Fee-for-service health care system deserves scrutiny – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

A new study reveals that doctors’ fees and salaries – especially those of medical specialists – in the United States are much higher than they are in other western countries. That actually shouldn’t come as a surprise. As Atul Gawende has written in a New Yorker magazine piece entitled “The Cost Conundrum,” a fee-for-service system of health care means that doctors get paid per procedure, so the more procedures they do, the more they get paid. There’s every incentive, then, for them to recommend medical procedures even when they may not be needed.

What surprised me about this study, done by Columbia University professor Sherry A. Glied (who now works for HHS), and one of her Columbia colleagues, was that the average orthopedic surgeon in the United States earns an average of $442,450! That means figuring in all of the doctors across the country, in expensive and less expensive communities, that’s the average. That’s a lot of money to earn in one year. In other countries, the average for orthopedic surgeons is more like $210,000.

Even American primary care doctors earn 1/3 more than their counterparts in places like Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the UK. The study concludes that the inflated cost of physician salaries in the United States is driving up the cost of health care without corresponding benefits to patients overall health.

I respect and admire doctors, and I understand that they are highly trained professionals who save lives and that most are deeply committed to their patients. But the payment model of fee-for-service for doctors must not be exempt from scrutiny as we seek to reduce the cost of health care in the United States.

Advocates force ouster of Uzbek official from Fashion Week over child labor issues – National Consumers League

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By Reid Maki, Child Labor Coalition Coordinator and NCL Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards

It’s not every day that you get your message through to one of the world’s most notorious dictators, but some of us in the child labor advocacy community think we may have just done that last week during New York City’s Fashion Week.

For several years, the Child Labor Coalition, 28 organizations working to end the labor exploitation of children around the world, has been deeply concerned about the forced use of child labor in Uzbekistan, where Islam Karimov has ruled with an iron fist for 21 years. Each fall, Uzbek school children and their teachers are forced to leave their classrooms and perform arduous hand-harvesting of cotton for up to two months. The children—estimates of their numbers range from several hundred thousand to almost two million—receive little or no pay and often perform this back-breaking work from young childhood and through college. The workers are charged for shelter and food and by the time those expenses are deducted their compensation is so small it would be fair to say they worked for little or no pay or “slave wages.” The profits of this labor tend to flow to Uzbekistan’s ruling elite. Unlike child labor in most countries, Uzbekistan’s occurs as a result of national policy filtered down to local government authorities.

Recently, members of the Cotton Advocacy Network and the Child Labor Coalition, led by the International Labor Rights Forum and other CLC members like the American Federation of Teachers and the Human Rights Watch highlighted this issue by targeting advocacy at Karimov’s daughter Gulnara, who in addition to being Uzbekistan’s ambassador to Spain is a fashion designer who was participating in Fashion Week, where designers from around the world hold shows to reveal their new clothing lines.

Since Gulnara Karimov has bragged about the use of “high quality” Uzbek cotton and is a member of Karimov government, the advocacy community felt that she could fairly be used as an advocacy target.

As ILRF and the Cotton Advocacy Network planned its protest, IMG, Fashion Week’s organizer, washed its hands of Gulnara’s controversial show by cancelling it. Gulnara then moved her fashion show to the stylish Manhattan restaurant Cipriani on 42nd Street for a private show on September 15th. About two dozen of us followed the show to let attendees know about Uzbekistan’s child labor problem. It appears that our efforts scared away Gulnara, who according to media reports, was nowhere to be found.

We shouted things like “Hey, hey, ho, ho—Child Labor’s got to go” and “Uzbek cotton is mighty rotten.” We were joined by several Uzbek nationals, including one who had been forced to work in the fields himself as a child. Another Uzbek man said his daughter is a college student in Uzbekistan and that she is forced to harvest cotton every afternoon. He told a reporter from the Guardian that “it is back-breaking work, very, very hard, and most children have to work from sunrise to sunset every day until the harvest is finished. No weekends, nothing, for two or three months.” One protestor, an American woman from Connecticut, carried a sign that said, “Free Abdul,” who she explained was an Uzbek exchange student that she hosted who has subsequently been jailed by the Karimov regime as a political prisoner. Photos of the rally can be found here.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVHNYRzCg7c&feature=related]

We handed out hundreds of leaflets and our protest received wide coverage about a dozen journalistic organizations including the New York Post, and Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

Members of the CLC conducted a similar protest outside the Embassy of Uzbekistan in 2009. At that time, some of us wondered if word of the protest would filter up to Karimov. With the ouster of his daughter from Fashion Week, we’re pretty sure Islam Karimov got the news this time.

