Guest blog: Modernizing Government or Undermining Worker Protections? A Closer Look at the Secretary of Labor’s Agenda

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By Alyssa Bredefeld, NCL Child Labor Intern

The U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing on Wednesday, June 6th, where Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer was questioned. The hearing focused on what Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) described as the “Trump administration’s plans for a smaller and more effective government for taxpayers”—a statement that reflects the administration’s “slash and burn” ideology, set in place by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). This department rapidly dismantled vital policy and aid programs in the name of streamlining. Unsurprisingly, the hearing was riddled with empty promises and evasive answers that signaled a lack of commitment to stopping child labor and the exploitation of American workers. The Secretary’s responses foreshadowed diminished protections for American workers and an increase in the number of children working in unsafe conditions.

One of the most urgent concerns was the proposed budget cuts to the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, which investigates labor violations and enforces labor laws. Representative Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) highlighted the current severe staffing shortages, noting that the division went from went from 1,000 staff in 1948 to 611 by the end of the Biden administration—despite our workforce being much larger. She added that “investigators in a dozen states told The New York Times that their understaffed offices could barely respond to the number of complaints, much less open their own independent investigations.” With the Trump administration shuttering many state Wage and Hour offices and pressuring federal employees to retire or accept buy outs, that number of 611 inspectors could continue to drop quickly and significantly.

Chavez-DeRemer’s response to questioning did little to alleviate concerns. “If you say that more money will always solve the problem, I would probably have to disagree,” stated Chavez-DeRemer, returning to the message of “modernizing and streamlining” the government promoted by DOGE. Chavez-DeRemer refused to answer whether the number of investigations into child labor would decrease, stating only, “I will do everything in my effort to protect against child labor.”

While her promise to protect against child labor may sound reassuring, it means little without policy and action. As Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) put it, “the math isn’t mathing.” Without adequate staffing, investigations can’t proceed, allowing wage theft, misclassification, and dangerous conditions to continue unchecked. According to UNICEF, the United States saw an 88% increase in child labor violations between 2018 and 2023. Addressing these numbers before they worsen is critical to protecting the future of the American workforce. The Secretary of Labor’s inability to answer basic questions about investigative staffing signals an unwillingness to put children first and ensure protection for the most vulnerable. This hearing made it abundantly clear that Chavez-DeRemer’s loyalty lies with the Trump administration, not with American workers or children.

Click to access UNICEF_USA_ChildLaborReport.pdf

Alyssa Bredefeld is a senior at the University of Connecticut studying Human Rights and Allied Health Sciences.

Want Lower Drug Prices? Transparency is The Answer. 

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL CEO 

Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) have become the uniquely American actors of behind-the-scenes drama in the healthcare system. They are the classic middleman in that they wield enormous power and get between patients and their prescribed medications. They control how much we pay for the medications and decide whether we can get access to the treatments our doctors prescribe.   

Through vertical integration, PBMs have become so intertwined with other players in the healthcare system, including health insurers, chain and mail order pharmacies, group purchasing organizations, and provider groups, it has been difficult for regulators and lawmakers to untangle their oversized – and frankly, anti-consumer – role in the healthcare infrastructure. 

This has been verified by outside researchers and investigations time and time again – a bipartisan Senate Finance report noted that PBMs – not drug makers – were driving up the cost of insulin with their demands for higher and higher rebates on an old and very effective drug for diabetes.  

And recently, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that the top three PBMs reaped $7.3 billion in profits from marking up drug prices—a clear indication that these middlemen are not negotiating lower prices for consumers but profiting handsomely at their expense. 

As Congress enters the final stretch of negotiating the budget reconciliation bill, we urge our elected officials to include meaningful and broadly supported reforms to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).

While PBM reform provisions were included in the House version of the bill, we are disappointed that the Senate version lacks these critical measures. We strongly urge our Senators to incorporate these reforms, which have bipartisan backing in Congress, the support of the White House, and widespread approval from the American public.

The National Consumers League has expressed concern about health policy decisions made in the early months of the Trump administration, including dismantling critical public health programs and undermining public confidence in vaccines. There’s an additional issue, and that is the president’s executive order on prescription drug prices

But in calling for prescription drug prices in the U.S. to be tied to the lowest price charged in other countries, Trump said intriguingly, “We’re going to cut out the middleman and facilitate the direct sale of drugs at the most favored national price directly to the American citizen.” Tying prices to those of other nations is an entirely separate issue that requires additional scrutiny, but questioning the role of the PBMs as middlemen in driving up prices with little value added for consumers is long overdue. 

It’s also not unprecedented in today’s marketplace. Three years ago, entrepreneur Mark Cuban started Cost Plus Drugs, bypassing the PBM middlemen and negotiating directly with manufacturers for low list prices. It has been a model of transparency, in which consumers know they are paying the list price plus a 15% markup and a $5 pharmacy fee. By and large, consumers are getting their medicines much more cheaply than through the conventional process. 

And we’ve seen large drug manufacturers launch their own direct-to-consumer platforms to help Americans directly and more affordably get certain medicines and gain access to other healthcare services. 

