reserve to provide information to the public and the Committee.
These two federal agencies – each with responsibility for overseeing financial institutions – proved pathetically unwilling and unable to protect the public during the financial meltdown of 2008.
Warren and banking committee colleagues asked Daniel Stipano of the OCC to turn over information on what happened that led to massive foreclosures in 2008. Stipano claims there is a “longstanding policy not to publish information deemed part of the bank oversight process.” Stipano also said disclosing investigative findings by outside consultants in their review of the foreclosure crisis would make “institutions less willing to be forthcoming with us” during bank examinations.
The problem, which former FDIC Chief Sheila Bair describes in her book “Bull by the Horns,” is that these consulting firms are hired to review bank practices and paid princely sums to do so by the very banks themselves, which is a built-in bias.
PricewaterhouseCoopers told the Senate it received a whopping $425 million to conduct reviews for US Bancorp, Citigroup, and SunTrust Banks. The total amount made for conducting reviews is roughly $2 billion.
Senator Jack Reed, a great consumer champion himself, argued at the hearing that the consulting firms should be paid by the regulators instead. That’s a good idea – it does mean that tax dollars could be going to pay these fees (though there could be fund created to pay for consultant review by imposing a surtax on banks) but there are two advantages. First, the government can negotiate consultant services for much lower rates (government doesn’t always strike great bargains for professional services but it often does), and second, this would remove the bias inherent in banks hiring consultants to review their practices.
One thing is clear: Senator Warren’s voice on the banking committee is proving to be the game changer consumer advocates had hoped for.
By Teresa Green, Linda Golodner Food Safety & Nutrition Fellow
The President’s budget, released earlier this week, has garnered a lot of media attention. There have been criticisms and questions from all sides. As a member of a coalition of labor and food safety advocates, my main concern was the inclusion of savings from the implementation of a new model of poultry inspection.
We’ve been talking about this program for a long time, advocating against it and trying to raise public concern. The concerns that we have enumerated before still stand; we are gravely troubled by the fact that the program could potentially increase the rates of certain foodborne illnesses and would put workers at a higher risk for musculoskeletal injuries. These injuries are caused by repetitive motion and the rule would allow plants to process up to 175 birds per minute; that’s three birds per second!
Clearly USDA disagrees with our assessment of the program—hence the inclusion of the program’s projected savings in the budget. They insist that these changes will improve rates of foodborne illness and will have no impact on workers. Given the number of unanswered questions that remain, we feel moving forward with this program would be irresponsible. What advocates are suggesting isn’t radical; study the impact of changes, to both food and worker safety, before making them. And if those studies show the changes would be harmful, don’t make them just to save a few bucks.
By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive DirectorI was watching the NCAA basketball Final Four this past week and asking myself, what happened to college sports? What about the idea that sports is a part of college life, not the only part; naïve, I know. But March Madness takes the obsession with college sport to a whole new level. How did these games become an enormous media frenzy, especially basketball, generating tens of millions of dollars and commercials every few minutes and huge corporate sponsorships. These players are amateurs and are forbidden from earning a dime from their labor. But someone – who? – is benefitting from huge amounts of money being generated.
I opened the pages of The Nation and found some answers. Dave Zirin, one of the few journalists who is a critic of the sports industry, had written a piece about March Madness. Zirin says that most of the programs don’t make money – but that the NCAA leadership greedily pays itself millions in salaries and coach salaries have soared: average annual pay has ballooned to $1.64 million for football coaches. The president of the NCAA, Mark Emmert, refuses to discuss his seven-figure salary, or offer any perspective on the money juggernaut of the NCAA.
Emmert rejects the notion that student athletes should be paid something – anything – for their labor. “The student athletes are students. They are not employees.” A former college football player, Zirin writes about how much things have changed since he played in the 1960s. “When I played at Syracuse …it wasn’t like that. We had a regular season and 20 days of spring practice. Now it’s year-round. …you get hurt…tough, you’re out. And there’s no workers’ comp for injuries.”
Turns out the 68-team basketball tournament that makes up March Madness generates 90 percent of the NCAA’s operating budget. In that budget is included total compensation for NCAA top execs, nearly $6 million, with the President earning $1.1 million. Revenue also comes from video games, posters, jerseys, and boutique credit cards featuring images of popular athletes.
ESPN is deeply ensconced in this money machine generated by March Madness, acting as the number one broadcaster of college sports, so there’s no critique from ESPN. Meanwhile, the student athletes get no compensation for their spectacular performance. Zirin quotes a coach: “look at the money we make off predominantly poor black kids…” Desmond Howard, who won the Heisman trophy playing for Michigan in 1991, called the system “wicked,” telling USA Today, you “see everyone getting richer and richer. And you walk around and you can’t put gas in your car? You can’t even fly home to see your parents.”
