From Washington City Paper:

The department had been pushed to assess its mental health centers for a while. This past summer, it hired KPMG to study whether the centers should go private. The departmental back story is referenced in a report released earlier this month.

The conclusion of the study, Baron says is simple: If DMH privatizes its centers, it will save a lot of money and have a chance to increase the number of residents it helps. The department would save between $11 and $14 million.

The savings would come from an obvious source. “I think frankly it comes down to labor costs and the benefits,” says Phyllis Jones, DMH’s spokesperson. “The private providers tend to have cheaper labor costs.”

A number of years ago I worked in the mental health "industry". I was a member of SEIU and I ran a small work site used to help people with severe mental illness to transition back to work.

They were a very unique bunch from some who heard voices to those who were depressed with severe rage issues and there were also the ones that were quiet, just struggling to make it through the day. All in all, they are some of my best memories of working.

Then, Ohio privatized mental health care. I was replaced by what was then known as a SOS worker, or a State Operated Service worker. A few displaced by the issues related to the privatization and closure efforts coudln't just be "fired" they were protected by their union, AFSCME. Because the SOS worker would be free (I was told for 1 to 2 years), I was replaced by them. My agency could utilize the worker and then consider hiring them down the road, but in the meantime, they'd get a free year, maybe 2.

So, when I read about the privatization efforts, I began to wonder if DC will offer something similar. The workers and their unions have fought for a very long time to bring up the rate of pay and benefits for city service organizations and the services provided to the mentally ill are not small. Working with the mentally ill takes a very patient and very dedicated person. I'm not sure that privitization for mental health services will be good or bad for the city at this point. I do know that for the 200+ workers currently doing this job, looking for new employment in the middle of a recession is not going to be welcome news.

One additional note, I hope SEIU and CNA are looking to unionize the private mental health service organizations not currently unionized. These workers deserve a hand up to pay them more for the hard work that they do, and more importantly, to provide good benefits for that work. After you've had to restrain one client, you'd better understand what I mean about having better benefits.

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I found this piece on Dailykos.

Seems that some 100 or so Chamber of Commerce staff recently ran up an $8,204
tab at The Exchange, a sports bar within staggering distance from the Chamber's
architecturally ever-so ponderous Washington, D.C., headquarters. The tab
included 155 pitchers of beer, 37 bottles of beer, 208 mixed drinks, 111 shots,
43 margaritas and 11 open bottles of liquor.

But the kicker was from the Politico piece:

Chamber COO David Chavern sent out an email chiding the partiers for their spending spree."

Fundamentally, this shows a lack of responsibility on a number of people’s part including Chamber personnel and management at The Exchange,” Chavern wrote in an e-mail to more 50 employees, including softball players and top managers. ”I will have to reevaluate a post-Chamber Bowl celebration next year.”

snip

Party-goers put some of the blame on the bar, saying that the waiters who served them had — among other things – slapped an 18 percent gratuity on the bill.

Sweet, huh? Wait staff shouldn't be tipped. Is that the new Chamber mantra, pay all employees a fair wage and end tipping?

Well, their war on tipping at the exchange didn't stop by just bemoaning the cost of their binge, they went further by sending out this little ditty in that e-mail about the excesses of staff members:

In his e-mail, Chavern asked staffers to contact The Exchange to say that the Chamber will not be patronizing the establishment for the foreseeable future.

And now, I'm all warm and fuzzy inside and it has nothing to do with liquor. I look at it this way, not only does the Chamber hate workers and thier union representation, apparently, they also hate and try to screw local small business owners. Way to go Chamber!!

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DELL, notorious for using labor all over the world (exploitation shipped from country to country) has contracted with UNICOR to recycle their computers (only after they came under fire from environmental advocates for dumping toxic waste).

CBS News posted a story on this (but since it’s from AP, I won’t be linking to those rat bastards at AP). The most important aspect of this piece is that UNICOR pays their inmates who do recycling as much as $1.26 per hour. Okay, they also pay as little as about a quarter of a dollar, but, whatever.

Years ago, 60 minutes did this amazing piece on how UNICOR (Federal Prison Industries) doesn’t have to worry about trademarks and patents and has actually put textile mills in the states out of business.

So, this got me thinking about why UNICOR’s future challenges tend to be an explosion in the prison population. Why have prison populations exploded and why should I care?

Well, you see, we all should care, because, there's a correllation between unemployment and crime.

In a 1987 study of Growth in incarceration among African Americans showed a direct correlation with growth in unemployment among African Americans. In another study, for the Journal of Human Resources, author Ming–Jen Lin correlates a drop in UNION workers with unemployment and an INCREASE in rates of burglary and robbery. From the paper's abstract:

We find a one-percentage-point increase in unemployment would increase property crime by 1.8 percent under the OLS method, but that the elasticity goes up to 4 percent under 2SLS. The larger 2SLS effect has significant policy implications because it explains 30 percent of the property crime change during the 1990s.

Freakin-A. Not only do unionized workers get a "union-premium," but there's a correlation to the drop in unionzation with a rise in crime (coupled with a rise in unemployment).

