by Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

It’s rare for me to read a work of nonfiction that is a page turner, but I’m reading such a book right now. It’s the new biography of nation’s first female cabinet member and Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins. The author is the former Washington Post business reporter Kirsten Downey, and she has produced a riveting biographical sketch of Perkins, who changed her name from Fannie to Frances because she thought the latter was more dignified. I didn’t want the book to end; I pored over each chapter as though I was reading a work of great suspense, eager for the next chapter.

The book title is “Woman Behind the New Deal – The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of  Labor and His Moral Conscience,” and it’s written with clarity and filled with valuable nuggets of information, has a feminist perspective, and includes a unique perspective that is not found in the usual accounts of this New Deal era.

The National Consumers League figures large in the life of Frances Perkins. Florence Kelley, the League’s first leader, spoke at Perkins’ college, Mt. Holyoke, in 1902, and Perkins was captivated by this powerful orator. Kelley spoke about her new organization, the National Consumers League, and its efforts to eradicate child labor and eliminate sweatshops. Kelley was fiery, energetic, and filled with idealism. Perkins, after graduating from college, ran the League’s New York chapter, focusing on four areas: poor conditions in cellar bakeries, long hours and poor wages for children, child labor, and workplace fire hazards.

Shopgirls suffered some of the worst conditions working for Bloomingdales, Altman’s  and Macy’s: they worked very long hours (14-16 hours) for very low pay. While lobbying for the League, Perkins developed a friendship with Former President Teddy Roosevelt, who endorsed the NCL’s efforts to restrict child labor in a letter he allowed Perkins’ to circulate widely.

Again, while lobbying for the League in Albany, Perkins became acquainted with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. When he was elected president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked Perkins to be his Secretary of Labor. Perkins went on to serve all of FDR’s four terms – the last was cut short by his untimely death – but FDR so relied on and trusted Perkins he rejected her offers to resign as Labor Secretary. All the while, her fellow cabinet members – all male – mocked her style of speaking and were jealous of her close relationship to FDR.

Perkins is responsible for so much more than any of us probably realize. That is why Downey’s book title is so apt. As labor secretary, Perkins worked to pass unemployment insurance, Social Security, and the law setting wage and hour restrictions known as the Fair Labor Standards Act.

In an interesting historical twist, Downey suggests that Perkins was probably also responsible, indirectly, for the election of Harry Truman as president, once he ran on his own after serving out FDR’s aborted final term. Perkins persuaded Eleanor Roosevelt to endorse Truman, something she had been reluctant to do because she was unhappy that the new president had let Perkins go as Labor Secretary in his new cabinet. Eleanor thought it was important to have a woman in the cabinet.

But Perkins prevailed on Eleanor, who was a highly respected democrat in 1948 whose voice carried a lot of weight, to make a strong appeal to democrats to support Truman for President. As history reminds us, this was a very close race between Truman and Thomas Dewey, so much so that newspapers called the election for Dewey. Eleanor’s voice probably turned the tide of history and resulted in Truman’s ultimate victory.

Downey brings out aspects of Perkins’ life (her husband was bi-polar, couldn’t work for much of his life, spending many years in an institution, and her daughter suffered from mental illness as well) and career that have been missing in other biographies of the first female labor secretary. Perkins soldiered on, never allowing prejudices to hold her back.

Today we have another female labor secretary, Hilda Solis, who works at DOL in the federal building named for Frances Perkins and is supportive of the needs and concerns of working men and women. This book is a timely and invaluable contribution to our understanding of the New Deal and programs intended to provide that social safety net that made America a model for the rest of the world.

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

On two occasions this week, consumer groups were invited to the White House to witness President Barack Obama’s historic signing of legislation intended to protect the interests of consumers and homeowners. I was lucky enough to attend both events. On Wednesday, the President signed the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act and The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act. These bills are intended to crack down on those who seek to take advantage of homeowners through fraud and other abuses. On Friday, the President signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act, a new law that will rein in some of the worst abuses of the credit card industry and help to restore the balance between consumers using their credit cards responsibly and the credit card industry’s obligation to treat their customers fairly, and not hiking up rates without notice, backdating interest on old balances, or changing terms, in the words on your credit card contract, “anytime for any reason.” I have lived and worked as a consumer advocate in Washington for more than a decade and had never been to a White House bill signing.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. Several years ago consumer and safety advocates worked hard to persuade the Bush Administration to celebrate the signing into law of the Cameron Gulbransen Kids and Cars Safety Act, which will protect toddlers especially from being backed over and killed when they run behind their parents’ car and cannot be seen because of blind areas behind the vehicle. The act sets a standard for rearward visibility in all cars. Unfortunately, we couldn’t manage to get a public signing at the White House for the many parents whose children had died or been injured, and who would have welcomed the opportunity to celebrate passage of this bill.