Zirin recommends the following reforms:
We’ve come so far from the days when college athletes were college students first, and athletes second. These reforms would go a long way toward bringing those old, more sane times back.
By Michell K. McIntyre, Director of NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act, signed into law by President John F. Kennedy in 1963 when women were averaging 56 cents for every dollar men made. While progress has been made, women now average 77 cents for every dollar men make, the pay gap remains. Today, 99 days into 2013, is Equal Pay Day. This day symbolizes the extra time needed for women to earn the same salary as their male counterparts in 2012.
President Obama highlighted this pay disparity during his 2012 campaign and painted his opponent as out of touch with the issue. The 2012 election also welcomed a record number of female senators providing an ideal landscape for finally passing the Paycheck Fairness Act. This bill would prohibit companies from penalizing employees for sharing salary information, and force companies to demonstrate that pay discrepancies are not related to gender.
The fact that women get less money for equal work is not only a women’s issue but also a family issue. At a time when women increasingly are the breadwinners, 71 percent of mothers are part of the labor force, a pay gap unfairly targets children in households with single mothers or where both parents work. The pay gap, when calculated over the course of a year, means women receive on average $10,784 less than males performing similar work. That figure is increased among African American women and Hispanic women, who make $19,575 and $23,873 less respectively than a white non-Hispanic male performing the same job. Using these figures, the Department of Labor estimates that women make on average $380,000 less over the course of their careers. That is a huge sum of money when trying to put a child through college, buying healthy groceries for the dinner table, or paying the rent.
Despite the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first bill signed into law by President Obama in 2009, more work needs to be done to ensure women have the resources and tools they need to confront discrimination and challenge unfair practices in the courts. Current law forces women to jump through too many hoops in order to make claims of gender discrimination. The Paycheck Fairness Act would reduce those obstacles and lower those walls in an attempt to finally achieve equal pay for equal work. It’s time to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act!
By Sandra Latouff, NCL Fraud and Policy Intern
Last week, the FTC announced the winners of the Robocall Challenge. The winners, Serdar Danis and Aaron Foss will each be receiving $25,000 and a trip to Washington, DC for an opportunity to present their innovations. The Challenge asked innovators to create solutions that will block illegal robocalls for both landlines and mobile phones. A robocall is a term for a phone call that uses a computerized auto dialer to deliver a pre-recorded message.
In 2012, the FTC received about 200,000 complaints per month from consumers about robocalls! In an effort to fend off robocalls, some consumers have turned to the FTC’s Do Not Call Registry. Currently, 220 million consumers have registered their numbers on the Registry, but even with the Registry consumers nationwide are still being pestered by robocalls. In an effort to help the public fight against the creative methods robocalls are reaching consumers, the FTC created the Robocall Challenge to gather creative and efficient ideas from participants that could be successful. The hope of the FTC is that by hosting the Robocall Challenge a winning idea will catch the attention of private companies and eventually find its way to the marketplace for consumer protection.
Danis’s proposal, titled “Robocall Filtering System and Device with Autonomous Blacklisting, Whitelisting, GrayListing and Caller ID Spoof Detection”, would analyze and block robocalls using software that could be implemented as a mobile app, an electronic device in a user’s home, or a feature of a provider’s telephone service. Foss’s proposal, called Nomorobo, is a cloud-based solution that would use “simultaneous ringing,” which allows incoming calls to be routed to a second telephone line. In the Nomorobo solution, this second line would identify and hang up on illegal robocalls before they could ring through to the user. A third proposal from Google engineers Daniel Klein and Dean Jackson won the Technology Achievement Award. Klen and Jackson’s solution would involve using automated algorithms that identify “spam” callers.
As a result of the Robocall Challenge, the FTC created a video compiling submissions that focused on what consumers are doing right now to reduce illegal robocalls. Here are some of the tips:
Consumers should also be sure to check the Terms of Service for any new program or offer when applying. An agreement to receive phone calls (i.e. robocalls) may be buried deep within the fine print.
If you have any tips or suggestions on how you prevent or stop robocalls, the FTC invites consumers to share their knowledge on their Facebook page. Click here for more information about the Robocall Challenge and its winners.
By Teresa Green, Linda Golodner Food Safety & Nutrition Fellow
On January 4, 2011 President Obama signed the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) into law. The culmination of years of work by advocates, victims of foodborne illness and their families, and the regulated food industry, FSMA was seen as a game changer. It gave FDA new power to regulate food safety. Most importantly, once fully implemented, FSMA was designed to transform FDA from an agency whose primary mission is response to foodborne illness to one working proactively to prevent these outbreaks from occurring at all.
