This is always a favored tactic of the corporate elite: Keep employees so desperate and afraid, they'll work extra hours for free -- just so you can be chauffeured around Manhattan in a limo:

NEW YORK: Workers for Bank of America Corp, one of the nation's largest employers, have sued the company for allegedly failing to pay overtime and other wages.

The lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in Kansas City, Kansas, consolidates 12 lawsuits filed on behalf of employees in California, Florida, Kansas, Texas and Washington.

It seeks nationwide class-action status on behalf of employees at retail branches and call centers over the last three years. The federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in April directed that the cases be combined.

According to the 44-page complaint, the largest U.S. bank by assets requires employees to work in excess of eight hours per day or 40 hours per week, yet fails to pay them both for overtime and for all straight time worked.

The complaint also accuses the bank of requiring employees to work during unpaid breaks, failing to provide meal and rest breaks, and failing to timely pay terminated employees for earned wages and accrued vacation time.

"Bank of America enjoys millions of dollars in ill-gained profits at the expense of its hourly employees," violating either the federal Fair Labor Standards Act or various state labor laws, the complaint said.

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Here, as promised, is my interview with Roy Beck of NumbersUSA, at yesterday's March For America in D.C. Judge for yourself how the exchange went.

A couple of the more interesting exchanges:

Beck: But the fact is, is that the amnesty that's being promoted here allows the people to steal the thing they came to steal. People come here illegally --

Me: So you're calling them thieves.

Beck: They are thieves.

Me: [Laughter]

Beck: Of course they're thieves. No look. What is a thief? A thief is somebody who takes something that does not belong to them. They come here and take jobs that do not belong to them. They take wages from the most vulnerable members of the society.

So the thing is -- I'm not saying -- I think most of them are probably good people. I think most of them don't even think of themselves as thieves. They've been taught since they've been young that that border isn't really that important. I don't blame them, I blame our government. But the fact is, those are people who came to steal a job, and what everybody's lobbying for today is to keep the job that they stole.

This, from a guy who leads off the "About Us" section of the NumbersUSA website proclaiming: "No to Immigrant Bashing."

Dunno about you, but calling 200,000 people -- no, make that 12 million -- "thieves" sure sounds like immigrant-bashing to me.

Also, I got a kick out of this exchange:

Me: Do you guys think you could get 100,000 people out here to rally against amnesty?

Beck: No. See, the trouble is, there's no amassed money to be made from bringing immigration back down to traditional levels. The uh -- I mean, the kind of money it takes to put on one of these things is just gigantic.

There's so many people making money off of high immigration, they can afford to do that. Our people are just unemployed people all up and down the line. And they would have to pay for it all themselves. Now they could get here, but they couldn't do this kind of -- this kind of expensive thing.

Yeah, because those 100,000 and more are drawn from all over the country just because their costs get covered.

Here's a really good post on the deficit wars - and the myth of economic "recovery." [via Corrente]

For about 20 years now, I've been warning people that the continuing rise in home values was unsustainable - and bad for the economy. I can't stress this enough: Shelter is shelter, and not an investment. Speculating in residential real estate on the basis of constantly-increasing equity is a relatively recent development that drives a lot of bad economic and social consequences. (Don't even get me started on what a very bad idea it is to use property taxes to fund school systems.)

Using houses as ATM distorted many things in the economy, not the least of which was the parallel stagnation in wages. Think about this: since the 70s, we've seen a steady rise in women working outside the home, a rise in property values, and a monstrous increase in personal debt.

Yet wages never kept pace with any of that. (In fact, those of us who still have jobs are now working harder for less money than we earned in the 1970s.) But with a working spouse bringing in additional income and home equity loans, we could convince ourselves that increasing equity was the same as earning more.

It also kept things calm on the domestic political front, because we bought the illusion that the economy was rewarding us. (Which is one of the reasons why otherwise conservative Republicans were always so supportive of women going to work. It helped keep wages low.)

Even though I see great amounts of psychic pain in the transition, I believe that deflated housing prices are an ultimate good. Housing simply shouldn't cost this much when we aren't earning enough to pay for them; we shouldn't have to take out equity loans to get by.

Which is why I'd recommend that you read Jesse's entire article. He points out that the bulk of Obama's bailout funds and the thrust of his policies is aimed not at bailing out underwater mortgages for drowning homeowners, but to reinflate the value of the bad housing assets.

In other words, to continue the class war on behalf of the bankers.