But the Obama Administration has reached out to consumer advocates in a new and important way that we hope will benefit the millions of consumers whose interests we try hard to protect each day. About a month ago, nine or so consumer organizations met with White House staff to discuss a range of issues, from product safety, to credit card legislation, homeowner protections, energy prices, access to the courts, and important appointments to agencies that provide consumer protection and enforce health and safety laws. We brought with us our platform of six issues that the groups had issued last December.

Attending an event at the White House is a heady experience. As my 91-year-old father pointed out recently, having the chance to be part of an event with a standing president is a significant honor. Yet there we were, mixing on Wednesday in the East Room with Senators, Representatives, cabinet secretaries, the President’s own staff, and discussing the important protections these bills would provide for homeowners and on Friday, in the Rose Garden, ten or so consumer representatives – who had fought for these provisions for a number of years, and brought with them individual consumers who had endured terrible experiences with credit cards – one woman’s son had committed suicide when faced with mounting debt on his credit cards. I watched the President listen to her story and give her a hug afterwards.

The President on Wednesday spoke eloquently about both the trials that homeowners face when confronted with the possibility of losing their homes – and the fraud thousands have faced at the hands of unscrupulous businesses, and on Friday talked with compassion about those consumers who never expected to confront mounting debt on the credit cards but had lost a job or faced a health care crisis. The bill will provide, in the President’s words, “common-sense reforms designed to protect consumers.”

Under the new law: credit card issuers will be required to tell card holders how long it will take to pay off a balance and what it will cost in interest if they only make the minimum monthly payments; retroactive rate hikes that appear on a bill “suddenly with no rhyme or reason” will be barred, Obama said; companies will have to post their agreements online; consumers will have to mail statements 21 days before payment is due, instead of 14; shifting payment dates will be prohibited; and 45 days’ notice will be required for changes in terms and conditions.

Some estimates say that the average household debt by credit cardholders who carry a balance is around $17,000. The White House said that every year, Americans pay around $15 billion in penalty fees. Nearly 80 percent of American families have a credit card, and 44 percent of families carry a balance on their credit cards. President Obama also pointed out that this bill is a good balance, and said the changes were not intended to encourage reckless spending. For the White House Fact Sheet on the bill, click here.

Consumer advocates hope that this week is a watershed, opening the way to a new era in which Congress and the White House are, after a long dry spell and a painful economic downturn, feeling the pain that the average American is experiencing and are trying at last to level the playing field so that the average consumer gets a fair shake. We at the National Consumers League welcome this new way of doing business.

by Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

In the past several weeks, I’ve had two occasions to think about the effects of those ubiquitous binding mandatory arbitration clauses that are found in so many consumer contracts today. Two weeks ago, I spoke on a panel at an American Bar Association meeting on the Arbitration Fairness Act and advocating for an end to forcing consumers into mandatory arbitration. Then last week, I visited Congressional offices with homeowners whose houses had been built with such shoddy workmanship that they were unliveable – and yet they couldn’t seek remedies in court because of mandatory arbitration clauses in their contracts and the homebuilder himself owned or controlled the arbitration service. Adult children of nursing home residents described how their elderly parents were talked into signing arbitration clauses and subsequently developed deadly infections because of mistreatment and neglect, but the surviving children we barred from getting their cases heard in court because of a BMA clause, and the arbitrator sided against them. The companies offering arbitration actively seek the business of corporate clients, often promising them positive outcomes. In other words, the business of offering arbitration in consumer cases has become increasingly corrupted and biased.