If you would like clothing retailers to know about your concerns regarding Uzbek cotton, please consider adding your name to this Change.org petition (one of several targeting specific retail chains).

Airline industry disappoints consumers. Again. – National Consumers League

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$25 for one checked bag? Another $20 to choose your seat? Is it any wonder that the airline industry consistently scores the lowest in consumer satisfaction surveys? Earlier this summer, the American Customer Satisfaction index reported that, out of the 47 industries evaluated, airlines tied newspapers for the lowest-satisfaction rating, and airline satisfaction only continues to spiral downward.

The airline industry’s actions over the past few months will do nothing to improve consumer confidence. When the government failed to reauthorize the FAA in July, several federal taxes were discontinued, which could have meant a 15-percent break on airfare for passengers. Instead of passing the money saved from the tax holiday on to consumers, most airlines actually raised prices–allowing them to collect nearly $70 million a day, almost $500 million in total, before the FAA’s taxing authority was reinstated.

NCL, along with a coalition of consumer interest groups, condemned airline executives in a letter to the CEO of the Air Transport Association for their greed and lack of transparency in ticketing fees.

If airlines continue to exhibit this type of anti-consumer behavior, it’s a fair bet that the industry can expect a permanent spot on the bottom of the consumer satisfaction scale.

‘But Moooooommm!’ – help for parents shopping for tweens’ cell phones – National Consumers League

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By John Breyault, NCL Vice President of Public Policy, Telecommunications and Fraud

As kids head back to school this time of year, parents will undoubtedly soon be deluged with requests to buy cell phones for their children. Research shows that children are having these wishes fulfilled at progressively earlier ages, as well.

For example, a 2009 Pew Internet and American Life Project survey found that 5 percent of 16-year-olds say they received their first cell phone at age 11 or before. Conversely, 57 percent of 12-year-olds say they received their first cell phone at age 11 or before.

The complaints of family blogger Carol Brooks Ball mentioned recently are typical when it comes to parents’ headaches surrounding their tweens’ first phones:

“Both of my children have cell phones. And both phones, in my mind, were purchased for the sole purpose of keeping in touch. With me.

Them, not so much. To them, their cell phones serve the purpose of allowing virtually-constant contact with friends.

…

When I first got the kids their cell phones – when they were both ‘tweens’ – I learned the hard way about the cost of going over the wireless plan’s small monthly allotment for text messaging. My daughter quickly burned through the texting limit (my son wasn’t, and still isn’t, much of a texter; if I send him a text message, he calls me back).

While I soon set limits for my daughter due to her texting proclivities, I also quietly signed up for unlimited texting through my wireless carrier. But, how great it would have been to have had some objective guidance on the subject at the time.”

It’s for parents like Carol that NCL, through an educational grant from TracFone Wireless, has produced a new consumer guide for parents of tweens getting their child’s first cell phones.

When considering a tween’s first cell phone, parents have a number of important considerations to keep I mind. For example, an older teenager is likely to be using their phone to stay in touch while at an after-school job. On the other hand, a tween is less likely to be roaming far from home on their own, needing a phone only to call Mom for a ride home from soccer practice.

Older teens are more likely to be riding in cars with other teens, so a serious discussion about texting-while-driving will likely be in the cards. Pre-teens probably won’t find themselves without an adult in a car, but they do take their phones with them while on two wheels, so texting-while-biking should be a topic of discussion. Tweens also may not have had as much practice in taking care of their own personal (and expensive!) electronics as older teens.

To help parents with these and other issues, NCL’s new guide contains a wealth of tips for parents for figuring out why (or even if) your tween needs a cell phone, sorting through the vast universe of handsets and service plans and setting “rules of the road” for responsible use.

Welcome to the 2011-2012 LifeSmarts program year! – National Consumers League

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By Lisa Hertzberg, LifeSmarts Program Director

The pencils are sharpened, the new tennis shoes are squeezing the toes, and students across the country are primed to learn about consumer issues and tackle NCL’s competition about real-life: LifeSmarts.

LifeSmarts introduces middle school and high school students to real-world knowledge they can use now. We quiz them about workers’ rights, managing money, eating well, using technology, and much more.

Students may begin competing today!  Students can practice using the vast array of consumer resources available at lifesmarts.org, including practice quizzes.