This is the kind of “market disruption” that can be beneficial to patients. An immediate advantage is price transparency. In today’s conventional drug prescribing system, few patients can understand what the costs are and who is making money. We have a byzantine system of rebates and discounts that gives PBMs excessive revenue, hiding behind their opaque rebate and other practices, while patients pay higher out-of-pocket costs, and only the PBMs themselves understand how it works – and they like it that way.   

In an ideal world, PBMs would return to their original mission – using their buying power to negotiate lower prices for consumers and self-insured employers. The problem is that the three large PBMs that control over 80% of the drug prescribing market have no motivation to compete for lower prices or offer them to consumers. 

We support alternatives to PBMs – programs like Cost Plus Drugs that deliver pharmaceuticals to consumers directly and do so affordably and transparently. That might be the best medicine for the problem of middlemen reaping billions of dollars of value from the healthcare system without much gain to anyone but themselves. Call it a new way of looking at PBM reform, which Congress has been pushing for many years. Patients and consumers want transparency, so what is Congress waiting for? 

Guest blog: Reparations Aren’t a Fad. They’re a Bill That’s Still Due

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By Michele Miller

This opinion previously ran June 5, 2025 in The Afro-The Black Media Authority.  

Last week, a Wall Street Journal columnist dismissed reparations as “yesterday’s fad,” praising Maryland Governor Wes Moore for vetoing a bill that would have created a state commission to study them.

Reparations are not a trend that’s passed. They are a moral and material debt — centuries old, still unpaid. To call them “yesterday’s fad” isn’t just wrong. It’s offensive. And it follows a long American tradition: declaring the fight for justice over before it has even begun.

What’s been a fad in American politics isn’t reparations — it’s invoking justice when it’s convenient, then backing away when it requires courage. With all due respect to Governor Moore, that is the real trend. That is the real exhaustion. People are tired of waiting while leaders perform empathy but veto action.

The notion that reparations have been “studied to exhaustion” is misleading — and, frankly, a convenient excuse to avoid responsibility. H.R. 40, the bill that would simply study reparations, has been introduced in Congress for more than 30 years. It has never passed. Research doesn’t settle a debt. Payment does.

For more than 250 years, American law, policy, and commerce upheld the enslavement of Black people. Leaders permitted it. Courts defended it. Churches justified it. Families profited from it. Human beings were bought and sold. Raped. Bred. Whipped. Worked to death. Children were taken from mothers. Black people were insured as property, taxed as assets, and traded like capital.

That labor generated immense and enduring wealth. It built industries. It funded institutions. It powered a nation. And the Black people whose lives and labor made that possible received nothing in return — only more exclusion.

Not at emancipation. Not during Reconstruction. Not in the New Deal. Not now.

And the damage didn’t end with slavery. It evolved. Black Americans endured convict leasing, lynching, Jim Crow, redlining, school segregation, medical experimentation, mass incarceration. Families were torn apart not just by violence, but by policy. That harm wasn’t buried in the past. It lives in maternal mortality rates, in childhood poverty, in housing discrimination, in the criminal legal system. It lives in the wealth gap that never closes.

Reparations are not symbolic. They are a material response to material theft. They address not only what was taken, but what was broken — and what still has not been repaired.

And yet, even now — even with all of this in plain view — we see leaders stepping back. Governor Wes Moore, the nation’s only Black governor, defended his veto of Maryland’s reparations commission by saying it’s time to “focus on the work itself.” But vetoing a study commission is not doing the work — it’s deferring it. Dr. David J. Johns, CEO of the National Black Justice Coalition, called the move “a painful rejection of the very communities that helped make his historic election possible.”

In a single Wall Street Journal opinion column, Jason Riley managed to dismiss reparations as “racial pandering,” reduce them to “yesterday’s fad,” and accuse advocates of trying to “redistribute wealth.” Mr. Riley was wrong on all three counts.

Reparations are not pandering. They are not some trendy appeal to Black voters. They are a serious moral and economic response to state-sanctioned theft. If anything is pandering, it’s the performance of justice at ribbon cuttings while blocking actual repair.

Reparations are not a fad. A movement that spans generations, from the Freedmen’s Bureau to H.R. 40, cannot be dismissed because today’s political leaders lack the courage to carry it forward. If support has waned, it’s not because the moral claim has weakened. It’s because too many in power are hoping it will.

And reparations are not wealth redistribution. What do they think slavery was? Slavery was wealth redistribution — by force. It transferred land, labor, capital, and generational security from Black families to white ones. Reparations don’t take what’s not owed. They return what was never paid.

Another favorite deflection: point to cities like Chicago and ask why inequality still exists under Black leadership. It’s a lazy, cruel argument — one that pretends centuries of disinvestment can be reversed by representation alone. Reparations aren’t about instant transformation. They’re about redressing harm and rebuilding what was systematically denied.