An essential part of establishing this new paradigm is a series of proposed rules, four of which were scheduled to be released in January 2012. As January passed, followed by February, then spring, summer, and fall, the clamoring from advocates and the industry for the release of the rules grew louder and louder. Finally, in January 2013, a year later, two of the four rules were released. These two rules address produce safety and preventive controls in processed food.
Earlier this week FDA released an additional set of documents that can help to explain some of the reasons for the long delay. These documents show that the two rules were held up at OMB (the agency that must review all agency rulemaking), where extensive changes were made to their content. Most notably, OMB removed requirements for environmental and end-product pathogen testing as well as a proposed supplier approval verification program.
While what remains is still an improvement over the existing system, it is far weaker than what FDA had initially proposed. There are likely many reasons why these changes were made, but these considerations will matter very little to the parents of a child whose foodborne illness could have been prevented by one of the nixed measures.
The work of the National Consumers League is making a difference in people’s lives across the country. Meet some of the consumers touched by our programs.
Read about NCL’s impact
Paige, 55, a Nashville wife and mother of two, answered an employment ad for secret shoppers. Before sending payment to the scammers, she reached out to NCL.
Read about NCL’s impact
A grease fire flared up in Decklan’s kitchen. As his family scrambled and panicked, fearing that the whole house might erupt in flames, Decklan remained calm. He hurried over to the pantry, grabbed some baking soda, and dumped it on the fire quickly extinguishing the blaze.
Read about NCL’s impact
Cincinnati resident Charles, 45, lost his computer business — and health insurance— during a time of economic downturn. A diabetic, Charles was now unable to afford his medication. He stopped taking it which made him seriously ill and put his life at risk.
Read about NCL’s impact
Jeremy is a fast-food worker who has been employed at a number of Chipotle restaurants in New York City. When he was just 20 years old, he took part in an NCL research project that revealed that management practices within the fast food chain were putting workers—and food safety for customers—at risk.
Read about NCL’s impact
By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director
While the COVID-19 pandemic has led to hardship for all Americans, it is clear that people of color have been disproportionately burdened. Across the health care continuum, addressing this disparity has become part of the broader conversation about the history of systemic racism and the underlying social determinants of health that negatively affect the mental, physical, and economic health of individuals and entire communities.
The pandemic has underscored persistent health disparities, and there is growing recognition that representation in research and clinical trials can have a profound impact on health outcomes. A lack of representation from racially and ethnically diverse groups in research and clinical trials have typically led to gaps in data, missing the opportunity to assess the full impact of various treatments and drugs across a range of populations. The collection and use of real-world research and data to inform the potential use, risks, and benefits of medical products and treatments can ultimately lead to better health outcomes, particularly for those who have been underrepresented in the past.
Existing efforts to improve inclusion
Efforts to expand diversity and representation in medical research are underway in Congress. Policymakers are encouraging the incorporation of Real World Evidence (RWE) in drug development through the recent Cures 2.0 draft legislation released by Reps. Diana Degette (D-CO-1) and Fred Upton (D-MI-6). While the status quo limits us from effectively reaching underserved populations, the proposed legislation would allow studies that include RWE for some drugs after they have been approved. At the heart of this issue is a growing appreciation that the same therapy can affect different populations in different ways, which is why Cures 2.0 supports collecting data that more accurately reflects the unique experiences and needs of patients across diverse populations.
Recognizing the potential for RWE in maternal health
The lack of representative research in the field of maternal health is undeniable, and its implications are staggering. The dismal state of maternal care in the United States reflects how our health care system has failed women of color, including by not adequately studying treatment options to prevent maternal morbidity and mortality. The need for RWE is clear when you consider the persistent disparities in health outcomes that plague minority communities.
Preterm birth and its disproportionate impact on women of color is a stark illustration of the need to make progress on representative research in maternal health. Preterm birth is the second-largest contributor to infant death in America today. Despite the tremendous physical, emotional, and financial toll that preterm birth continues to take on our country — disproportionately so on women and families of color — not enough therapeutic tools currently exist to prevent it.
Today, “17P,” the only FDA-approved treatment to help reduce the likelihood of spontaneous, recurrent preterm birth in the United States is at-risk of being withdrawn from the market in all its forms, including the branded product and five generic versions. Unfortunately there is conflicting evidence from two different clinical trials, one representative of a diverse U.S. population and another studied in a largely white population in Europe. It’s not a straightforward comparison. If 17P is withdrawn, the women most affected by preterm birth, predominantly women of color, would be left without an FDA-approved treatment option.
The FDA is considering the path forward, including additional data collection through leveraging RWE from past patient use. The success of the first (approval) trial for 17P in the impacted communities signals the importance of RWE. Continued access to 17P is, at its core, a matter of health equity. Black women must not yet again be left vulnerable to a system that historically has overlooked them.