What are these odious BMA clauses and how do they work? The clauses are buried in a contract you agree to as a condition of getting the service or good. The provisions contain some version of the following: “if there is a dispute between the parties the exclusive forum for determining remedies is arbitration carried out by the XX (one of three arbitration companies)” . That is, you can’t go to court, not even small claims court, you can’t bring a class, you can’t have a judge decide your case. They were described to me by corporate lawyer as a “risk management tool for corporate America.” That is pretty accurate, because these clauses prevent companies who engage in wrongdoing from being held accountable in a court of law. And they have worked beautifully to protect wrongdoers and emboldened them to add more and more of these clauses in their agreements with consumers.

If you think you aren’t affected by a BMA clause, think again. Anyone who’s signed up for a credit card, bought a computer, bought a cellphone, taken out a line of credit, rented a car, or engaged in any of the millions of transactions consumers deal with every day has agreed to one of these clauses, most often without knowing it.

That is why consumer groups and many others support the Arbitration Fairness Act—HR 1020 in the House sponsored by Congressman Hank Johnson (D-GA) (the Senate bill doesn’t have a number yet) — which will bar pre-dispute mandatory binding arbitration in consumer and employment contracts. There’s nothing wrong with arbitration or mediation as an alternative to court if both parties agree to take this route AFTER the dispute has arisen and voluntarily. But forcing consumers and workers—60 percent of employment contracts apparently contain such clauses, and workers must agree to them if they want the job—into a private system of “justice” —which charges them a fee to get their case heard, deprives them of a judge, the right to submit and have the rules of evidence enforced, have a decision based on the law, have a written record, the right to appeal, and have a public record of the adjudication – is wrong and must end.

Moreover, consumers are deprived of counsel because few lawyers will take on cases if there’s an arbitration clause involved; the deck is stacked against the client and the lawyers find it hard to get paid. Faced with insurmountable odds, consumers or workers often are unable to fight for their rights, even if they have a strong case, because the arbitration system is so skewed against them.

A powerful coalition of consumers, workers, civil rights leaders, families of nursing home patients, and many other groups are seeking passage of the Arbitration Fairness Act in order to restore justice to a system that’s been hijacked by corporate interests. We know we’ll have a major challenge going up against the corporate entities that defend these clauses by making the dubious claim that they are “good for consumers” because, they argue, they provide “quicker, cheaper and more equitable resolution of cases.” If these BMA clauses are good for consumers, don’t force consumers into it, let them decide for themselves to opt for an alternative to court. If the system is fair, including the right to enter into class actions, the parties will choose arbitration.

Right now, powerful interests have commandeered the legal system, making it work as a shield that keeps them from being held accountable in the event that a homebuilder has engaged in wholesale consumer fraud in construction, or an employer has fired someone because they are African American, or a nursing home has neglected or abused an elderly resident so terribly that she dies of severe infection. The Arbitration Fairness Act will correct these abuses; NCL and other consumer groups intend to work tirelessly to unmask the corruption in the BMA system and see it addressed once and for all through the enactment of Arbitration Fairness Act.

By Mimi Johnson

A little more than a week after the first announcements of the H1N1 flu (swine flu) hitting the United States, it seems the virus has now spread throughout much of the country. Though it now appears to be a milder flu than was initially expected, we still need to act with good judgment (and hygiene) to help keep this virus at bay!

Some things to consider:

• If you or a member of your household is diagnosed with the H1N1 flu virus, notify employers and schools as soon as possible.
• If you or a member of your household is feeling sick or exhibiting flu-like symptoms, do not go to school or work. You should also limit the contact you (and your sick household) has with others.

Some measures YOU can take to prevent yourself from getting the flu:

• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue (or your elbow) when you cough or sneeze, and throw the tissue away immediately after using it.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water — especially after you cough or sneeze, touch communal handrails, door knobs, etc., or before you eat; alcohol-based hand cleaners or wipes will also do the trick.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth. That’s how germs spread.

The flu is thought to spread mainly person-to-person, so preventing the spread of germs is your #1 defense!

Some things you shouldn’t do:

Time Magazine has put together this helpful list of Top 5 Swine Flu don’ts.

You should continue to stay informed – check your local news and health departments to learn about the flu in your region.  Also, check the CDC’s H1N1 Web site for the most current and detailed official information.

On the off-chance that the flu situation causes closures of schools, work, and points of service like grocery stores, restaurants, etc., the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends you develop a family emergency plan as a precaution. “This should include storing a supply of food, medicines, facemasks, alcohol-based hand rubs and other essential supplies.”