In my town of Amherst, Massachusetts, we did something rare. In 2021, we made a financial commitment — two million dollars for Black residents — before we had a final plan, a full public process, or even full consensus. We understood something most communities still avoid: reparations without money isn’t repair. It’s performance.

We knew two million dollars wouldn’t right centuries of injustice. No local effort can match the scale of a national debt. But we didn’t let that fact paralyze us. We did what was within our power. And that early commitment made everything else possible. Today, Amherst has completed a public process, delivered a set of recommendations, and kept the full $2 million intact — waiting for implementation.

Amherst and Evanston aren’t exceptions — they’re signs that the moral arc of history is bending, slowly but deliberately, toward justice.

And they are not alone. Across the country, states, cities, universities, and even churches are examining their own roles in slavery and taking concrete steps toward repair. Just last year, Loyola University in Maryland released a report on its historical ties to slavery — part of the quiet, steady work of reckoning happening across institutions.

These efforts don’t pretend to close the wealth gap on their own. The scale of national harm demands a federal response. But local and institutional action is not a distraction from that goal — it’s how justice advances in the real world. It’s the necessary groundwork for a broader reckoning. It is not a fad. It is a movement.

The political window for reparations may be narrowing. But local governments still have power. Universities still have power. States still have power. They can act. They can lead. They can pay.

This is the work.

Michele Miller is a former Town Councilor representing District 1 in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Nancy Glick

World Food Safety Day 2025 is a call to action

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By Nancy Glick, Director of Food and Nutrition Policy

Most Americans know about Earth Day and World AIDS Day. But World Food Safety Day, an observance established by the World Health Organization (WHO) and celebrated around the world on June 7, largely goes unnoticed in the U.S.  

This is why the National Consumers League is flagging June 7 as a day when consumers should stop and think about the importance of preventing foodborne illnesses. Each year, this collection of diseases sickens an estimated 48 million people in the U.S., resulting in 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths, according to the  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The toll in costs to the nation is as much as $90 billion annually in medical expenditures, lost productivity, and premature deaths.  

Foodborne illness is not a new problem. Since NCL’s founding in 1899, the organization has been fighting to protect Americans from exposure to the harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites, and chemical substances in food that cause foodborne illness. We helped expose the unsanitary practices of the meat-packing industry, which led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, laying a foundation for the nation’s first consumer protection agency, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). We also championed the passage of the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906 (FMIA), a landmark law aimed at guaranteeing meat is slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions and ensuring adulterated or misbranded meat and meat products are not sold in interstate and foreign commerce.  

After these successes, NCL focused on pesticide residues in food, putting pressure on lawmakers to protect consumers from impure, improperly labeled products by passing the first pesticide legislation in 1910. We next fought to establish the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and to enact the Food Quality Protection Act in 1996, which set stricter safety standards for pesticide residue levels in food.  

Then came the infamous 1993 foodborne illness outbreak when people ate undercooked hamburgers at Jack-in-the-Box restaurants in Washington state, Idaho, California, and Nevada. The hamburger meat was contaminated with E. coli O157: H7 bacteria, a potentially deadly strain, and the pathogen severely sickened approximately 700 people, caused 171 hospitalizations, and killed four young children.  

This tragedy propelled NCL and other consumer and food safety organizations to fight to transform meat and poultry inspection and many things changed.
E. coli O157: H7 was declared an adulterant in raw ground beef, triggering a mandatory testing program for the organism in federally inspected plants and retail stores. The FDA issued rules requiring that the food industry follow a food safety management system called Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) that identifies, evaluates, and controls hazards throughout the food production process, from raw materials to the finished product.  

Later, with the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act in 2010, the FDA ushered in a series of food safety regulations and new systems, such as the proficiency testing program that integrates the FDA’s Food Emergency Response Network (FERN), the nation’s food laboratories at the local, state, and federal level that collectively test food for pathogens and contaminants to prevent foodborne illness. Similarly, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) published a proposed rule to require poultry producers to use new technologies for early detection of foodborne pathogens to keep Salmonella-contaminated chicken carcasses and poultry parts from entering the market. 

But, even with these developments, the nation is not where it should be to keep the food supply safe. In late 2024, an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak linked to romaine lettuce sickened 89 people across 15 U.S. states, resulting in 36 hospitalizations and one death. The FDA investigated the outbreak and traced it to romaine lettuce, but the agency chose not to publicly announce the outbreak, which food safety advocates believe was a failure to protect the public.  

And now, the Trump administration is taking steps that could seriously roll back food safety protections. Among the actions, the administration has laid off scientists at food safety labs and eliminated two important food safety committees comprising top scientists and researchers with expertise on regulatory standards. Additionally, the administration delayed a requirement that food companies and grocers rapidly trace contaminated food through the supply chain and pull it off the shelves. Sadly, the administration also withdrew the USDA proposed rule to reduce Salmonella risk in poultry.  

Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services have issued statements proclaiming food safety as a priority concern. But, unless there is a strong, coordinated, and comprehensive food safety system in the U.S., there will be declining public confidence in the food supply. More significantly, we are likely to witness an increase in outbreaks and illnesses that could have been prevented.  