Highlights at lifesmarts.org include:

  • TeamSmarts: Monthly 100-question quizzes focus on one topic area. Teams of students can work together and test their smarts against other teams from across the country. Prizes go to the top LifeSmarts and FCCLA teams each month. To warm up, try the practice quiz first (password: practice)

We are excited to kick-off the new LifeSmarts program year today! We expect it will be our best year yet. Join us!

We must remember…‘Invisible’ workers of 9/11 – National Consumers League

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By Michell K. McIntyre, Project Director, NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft

In a time when the union rights of public employees are under constant attack, when school teachers have to fight for their healthcare benefits and public works jobs are being slashed, we need to remember the time, sacrifice and importance of work these employees do. On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, we remember and honor the ones we lost, the ones who survived and the ones fighting to bring those responsible to justice. We also need to remember those ‘invisible’ workers who answered the call and did what they could on that awful day and the days following.

Greg Sargent, of the Washington Post’s Plum Line, wrote, “Dozens upon dozens of workers responded to the disaster with real grit and heroism, undertaking the grueling task of cleaning up the mess, digging through the rubble for the injured and the dead, sometimes searching for their own colleagues and friends, for days and days on end, under unspeakably stressful and wrenching conditions.”

AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, has created a video that highlights the work public employees did on that day at Ground Zero. It captures something fundamental about 9/11 that’s been mostly forgotten:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDVzSP1rQ0Q&feature=player_embedded]

“We were digging by hand,” recalls Patrick Bahnken, an emergency medical technician with the D.C. 37 Local 2507. “You’re talking 200 plus story buildings, and we’re digging it out by hand. And I knew that a large number of people that I’d be carrying out or looking for or trying to help, were people that I knew. And that made it very difficult. But again, you’re committed to going for those who would have come for you.”

“They wanted to do their job,” recalls Halloveen Brightly, a police communications specialist with the D.C. 37 Local 1549. “I mean, really wanted to go there and help those people. And you can hear it. I think we worked together really well that day. I hope that whatever they needed from me at that last time, I gave it to them. That’s all.”

According to AFSCME, some 343 firefighters and 60 police officers died as a result of 9/11 and many thousands more remain sick from respiratory ailments attributed to the disaster.

It’s time to stop the attacks on public employees. It’s time to start remembering and honoring the fundamental work these public employees do everyday.

Labor Day is too often a missed opportunity – National Consumers League

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By NCL Executive Director Sally Greenberg

This weekend we celebrated Labor Day. This should be a time to look back on the struggles of the American worker to achieve the rights and protections that too many of us take for granted today – an 8 hour day, an expectation of safe working conditions, children in school and not at a work site, minimum wage law protections, pay for overtime work, workers compensation and unemployment insurance. Each one of those protections was hard-won.

I think all of us – including the labor movement – could do a far better job of using Labor Day Weekend as a “teaching moment.” What’s the history of the union movement in this country? Why do we need unions? How many workers died in violent confrontations with owners of factories, mills and coal mines? Conditions were dangerous and the pay was low. In 1907, one coal mining accident in West Virginia killed 361 miners.

How about the women who worked in laundries at the turn of the century, (see the case brought by NCL – Muller vs. Oregon against laundry owner Curt Muller limiting the hours women could be forced to work) standing all day with few breaks, lifting soaking wet towels and sheets whose weight caused back and joint injuries, some of them pregnant or suffering chronic illnesses? Or African Americans who stood for 12 to 14 hours a day, often next to their children in a foot of water at canneries? Child labor was scandalous, with children as young as five and six going to work in mills and mines in America only 100 years ago.

I heard Teamsters President James Hoffa speaking over the weekend on the importance of good jobs with good benefits bringing us a middle class in America that can enjoy the fruits of our labor. He called Apple – the company – unpatriotic because they ship jobs overseas and sell their products here to affluent Americans. I see his point.

And sadly today, the middle class jobs that labor union membership can bring have dwindled, as has union membership. Union busting – of the kind we’ve seen with Boeing moving its operations from Washington State –a union friendly place, to South Carolina – an anti-union state, and attacks on the National Labor Relations Board in Congress are at a fever pitch.

But sorry to say we heard precious little about why unions came about over the weekend. That should change – NCL and others must be leaders in having that conversation and continuing to push for good jobs, good benefits and keeping jobs in the hands of the most productive and well-educated workforce in the world – U.S. workers.

