Holidays are often busy times for people spending time with families and friends. With sunshine, good company, and fireworks to come, food safety might not be the first thing on your mind, but when picnicking and barbecuing it can be challenging to keep your food safe.  Here are a few tips on how to keep your food free from harmful bacteria that cause foodborne illnesses:

• Keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold.  At outdoor temperatures, harmful bacteria grow rapidly.
• Never save leftovers.  Discard anything left over.
• Discard prepared food if it has been at room temperature for more than 2 hours.

For more detailed information on keeping food safe while picnicking, check out these links on “Safe Picnicking and Grilling”  and “Safety on Your Picnic.”

If you’re going camping this weekend, here is a handy checklist to make sure you’re remembering everything you need to have a safe and enjoyable adventure.

Have a safe and enjoyable Independence Day!

by Brandi Williams, LifeSmarts Program Assistant

As a newcomer to the National Consumers League, the 2009 LifeSmarts National Competition, held in St. Louis, Missouri from April 25 – 28, was my first opportunity to experience the energy that teens from around the country bring to the realm of consumer education. More than 300 students, coaches, families, sponsors, and volunteers from across the country converged in St. Louis for the four-day event, which was brought to an exciting conclusion when the final match between Washington state and Wisconsin was decided, and the Oconto High School team from Wisconsin emerged as the 2009 LifeSmarts National Champions . The semi-final and final matches were streamed live online by our friends at NextGenWeb! You can view the archive here.

Teens face similar challenges as their parents in making wise consumer choices. They are using the Internet to search for jobs, scholarships and information; they are opening bank accounts and depositing paychecks; they are analyzing costs and benefits to make responsible purchases of items like wireless phones, laptops, MP3 players, clothes and cars – and all the while developing the necessary skills for making financially and environmentally sound decisions. LifeSmarts teaches teens life skills and the value of consumer savvy in a variety of situations where marketplace skills and responsible decision-making are needed.

Coaches use the LifeSmarts.org site for finding relevant curricula to educate teens in the areas of health and safety, technology, personal finance, consumer rights and responsibilities, and the environment. Then, in a format that teens can relate to – a game-show – teens test their skills and knowledge through an online competition. Teams are formed, compete, and those with the highest scores then move on to an in-person state-wide competition, where the 1st place team is then invited to represent their state at the National LifeSmarts Championship.

Being at the National Competition showed me that these teens are excited about learning. The current state of our economy has shocked many teens into understanding the importance of making responsible financial decisions, making them eager to learn the skills they need and put them to use. Many people use the LifeSmarts.org site for personal education only. Participating in LifeSmarts, which is an extracurricular activity, is a personal choice for young adults who want to develop consumer and marketplace skills and carry them into adulthood. And while Oconto High School is the 2009 LifeSmarts National Champion, all LifeSmarts participants are champions in my book.

by Amos Budde, NCL Policy Intern

Once again, news from Capitol Hill:  The House Energy and Commerce committee held a full committee markup on the Food and Safety Enhancement Act yesterday, and it was unanimously adopted and to be sent to the House for a full vote.  Each year, 76 million Americans suffer foodborne illnesses; 5,000 die.  After the recent food scares and recalls of peanut butter, spinach, beef, berries, pet food, tomato products, and more, restoring confidence in the safety of our food supply has finally become a priority in Congress.  This bill aims to fix the gaps in our regulatory system, so that consumers can be sure that their food is safe to eat.

The Food Safety Enhancement Act gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) much-needed regulatory authority in a variety of areas, including:

• Registering food facilities – All food producers in the US must register with the FDA and pay a $500 registration fee that will fund the new safety measures.

• More inspections – “High risk” food facilities will be inspected every 6 – 18 months.  Many of these facilities are currently inspected only once per decade!

• Electronic traceability – Food producers must have a “trace back” and “trace forward” system to track of where food is coming from and going to.

• Giving the FDA more enforcement bite – The bill substantially increases fines for noncompliance with safety legislation.

• Mandatory recalls – The FDA did not have the authority to do so previously; with the passage of this bill, they will.

The FDA will now be better able to detect problems when they arise and then respond more quickly and effectively.  Follow this link for a more in-depth look at the bill’s contents.

The most encouraging thing about this new approach is that stakeholders from all sides of the debate are coming together to support this bill.  Both Democrats and Republicans in the committee shared personal stories about how food poisoning or other illnesses had affected their own lives and those of their constituents.  Agricultural corporations and organizations like the Grocery Manufacturers of America recognize that food safety concerns were costing industries hundreds of millions of dollars each time a recall was required.

To build consensus and get broad support, the legislation failed to address some important issues, such as the extensive use of human antibiotics in livestock.  Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) offered an amendment on this issue, and while Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) said he sympathized with Schakowsky, he noted that the issue was not being addressed because it was too controversial.

In what will certainly be a contentious year for the Energy and Commerce Committee, (it has to produce both the Climate Change and Health Care Reform legislation) it seemed like the members were enjoying yesterday’s bipartisanship.  As long as this bill remains free of deal-breakers, it should soon become law.

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

Over the past few days I’ve been participating in the annual Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue, or TACD in Brussels. The organization is celebrating its 10 year anniversary, these days bringing together more than 80 consumer organizations, from both the American and European sides, to discuss issues jointly and press international officials on their responses to a range of consumer concerns. On the European side, 31 countries participated with the group “BEUC” acting as the European umbrella consumer organization.