Continue reading »

The opinion columnists aren't very happy with the president or Congress lately. Bob Herbert, who is perhaps the only major columnist we have covering the economic reality of the working class, the poor and the recently-impoverished middle class, sounds as despairing as most liberal bloggers:

Job losses, stagnant or reduced wages over the past decade, and the loss of home equity when the housing bubble burst have combined to take a horrendous toll on families who thought they had done all the right things and were living the dream. A great deal of that bleeding is in the suburbs. The study, compiled by the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, said, “Suburbs gained more than 2.5 million poor individuals, accounting for almost half of the total increase in the nation’s poor population since 2000.”

Democrats in search of clues as to why voters are unhappy may want to take a look at the report. In 2008, a startling 91.6 million people — more than 30 percent of the entire U.S. population — fell below 200 percent of the federal poverty line, which is a meager $21,834 for a family of four.

The question for Democrats is whether there is anything that will wake them up to their obligation to extend a powerful hand to ordinary Americans and help them take the government, including the Supreme Court, back from the big banks, the giant corporations and the myriad other predatory interests that put the value of a dollar high above the value of human beings.

Frank Rich doesn't sound any happier, does he?

The smartest thing said as the Massachusetts returns came in Tuesday night was by Howard Fineman on MSNBC: “Obama took all his winnings and turned them over to Max Baucus.”

Worse, the master communicator in the White House has still not delivered a coherent message on his signature policy. He not only refused to signal his health care imperatives early on but even now he, like Congressional Democrats, has failed to explain clearly why and how reform relates to economic recovery — or, for that matter, what he wants the final bill to contain. Sure, a president needs political wiggle room as legislative sausage is made, but Scott Brown could and did drive his truck through the wide, wobbly parameters set by Obama.

Ask yourself this: All these months later, do you yet know what the health care plan means for your family’s bottom line, your taxes, your insurance? It’s this nebulousness, magnified by endless Senate versus House squabbling, that has allowed reform to be caricatured by its foes as an impenetrable Rube Goldberg monstrosity, a parody of deficit-ridden big government. Since most voters are understandably confused about what the bills contain, the opponents have been able to attribute any evil they want to Obamacare, from death panels to the death of Medicare, without fear of contradiction.

Yep. That's why health care reform is polling so low in some surveys - it's not that people don't want it, it's that they know the current incarnation is a confusing mess that will only add to their too-heavy financial burdens.

Tom Friedman warns Obama that Americans don't like angry politicians, we like "inspirational, hopeful" ones. As usual, he's largely oblivious -- although he has figured out people are angry. He just hasn't seemed to notice we've sort of soured on the "hopeful" meme just lately.

Longtime Villager George Will also warns Obama not to get too rowdy:

If Obama can now resist the temptation of faux populism, if he does not rage, like Lear on the heath, against banks, he can be what Americans, eager for adult supervision, elected him to be: a prudent grown-up. For this elegant and intelligent man to suddenly discover his inner William Jennings Bryan ("You shall not crucify America upon a cross of credit-default swaps") would be akin to Fred Astaire donning coveralls and clodhoppers.

Now, George. I'm sure you didn't mean to tie the African-American president of the United States to a tapdancer, did you? (Do you also call him "Bojangles"?)

The Broder thinks John Cornyn is "low key." (Maybe he should switch to club soda.)

And Ruth Marcus is stunned over the SCOTUS decision this week (go read the rest, it's good):

In opening the floodgates for corporate money in election campaigns, the Supreme Court did not simply engage in a brazen power grab. It did so in an opinion stunning in its intellectual dishonesty.

Watch the video - it's short, and it sums up why Krugman so often has a fresh perspective on issues, rather than an insular academic bent.

And speaking of, Krugman weighs in on the excise tax question in the healthcare reform bill, asking whether the tax-deductions for employer-provided health insurance should be limited:

The counter-arguments seem to run along three lines.

First, there’s the argument that many “Cadillac” plans aren’t really luxurious — they reflect genuinely high costs. That’s surely true. A flat dollar limit to tax deductibility has real problems. At the very least, the limit should reflect the same factors insurers will be allowed to take into account in setting premiums: age and region.

Second, there’s the argument that any reductions in premiums won’t be passed through into wages. I just don’t buy that. It’s true that the importance of changing premiums in past wage changes has been exaggerated by many people. But I’m enough of a card-carrying economist to believe that there’s a real tradeoff between benefits and wages.