This is not a time to hope for the best. Foodborne pathogens are widespread, and they can kill. Accordingly, NCL and many concerned consumer and food safety organizations will continue to speak out about putting the safety of the public ahead of deregulation and federal cost-cutting.  

Guest blog: Trump’s war on the CPSC is the most dangerous yet

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By Robert Adler and R. David Pittle, Ph.D.

If you think that President Trump’s legally dubious war on regulatory agencies like EEOC, NLRB, and FTC is outrageous, be prepared to recognize the tiny Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) as the hands-down winner for most savaged regulatory agency in this administration.

CPSC is the federal body whose sole mission is to reduce the estimated 49,000 deaths and 28 million medically treated injuries from using consumer products; these losses cost the country $1 trillion annually.

Not only has Trump just illegally fired the Democratic commissioners – and only the Democrats – at CPSC, he has also, according to a leaked OMB budget document, coupled this action with a proposed dismantling of the agency. If he gets his way, he will send CPSC’s substantially reduced staff and diminished authority into the bowels of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) never to be seen again.

This situation is so dire for consumers because unlike the independent agencies where Trump has fired commissioners but left their basic structures intact, his demolition of CPSC will prevent the agency from doing its core work or ever reconstituting itself. Once it has been torn apart, entombed in HHS, and its already minuscule budget skeletonized, the odds of restoring CPSC’s ability to function effectively to protect consumers will be virtually nil. The consequences for consumers will be increased deaths and injuries.

To say the least, parents throughout the country should be alarmed. For the past fifty years, CPSC has been the one agency most dedicated to protecting children from dangerous products. Worst of all, many of these hazards are not obvious to the naked or untrained eye.

Parents should particularly worry because not only is it likely that the new emasculated HHS safety division’s existing standards will be weakened but also future safety rules to protect their children will simply not be written. Behind the scenes, it will take only a wink-and-a-nod from the political idealogues overseeing the new division to stop safety actions in their tracks. And such inaction will go unnoticed given its newly imposed invisibility.

What makes CPSC so valuable to consumers and especially parents is its focus on hidden hazards, i.e., those risks to children that the most safety-conscious parents would not discover even after carefully inspecting a crib or a toy they’re about to purchase. For instance, determining whether a crib’s slats are too far apart—permitting a child’s body but not their head to slip through the slats too often resulting in the child’s strangulation – is not obvious. Nor can careful inspection reveal whether a doll has excessive amounts of toxic lead or contains small parts that could easily break free and choke a child.

CPSC can uncover these hazards because it meticulously and relentlessly surveys the market for injuries, illness, and deaths associated with consumer products. Once it has determined that a hazard needs to be addressed, CPSC can quickly mobilize manufacturers, consumers, voluntary standards groups, retailers, product designers, and the media to attack the problem.

Unfortunately, no one has yet found a way to eliminate products with design defects and manufacturing errors from creeping into the marketplace. The press of fierce competition has shown over the years that such mistakes are inevitable, and consumers pay a painful price. An effective CPSC to find and correct these mistakes is an essential guardrail for consumers.

One might ask why it’s so important that CPSC remain as an independent, highly visible agency. As former CPSC Commissioners who have worked at, monitored, and written about the agency for the past fifty years, we believe the answer is unambiguous: To be effective in protecting consumers from serous safety hazards, the agency needs to be free of improper control from political and commercial interests – concerns that led Congress in 1972 specifically to reject placing CPSC within what was then known as Health, Education & Welfare (HEW). And, it must have the ability to take swift action that gets the public’s attention without going through endless, time-consuming levels of review.

In short, were CPSC to be subsumed in a monolith like HHS and stripped of its independence and visibility, the likelihood of timely and effective safety action would be seriously compromised.

Consumers have benefited greatly from CPSC’s actions. Since the agency opened its doors in 1973, it has reduced the number of crib deaths by nearly 80 percent, childhood poisonings by over 80 percent, injuries from fire by 41 percent, injuries from baby walkers by almost 90 percent, and virtually eliminated childhood suffocations from playing in abandoned refrigerators. The complete list goes on and on, but the fact remains that CPSC provides one of the biggest bangs for the buck in government.

Product safety is not a political issue. The battle against human losses from unreasonably dangerous products must go on without political interference. To do otherwise would be a major injustice against consumers and their families, prompting us to recall Reinhold Niebuhr’s famous observation:

“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”

Obesity medication misinformation crisis won’t end with FDA deadline

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL CEO

America is in the grip of a second obesity crisis—while the first one centers around sky-high rates of chronic disease and access to care, the second one ties to truth.  

As millions of Americans seek effective treatments for obesity, they are being targeted by a wave of misinformation and exploitation. Bad actors—med-spas, illegal online pharmacies, and others—are marketing non-FDA-approved GLP-1 drugs while making misleading or untrue claims about their safety and effectiveness.  

The World Health Organization calls this flood of disinformation an infodemic: a deluge of information, some accurate, most deceptive, designed to mislead, confuse, and exploit. It spreads online at lightning speed and puts patient safety at risk.  