Helping the exploited students at the Hershey plant – National Consumers League

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By Michell K. McIntyre, Project Director of NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft

As the nation’s oldest consumer advocacy group, who’s been protecting and promoting social and economic justice for workers and consumers, we were disturbed to learn about the exploitation the J-1 visa students experienced at a Hershey packing facility.  Since then we’ve sent a letter to the Hershey Company, partnered with various unions and explored ways to ensure that these terrible acts of exploitation are never repeated.
The International Union of Food Workers wrote a wonderful letter detailing the work unions have been doing to help the J-1 students and offer solutions to the Hershey staffing problem. Click here to read it.

Resale Price Maintenance should be illegal – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

I recently  received a call from a staffer for Congressman Hank Johnson (D-GA) who has been a leader in opposing a practice that organizations like ours regard as very anti-consumer: “Resale Price Maintenance (RPM).” RPM is the practice whereby a manufacturer and its distributors agree that the latter will sell the former’s product at certain prices (resale price maintenance), at or above a price floor  (minimum resale price maintenance) or at or below a price ceiling (maximum resale price maintenance). If a reseller refuses to maintain the price set by the retailer, either openly or covertly, the manufacturer may stop doing business with it.

In 2009 five groups – NCL, Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, American Antitrust Institute and US PIRG – asked Congress to overturn the 2007 Supreme Court case, Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc vs. PSKS, Inc. that made RPM legal. RPM used to be “per se” illegal under the antitrust laws but this case overturned 100 years of precedent.

Resale price maintenance prevents resellers from competing too fiercely on price. According to Wikipedia, RPM exists because: “ resellers worry it could drive down profits for themselves as well as the manufacturer. Some argue that the manufacturer may do this because it wishes to keep resellers profitable, and thus keeping the manufacturer profitable. Others contend that minimum resale price maintenance, for instance, overcomes a failure in the market for distributional services by ensuring that distributors who invest in promoting the manufacturer’s product are able to recoup the additional costs of such promotion in the price they charge consumers. Some manufacturers also defend resale price maintenance by saying it ensures fair returns, both for manufacturer and reseller and that governments do not have the right to interfere with freedom to make contracts.”

The 2009 consumer letter to Congress said that “it is unequivocal that RPM agreements raise consumer prices, prevent efficient retailers from passing on the benefits of their lower costs to consumers, and tend to retard the development of new forms of retailing. At the same time, the purported benefits to consumers of RPM agreements are dubious and even if such benefits exist, they can be achieved by less restrictive business practices.”

These words are true today, as they were in 2009 when we wrote the original letter. We urge members of Congress to overturn this unfortunate Supreme Court decision and applaud Congressman Hank Johnson for renewing his efforts to make RPM illegal once again.

Exploited student workers at Hershey – National Consumers League

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By Michell K. McIntyre, Project Director of NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft

Chocolate, sweets and indulgence—these are the things that come to mind when the Hershey Company is mentioned.  But now some might add irresponsible, exploitative and negligent.

On August 17th, 2011, hundreds of international exchange student workers (J-1 visa program participates) staged a sit-in at a Hershey packing facility and broke their silence on the exploitation they suffered at the hands of a Hershey contractor.

According to the State Department’s website, the J-1 visa program is designed to “provide an extremely valuable opportunity to experience the U.S. and our way of life, thereby developing lasting and meaningful relationships.”  Unfortunately, hundreds of students assigned to the Hershey Company got a different kind of experience.

According to the students, they paid between $3,000 and $6,000 to enter the J-1 visa program, hoping to learn about American culture and experience life in the US.  They ended up working as cheap labor to a contractor at a Hershey packing facility where, after suspicious paycheck deductions, they were making well below minimum wage.  The contractor assumed that, as foreign nationals, the students would never realize that they were the victims of wage theft and wouldn’t know whom to turn to for help.  Instead, the students organized themselves, got in touch with local unions, and brought their plight to the media.

It didn’t have to be this way.  I love exchange students, but if the contractor needed to staff the packing facility why didn’t they employ the thousands of unemployed workers in the area who would have loved to have a job with a living wage and decent benefits?  Is it because the contractor thought they could use cheap, below minimum wage student labor without getting caught?

In this case, there is plenty of blame to go around.  The Council for Educational Travel, who is supposed to be monitoring the student workers in the J-1 program; Hershey, who hired an unethical and possibly criminal contractor to staff and oversee their packing facility; and the contractor all share blame for these exploited foreign students.  Who is most at fault is not the question we should be asking but rather, what does that this say about American life?

To hear more about these brave students and their fight, please click here.