Maybe it will help the plausibility of this case to notice that we’re not actually asking whether a fall in premiums would be passed on to workers. Even with the excise tax, premiums are likely to rise over time — just more slowly than they would have otherwise. So what we’re really asking is whether slowing the growth of premiums would reduce the squeeze rising health costs would otherwise have placed on wages. Surely the answer is yes.

He's right. When you put it that way, it's a lot more plausible.

The last argument is that this hurts unions which have traded off lower wages for better benefits. This would be a bigger issue than I think it is if the excise tax were going to kick in instantly. But it won’t, giving time to renegotiate those bargains. And bear in mind that this kind of renegotiation is exactly what the tax is supposed to accomplish.

A last general point: we really don’t know what it will take to rein in health costs, but that’s a reason to try every plausible idea that experts have proposed. Limiting tax deductibility is definitely one of those ideas.

Bottom line: the details of the excise tax should be fixed, but it’s on balance a good idea.

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The Hill conducted a survey last week of all 97 senators who aren’t currently running for president. A few expressed interest, though the most enthusiastic responses came from those who aren’t likely to be considered. Delaware’s Tom Carper said, “I’ve been kidding people for years: The hours are better, the wages are just as good — whoever heard of a vice president getting shot at? — and it’s a great opportunity to travel.... Anybody here would [accept a VP offer], if they’re going to be honest.”

Speaking of honesty, TPM posted an item noting the responses from some of the Republican caucus’ septuagenarians: “Don’t you find it odd that three Republican Senators (Thad Cochran, 70; Pete Domenici, 76; Chuck Grassley, 74) all noted that they were too old to be Vice President. Kind of odd given the circumstances of the current Republican nominee…”

Good point. Here are the specific responses:

* Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) — “When I was much younger I would have probably said, ‘Sure, I’ll be glad to accept it,’ but I’m 70 years [old] and they need a younger person for the job. I would probably tell them, ‘Look for somebody else.’ ”

* Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) — “No. I’m too old.”

* Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) — “I’m too old to be vice president. But I am young enough to be reelected to the Senate.”

Given that John McCain will be 72 this year, and is already running to be the oldest person ever elected president, his colleagues’ comments probably aren’t entirely welcome at McCain HQ. After all, if someone in his 70s is too old to be vice president, what does it say about the candidate in his 70s running to be president?

We've discussed this before, but PfAW wants to energize the campaign as Sen. Kennedy is introducing legislation this week.

The decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear involved the interpretation of a federal statute-not the Constitution. That's why Congress has the authority, and the responsibility, to correct the Court's error and strengthen Americans' ability to recover wages that they have been unfairly denied. Will you join the petition calling on congressional leaders to support legislation to correct Ledbetter v. Goodyear?

The Ledbetter legislation, the "Fair Pay Restoration Act," will be introduced in the Senate as early as tomorrow by Sen. Kennedy. The House legislation, the "Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act," was passed by the Education and Labor committee at the end of June.

This is bad, bad news for all of us...

vnunet.com: (h/t Scarecrow)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided to abandon net neutrality and allow telecoms companies to charge websites for access.

The FTC said in a report that, despite popular support for net neutrality, it was minded to let the market sort out the issue.

This means that the organisation will not stand in the way of companies using differential pricing to make sure that some websites can be viewed more quickly than others. The report also counsels against net neutrality legislation.

Information Week via Save The Internet:

The news story about the FTC report notes that "the FTC sided with high-speed Internet providers such as AT&T and Verizon," and trotted out once again hollow justifications like "such rules could stifle innovation" and ""This report recommends that policy makers proceed with caution in the evolving, dynamic industry of broadband Internet access, which generally is moving toward more - not less - competition," which it probably didn't even think up itself, but copied from industry propaganda.[..]

Technological innovation in broadband access is a threat to corporate profits, and the FTC report comes down on the side not of the public interest but of the private interests.

As a government policy, this isn't working. Communication Workers of America union puts it this way:

Our reliance on market forces, deregulation, and inadequate governmental programs has not served us well. We invest relatively less on communications; we are charged more for slower speeds; millions encounter a significant digital divide based on income and geography, and unionized jobs with good wages and benefits are being replaced by low-wage jobs with less training and higher turnover.

Afraid of the potential stifling of information to you? Good. Then go to Save The Internet and see what you can do to fight. There are literally only days left for you to get your voice heard.