As the nation’s oldest consumer organization—now in its 126th year—the National Consumers League (NCL) believes it is our duty to protect Americans from the rampant fraud infecting the weight loss drug market. That’s why we launched The Weight Truth, a national mobilization to combat the falsehoods circulating online about GLP-1s. 

The Wild West of the GLP-1 Market 

The FDA declared the GLP-1 medication shortage over in April 2025. When the shortage began in 2022, due to high demand and limited supply, the FDA permitted licensed compounding pharmacies to fill the gap by preparing so-called compounded versions of these drugs. This temporary fix, however, opened the door to a sprawling marketplace of both legitimate and illicit non-FDA approved versions of GLP-1s.  

While compounding outside of a shortage situation is appropriate for individual patients with unique medical needs such as allergies to specific ingredients in commercial medications, children who need special dosing, or those with difficulty swallowing pills, compounded drugs are not required to meet the high level of safety, efficacy, and good manufacturing processes standards for drugs that have received FDA approval. Simply put, they are not made using the same guardrails as FDA-approved versions and have not been tested in large populations, so they pose more potential risks to patients. They therefore should never be produced on a mass marketing basis except in very limited situations where the FDA has declared a shortage of drugs in high demand. 

Hundreds of millions of doses of both legitimate compounded products and illegitimate GLP-1s flooded the market, and many claimed – without any proof – the same or better benefits than FDA-approved versions.  

Data shows that consumer health has taken a hit. As of February 2025, the FDA received over 775 adverse event reports for compounded GLP-1 drugs, including reports of 17 deaths and over 100 hospitalizations. Moreover, poison control centers report nearly a 1,500 percent increase in calls since 2019 related to overdosing or side effects of injectable GLP1 usage. Because most compounding pharmacies are not required to report adverse events from compounded drugs, the FDA indicates it is “likely that adverse events from compounded versions of GLP-1 drugs are underreported.” 

May 22: A Turning Point for Consumer Safety? 

We should be at a turning point — the FDA has stated that as of May 22, companies should no longer mass-produce compounded GLP-1s. If they do, they will be in violation of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act and may be subject to penalties, recalls, and other sanctions.  

This FDA-issued deadline should provide clarity for consumers who need GLP-1 medications, since as of that date, only products that are “FDA– approved” and are prescribed by a medical professional should be on the market.  

However, NCL is concerned that, as a result of this “infodemic,” the marketing of compounded and other nonlegal weight loss products will continue and will confuse and hide facts from consumers and patients who are trying very hard to manage chronic diseases like obesity. We must ensure compounders abide by these important regulatory rules.  

Our concerns are not unfounded. The recent NCL national survey of perceptions of compounded GLP-1 products sold online shows significant confusion about GLP-1 products amongst women. Key findings include: 

  • 85% believe the false claims made in online ads for compounded GLP-1s. 
  • 71% believe compounded GLP-1s must be tested and proven safe to be sold. 
  • 53% think compounded GLP-1s are FDA-approved. 
  • 49% believe they contain the same active ingredients as the real thing. 

None of these beliefs are true. 

A Blueprint for National Action 

Both the FDA and consumers have roles to play in addressing this infodemic. We urge the FDA to enforce federal law and its long-standing safety-guided standards for compounded products now that GLP-1 products are no longer in shortage. We also call on consumers to take specific steps to learn the truth about GLP-1s and understand what’s FDA-approved, fake, and what’s at risk. Here’s what consumers can do:  

  1. Know that the compounded versions of GLP-1s that were substitutes for the FDA-approved medicines are not permitted on the market after May 22, and if you see them, it’s a red flag. 
  2. Educate yourself by going to The Weight Truth website.
  3. Be aware that FDA-approved GLP-1s are not found in gummy, chewable, patch, nasal, or sublingual forms.  
  4. Ask the healthcare provider or company selling you the GLP-1 if it’s the brand product.  
  5. Report fake GLP-1s to us through The Weight Truth website.

Join us as we seek to spread the word about the weight truth and replace misinformation about GLP-1 medications with the truth. 

Let’s bring real reform to live events in Maine

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By John Breyault, NCL VP of Telecommunication and Fraud

For music and entertainment lovers in Maine—whether you are lining up for a concert at the State Theatre or a summer show at Thompson’s Point—the thrill of a live event often begins with a headache: buying the ticket.

Hidden fees, confusing pricing, shady scalpers, and limited options to transfer or resell tickets have become the norm. Recognizing this, Maine Senate President Matthea Daughtry introduced legislation earlier this year intended to bring long-overdue fairness and transparency to Maine’s ticketing market.

Unfortunately, as the bill has moved through Augusta, powerful industry lobbyists have been hard at work reshaping it to benefit the entertainment giants—at the expense of everyday Mainers.

As a consumer advocate who has spent over 15 years fighting monopolistic behavior in the live event industry, I have seen this pattern before. Companies like Live Nation-Ticketmaster, which control vast swaths of the event ecosystem, use their influence to preserve an unfair status quo. Maine should not let them write the rules.