TACD was launched by consumer advocates on both sides of the Atlantic as a way of balancing the Trans Atlantic Business Dialogue. TACD has proved a valuable tool for advancing the consumer cause internationally. In Brussels, consumers had a day of meetings, consulted with one another about joint concerns, shared our respective legislative or administrative initiatives, and planned for our meetings with government officials. On the second day, we talked with these officials and shared questions and concerns. From the United States, we met with representatives from the office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the FDA, and the FTC stationed in Brussels. On our last evening, we were invited to the American mission in Brussels for a reception and a meeting with the top American officer, the Charge d’Affaires Christopher Murray.

On our agenda were many current pressing consumer issues, including financial services, advertising to children, global warming, food safety, nanotechnology, product safety, and intellectual property concerns.

Sadly, when the American economy goes south, markets across the globe are brought down with it. With the world’s economy in a tailspin and unemployment rates up higher than they’ve been in decades, the condition of the banking systems in Europe and the United States has greater significance than it has in many decades.  Consumer advocates at TACD talked at length about efforts to learn from this economic crisis – a crisis that has reduced by 40 percent the value of retirement and college savings. We are keenly aware that our system collapsed under the weight of an array of risky financial products and faulty mortgages in the areas of the American banking system that are lacking in proper regulation. We all discussed strategies for putting better protections in place for consumers.

Another issue growing in importance to consumers is nanotechnology, the use of tiny particles now found many of the products consumers use daily – sunscreen lotions, lipstick, baby powders. We don’t really know what the effect of these nano products might be on our safety and health, and consumer advocates are concerned that our product safety agencies don’t have the expertise or resources to properly study these effects. So much work is needed here in the coming years.

During my decade-plus of working on consumer issues, learning about what other countries are doing on financial protections, product safety, or any other consumer issue is extremely valuable. It tells us that something we are asking for is possible, and regulation and consumer protections won’t bring down an entire industry, as our adversaries sometimes argue.

Among the comments I’ll remember from the conference, here are two of my favorites: Jim Guest, president of Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, predicted that the next 10 years – with a new administration in Washington and a far more consumer friendly Congress – would be the “decade of the consumer.” Monique Goyens, the charming new head of BEUC, told TACD that consumer advocacy was far more than simply educating consumers and expecting them to know how to protect their interests. Complicated documents with many pages of fine print or hard to understand safety manuals are unacceptable. Goyens closed with this: “being a consumer shouldn’t be a full time job.”  I couldn’t agree more. TACD is a valuable tool for addressing risks consumers face in a global economy.

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

The New Deal laws that were developed and enacted during the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) represent the framework of the social safety net that protects so many Americans today: minimum wage requirements and limits on hours workers can forced to toil; unemployment insurance for workers laid off through no fault of their own; Social Security benefits for older Americans that keep many from poverty or starvation. The New Deal accomplished so much, and yet, the women who ran the National Consumers League and their allies – like FDR and Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins – were frustrated that they could not achieve universal health coverage for all Americans.

Surely they would have been staunch proponents of providing minimal protections for working Americans to have access to paid sick leave. There’s a renewed campaign afoot to provide this basic protection for working Americans. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, almost half of full-time, private-sector workers have no sick days at all. Government data also shows a national trend toward a reduction in paid sick days. Research from The Project on Global Working Families at Harvard University found 139 nations provide paid days for short or long-term illnesses.

57 million Americans – nearly 50 percent of all private-sector workers in the United States – don’t have paid sick days. According to an ACORN survey conducted in March 2007, 50 of the largest retailers, more than don’t provide sick leave to their hourly employees. Workers need about seven sick days each year to manage their own health care. But for almost half of U.S. employees, the absence of sick pay is likely to cause them loss of income, a job or advancement, says the National Partnership for Women & Families.

So what happens when workers don’t get sick days? They go to work when they are ill, and they expose their customers and co-workers to their germs. Or they miss work and risk losing their jobs, and even if they don’t get fired, they lose a day’s (or more) pay. The consequences of a lack of paid sick days include health effects, workplace contagion, reduced productivity, turnover costs, poor recovery from illness and surgery, and increased use of healthcare resources.

ACORN, which is leading the charge for paid sick days, says almost half of working women say they must miss work when a child becomes ill, and almost half of those lose pay. Statistics show that children who lack a parent to stay home with them during their illness take longer to recover.

There are currently no federal protections to cover workers who need to take sick leave. The U.S. Family & Medical Leave Act enacted in 1993 provides only unpaid days for serious illness. There is currently no federal law guaranteeing a single day of paid sick leave to workers.

Economists estimate that “Presenteeism,” or employees who come to work sick, costs employers an average of $255 per employee per year and that American businesses lose $180 billion per year in productivity due to sickness in the workplace.

Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) have introduced the Healthy Families Act to address the need to provide a minimum of sick leave days for American workers.

The Healthy Families Act would require employers with 15 or more employees to provide seven paid sick days to care for their own and their families medical needs, benefiting 66 million Americans: 46 million would gain access to paid sick days; 19 million would gain paid sick days for leave for doctors visits and family care; and 1 million Americans would gain additional paid sick days.

The Institute for Women’s Policy Research estimates that the Healthy Families Act would result in a net savings, after covering costs of paid leave, of $8 billion per year.  Such savings are generated by reducing presenteeism, reducing employee turnover and preventing the spread of the flu.

The Healthy Families Act, HR 2460 in the House, has 105 co-sponsors. The early leaders of the NCL, who fought so hard for wage and hours protections for workers, surely would have supported this common-sense bill, and we at NCL today do as well. Workers who are ill shouldn’t have to decide whether to take their illness into the workplace or to stay home and risk losing their job – and a day’s pay. We call on members of Congress to support the Health Families Act and take a stand both for worker protections and for the health of America’s families.

Both NPWF and ACORN are taking a lead in Congress on sick pay legislation.  In addition, the Center for Economic and Policy Research has a great deal of useful research and information on this important issue.