Price Caps May Hurt More Than Help

A major element of the bill—a proposed 10% cap on ticket resale prices—could backfire. While well-intentioned, resale caps often drive fans toward risky, unregulated markets such as Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, or international resale websites.

The data backs this up. A recent U.K. study found that countries with capped resale prices, like Ireland and Australia, see ticket fraud rates nearly four times higher than in the U.K., where resale is unrestricted. If Maine pursues a cap, it must also fund enforcement. Otherwise, fans are on their own.

Transparency Should Help Fans, Not Confuse Them

Another of the bill’s central reforms is transparency in ticket pricing—an idea that is overdue. It aims to eliminate “junk fees” that often inflate ticket costs by 27% or more, usually without warning until the final screen. Fans deserve to know the total price they will pay upfront, and this part of the bill has widespread support.

But the current draft goes a step too far: it mandates that every individual fee be broken out and listed next to the total price. This may sound like transparency, but in reality, it creates more confusion. Most people do not care how the ticket price is sliced up—they care what it costs to get in the door.

Worse, there is no standardized way sellers itemize fees. That means consumers will struggle to compare offers across platforms, undermining competition and informed choice. It is also inconsistent with new federal rules that promote simple, upfront pricing.

So why insist on a detailed fee breakdown? Because it helps venues and promoters in their negotiations with ticketing companies—not because it improves the fan experience.

Refund Rules Shouldn’t Be One-Sided

Finally, the bill also creates a refund gap. If an event is canceled, it only requires ticket resellers to refund consumers—not original sellers like Ticketmaster or venue box offices. That is not just unfair—it is outrageous.

Under this proposal, an event organizer could postpone a show and keep your money until the event is rescheduled. Mainers should not be forced to give interest-free loans to billion-dollar corporations just because a concert did not happen.

Let’s Get This Right

The arts and music scene is a treasured part of life in Maine. Whether you are seeing a nationally touring act or a local band on the rise, fans deserve a fair ticketing system that puts their needs first—not those of the entertainment industry’s biggest players.

Senator Daughtry’s bill began with the right goals. But as currently written, it risks making things worse. With a few smart changes, the Maine Legislature can deliver true reform—ensuring transparency, fairness, and consumer protection in a market that desperately needs it.

Let’s finish the job—and put fans first.

Visiting Jane Addams Hull House Museum in Chicago in April 2025

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL CEO

How fortunate we were to be in Chicago for the 31st teen consumer education competition this April 2025. Fortunate for several reasons – Chicago is truly one of the world’s great cities: wonderful architecture, grand old buildings, and charming neighborhoods, each with its own restaurants and customs.

However, we were fortunate as well because the roots of our organization, the National Consumers League, are found at Chicago’s Hull House. Today, it’s called Jane Addam Hull House Museum and is a National Historic Landmark. 

This site was America’s most famous original settlement house, today on the campus of the University of Chicago. The House was founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and her partner, Ellen Gates Starr, to serve poor Greek, German, Irish, Italian, Bohemian, Russian, and Polish Jewish immigrants flooding to Chicago to work in the city’s burgeoning industries. Addams was a prolific author and social reform visionary (she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931), opening the doors of Hull House for residents and their children in surrounding tenements, offering cultural experiences like dance, theater, and music, classes in English, weaving, American customs, and public baths. Little children were welcomed to the nursery and older children attended kindergarten.

Hull House Museum, with its many bedrooms and function rooms, became home to social reformers like NCL’s Florence Kelley. Other residents of the Hull House included Dr. Alice Hamiliton, Julia Lathrop, Grace and Edith Abbott, and Sophonisba Breckenridge. Kelley had fled New York City and an abusive husband, taking her three children with her Hull House in Chicago and successfully filing for divorce in the Illinois courts. She lived and worked alongside Addams. NCL co-founder Francis Perkins accepted a teaching position in Lake Forest, Illinois, in 1904 and immediately began to spend her free time at Hull House. 

Kelley served in the 1890s as chief factory inspector for the State of Illinois and undertook a project to map tenements. Kelley documented the overcrowded, dilapidated rooms, tracking wages, working conditions, and ages of residents. She discovered children as young as 4 and 5 not attending school but working many hours a day inside dark, airless dwellings with their families for pennies a day. Infectious diseases spread rapidly in these conditions, and many children and adults died. Kelley’s mapping effort provided critical data to enable her to make the case for comprehensive reforms. Addams enlisted Kelley to serve as General Secretary when they decided to form the National Consumers League.

So, my colleague Karen Silberstein, also a history buff, ventured to the Near West Side to see Hull House Museum. We beamed with pride at the exhibit of Florence Kelley, showing the “White Label” that she created to give to factories that respected worker rights. The exhibit describes her as a “labor activist, consumer advocate, and attorney.” Kelley later received her degree after taking night classes at Northwestern Law School.

We walked through the first and second floors, seeing exhibits of the many reformers and residents of Hull House and marveling at the looms, yielding handiwork and extensive crafts of Hull House. We read romantic poems and letters – once kept from the public but now proudly displayed – from Addams to her life partner, Mary Rozet Smith.

Hull House actually had 13 buildings, and while most of them aren’t open to the public, this national treasure is a must-see for Americans who are fascinated by our nation’s history during the turn of the 20th Century and the Progressive Era. NCL is proud to be an essential part of this American heritage. 

 

Guest blog: Sweet treats, bitter reality: The human cost of cocoa

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By Emily McKay, NCL Spring Communications Intern

For many, April brings the joy of Easter with children awakening to an Easter Basket filled with treats or searching in the grass for eggs and chocolate. But while children here delight in eating a chocolate bunny, 1.56 million children are working in West African cocoa fields, harvesting the very cocoa that makes our Easter candy possible. [^1]  How does a consumer know if the chocolate they are eating involves child labor?    

Thankfully, organizations like Be Slavery Free, an Australian coalition campaigning against modern slavery are making it easier for consumers to hold chocolate companies accountable. By ranking brands based on their child labor policies and transparency, the 6th annual chocolate scorecard has helped bring meaningful change.  

Cocoa, one of West Africa’s major exports, is predominantly grown in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, which together produce 50% of the world’s cocoa supply.[^2] The region’s cocoa industry began booming in the late 19th century when Ghanaian farmers discovered they could earn ten times more from cocoa than from palm oil. By 1886, British colonial authorities began promoting cocoa cultivation through training programs and seed distribution. By 1936, Ghana’s annual cocoa output had reached 311,000 tons.    

Around the same time, in Côte d’Ivoire, the Kru people—an indigenous ethnic group—began cultivating cocoa as well. [^3] In 1946, French colonial authorities recognized cocoa’s potential and expanded its cultivation across the country. By 1960, Côte d’Ivoire had gained independence, and the chocolate industry was flourishing. In 1977, Côte d’Ivoire surpassed Ghana to become the world’s leading cocoa producer.[^3]   

Sadly, exploitative labor practices have long plagued the chocolate industry. Today, the global chocolate market is worth over $100 billion, yet many cocoa farmers live on less than a dollar a day. [^4] Child labor is widespread, and many children involved in cocoa farming are subjected to exploitation and, in some cases, modern slavery.    

In recent years, the U.S. government has withdrawn funding for programs aimed at fighting child labor and slavery worldwide—including within the cocoa industry. As government efforts wane, the responsibility falls to consumers to become informed and take action against child exploitation.   

Today, 82% of chocolate companies publicly disclose data on child labor—up from just 45% a few years ago. This progress is encouraging, but disclosure alone is not enough. Consumers must continue pushing for real change. Twenty-five years ago, chocolate companies pledged to eliminate child labor. Yet the practice remains entrenched. In a time when regulatory action is lacking, it is up to us—as informed, ethical consumers—to make responsible choices and demand accountability from the companies behind our favorite treats.   

[1] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/our-work/child-forced-labor-trafficking/child-labor-cocoa   

[2] https://www.kakaoplattform.ch/about-cocoa/cocoa-facts-and-figures#:~:text=In%20the%20last%20cocoa%20season,is%20the%20largest%20producer%20country.   

[3] https://www.antislavery.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/1_cocoa_report_2004.pdf   

[4] https://fairworldproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/GA-NORC-report-press-release-Child-Labor-and-Farmer-Poverty.pdf  

Don’t throw auto safety in reverse

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By Daniel Greene, Senior Director of Consumer Protection & Product Safety Policy

If traffic safety were a war, we’d be losing.   

Our nation suffers approximately 40,000 deaths and 2.6 million injuries to traffic crashes each year.   

That’s enough fatalities to fill the average Major League Baseball stadium.  Enough injuries to affect nearly every resident of the state of Alabama. 

Traffic crashes cost society nearly a trillion dollars in medical bills, emergency services, lost productivity, insurance costs, workplace loss, legal costs, and property damage.  That’s enough money to buy more than 26 million mid-size SUVs; ten million more than the total number of cars sold in 2024.   

No Congressional district has been spared.  No community is immune.   

Yet, the death and destruction on our nation’s roads does not have to be the price we pay for commuting to work, dropping the kids off at school, or picking up groceries.  By harnessing revolutionary safety technologies, educating the motoring public, and improving the design, construction and performance of motor vehicles, we can dramatically improve roadway safety.   

Fortunately, there is a federal agency responsible for carrying out such activities.  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is our nation’s principal automobile safety regulator, charged with reducing death and injuries associated with traffic accidents.  NHTSA carries out its lifesaving mission by establishing safety standards, investigating defects, enforcing recalls, and providing states resources for driver education, risky driving countermeasures, and roadside safety. 

NHTSA has delivered.  Safety features that were once rare and unique are now common and conventional: seatbelts, airbags, and crumple zones, to name a few.  Many of these features were adopted to comply with increasingly ambitious safety standards. The result: fewer fatalities and injuries on our nation’s roads. 

From 1968 through 2019, NHTSA’s safety standards prevented over 860,000 deaths, 49 million injuries, and damage to 65 million vehicles, generating over $17.3 trillion in societal benefits.  In 2019 alone, standards prevented 40,000 deaths, 1.9 million injuries, and damage to 3.8 million vehicles.  

NHTSA has also successfully taken unsafe vehicles off our nation’s roadways.  Since 1968, NHTSA has participated in the recall of more than 390 million vehicles, 66 million pieces of motor vehicle equipment, 46 million tires, and 42 million car seats due to safety defects.   

NHTSA has compelled manufacturers to replace tens of millions of volatile and explosive airbags, millions of defective tires prone to tread separation, and millions of sticky car seat buckles that entrap children.  The agency has facilitated the remedy of millions of vehicles with incidents of unintended acceleration, millions of faulty ignition switches that deactivate the engine and airbags while a vehicle is in motion, and “self-driving” technology that cannot safely perform the driving task. 

NTHSA is on the cusp of ushering in new transformational safety technologies that may exceed the lifesaving effects of seatbelts and airbags.  The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law mandates that NHTSA support the deployment of several sophisticated safety technologies:   

  • Drunk and impaired driving prevention technology: Over 13,000 people were killed in drunk driving crashes in 2022.    
  • Crash avoidance technology: Forward collision warning and automatic emergency brakes have been shown to reduce injuries associated with front-to-rear crashes by 56 percent.  Lane departure warnings could reduce single-vehicle, sideswipe, and head-on crashes causing injury by 21 percent.  Blind-spot detection has been shown to reduce lane-change crashes that result in injuries by 23 percent.   
  • Driver monitoring systems: Distracted driving claimed an estimated 12,405 lives in 2021.  Drowsy driving caused 664 deaths that same year.   

Many of these requirements are actively being implemented but are not yet finalized.   

With NHTSA on the beat, safety is a priority and not an afterthought.  It must be built into the design, construction, and performance of each vehicle.  It must be engrained in every bolt, sensor, and line of code of a vehicle.   

But this vital safety agency is under unprecedented assault.  Championed by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, the Trump Administration has launched a shock and awe campaign, taking a chainsaw to the key pillars of a well-functioning government.  The indiscriminate firing of civil servants, unlawful impoundment of congressionally directed spending, and work stoppages have had deeply destabilizing effects across the federal government.  The chaos has wreaked havoc on NHTSA’s ability to carry out its most basic functions.    

Approximately 1 in 20 NHTSA employees were fired in the February purge of probationary workers.  That included researchers studying impaired driving and traffic safety measures.  Several members of the Office of Defect Investigations, which is responsible for investigating defects and mandating recalls, have been dismissed.  The Office has been increasingly scrutinizing Tesla, which Elon Musk owns.  Employees within the Department of Transportation cannot access their former colleagues’ files, making it virtually impossible to continue their work.  

Through an Executive Order, the Trump Administration has directed federal agencies to “identify at least 10 existing rules, regulations, or guidance documents to be repealed” for every new rule, regulation, or guidance that is promulgated.  As of December, NHTSA had yet to finalize 19 rulemakings mandated by Congress, all through bipartisan legislation.  In the Fall Unified Regulatory Agenda, NHTSA identified 56 ongoing rulemaking proceedings, some of which had been completed prior to Trump taking office.  It may not even be possible for NHTSA to identify the hundreds of existing rules, regulations, and guidance documents necessary to finalize Congressionally directed and ongoing rulemakings while complying with the 10-to-1 rule. 

If the past is a prologue, vital automobile safety activities may fall by the wayside.  During the Biden Administration, NHTSA finalized 29 rules creating or modernizing safety standards.  The first Trump Administration finalized only nine such rules.  The Biden Administration conducted 224 investigations of potential safety defects.  The first Trump Administration initiated only 103.   

Worse yet, deeper cuts may be forthcoming.  Every federal agency was required to produce an Agency Reduction in Force and Reorganization Plan by March 13, 2025.  Such plans must seek to achieve significant staff reductions, reduced budgets, and reduced real property footprint. 

Some are calling on NHTSA’s budget to be slashed by 60 percent and the workforce reduced by 30 percent, returning the agency to 1990s-era levels.  Such plans include cutting state safety grants by 75 percent, slashing crash test facilities and testing by 75 percent, and ending vital safety initiatives like the adoption of the first female crash test dummy.  Most Americans do not want to trade in their current vehicle for a 1990s model.  We shouldn’t revert to a 1990s-era auto safety regulatory agency.   

The death and destruction on our nation’s roads is not an inevitability, but a choice. A choice to not treat traffic safety like the public health emergency it so clearly is. A choice to remain complacent.  A choice to accept the status quo.   

I contend that America should make a different choice: no more victims.  Let’s chart a course towards vision zero, in which there are no traffic fatalities or serious injuries.  And let’s ensure we equip NHTSA with the resources, staff, and authorities necessary to make that vision a reality.