So, when I saw the latest post on Unbossed (thanks again Shirah) about inmates and UNICOR, it didn’t really surprise me that UNICOR has complaints against it from inmates seeking help with the recycling program’s toxic exposures of inmates. From UNBOSSED (in its entirety):

They're just criminals - so why should we care about how they are treated in The Big House?
In fact, if we can get "Onshore outsourcing at offshore prices" by using prison labor, what's the problem?

As I said in 2007,

It's hard to imagine a creepier government web page than that of the National Security Agency - do not skip intro. Although the NSA kid's page comes close.
This is sock you in the face creepy. But a far creepier federal agency webpage is that of Unicor. What? Never heard of Unicor?

And don't we just know that the bureau of prisons program through UNICOR is just Poisoning Prisoners for Profit and that Life in Prison is a Riot

Well, now the latest, in the sorry saga. Here is the July 16, 2008 letter from NIOSH on this subject:

On November 27, 2007, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) received your request for technical assistance in your health and safety investigation of the Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR) electronics recycling program at Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) institutions in Elkton, Ohio; Texarkana, Texas; and Atwater, California. You asked us to assist the United States Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General (USDOJ, OIG) in assessing the existing medical surveillance program for inmates and staff exposed to lead and cadmium during electronics recycling, and to make recommendations for future surveillance.

In addition, you asked us to assess past exposures to lead and cadmium, and to investigate the potential for take home exposure. This interim letter summarizes our findings and provides recommendations to improve the safety and health of the inmates and staff at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Elkton, Ohio. These findings will be included in a final report that will contain findings from the evaluations at all three institutions identified in your request.

As it turns out, monitoring results for past exposures are not available because they just weren't done for the most part or, if performed, they were so badly performed that they are of little use.

Electronics recycling at FCI Elkton appears to have been performed from 1997 until May 2003 without adequate engineering controls, respiratory protection, medical surveillance, or industrial hygiene monitoring. Because of the lack of both biological monitoring and industrial hygiene data, we cannot determine the extent of exposure to lead and cadmium that occurred during that time frame, but descriptions of work tasks from staff and inmates indicate that exposures during that time frame were likely higher than current exposures. The current GBO is a significant improvement, but can be further enhanced to limit exposure to those performing glass breaking, as well as limiting the migration of lead and cadmium from the room into other areas. While some take-home contamination does occur, surface wipe sampling and biological monitoring suggest that take-home contamination does not pose a health threat at this time. Take-home contamination can be further reduced by changes to the GBO, work practices, and improved personal hygiene as recommended below.

We cannot determine the extent of exposure to lead that occurred in the chip recovery process because of the lack of data. Descriptions of work tasks from staff, and a BLL of 5 μg/dL in an inmate 4 months after the process ended indicate that exposure to lead during this process did occur. We found no evidence that actions were taken to prevent exposure to lead at the outset in the chip recovery process and found that no medical surveillance was performed until after the process ended.

Medical surveillance that has been carried out among inmates and staff has not complied with OSHA standards. No medical exams (including physical examinations) are done on inmates; staff receive inconsistent examinations and biological monitoring by their personal physicians; biological monitoring for lead is not done at established standard intervals; and results are not communicated to the inmates.

Inappropriate biological monitoring tests have been done. Records of medical surveillance are not maintained by the employer for the appropriate length of time.

The report makes many recommendations for improvement. I personaly like this one as the most likely to ameliorate the situation:

7. Appoint a union safety and health representative. This individual should be a regular participant on the joint labor-management safety committee that meets quarterly. Since inmates do not have a mechanism for representation on this committee, ensure that they are informed of its proceedings and that they have a way to voice their concerns about and ideas for improving workplace safety and health.

Yep. If you want help getting your workplace conditions improved, get union representations. Not so easy for the prisoners, of course, but maybe they can piggy back on the prison workers' union representation.

After all, contamination for one is probably contamination for all.

But Shirah has only provided the most recent blog posting on UNICOR and their roll in the US. Before Shirah’s most recent posts, there was this one from Ian Urbina, America’s Prison Factories. Where Ian notes that:

Over the years, FPI has grown exponentially, now ranking as the government's thirty-ninth largest contractor -- in no small part due to the quantity and diversity of apparel items it manufactures for the Department of Defense. The company has churned out more than 150,000 Kevlar helmets in the past 24 months, more than $12 million worth. Aside from the battle-dress shirts sewn at Greenville, the company is also a major supplier of men's military undershirts, $1.6 million of which it sold to the Pentagon in 2002. In that year, FPI made close to $3 million fashioning underwear and nightwear for the troops. Inmates also stitch together the vestments donned by military pastors and the gowns cloaking battlefield surgeons. If an item of clothing is torn in combat, it will likely be sent to the prison shop in Edgefield, South Carolina, where it is mended at a cost of $5 per shirt and or pair of trousers. In 2002, 700 prisoners based at FPI laundry facilities located in Florida, Texas and Alabama washed and pressed $3 million worth of military apparel.

Snip

...Out of the 1.3 million pairs of these trousers bought by the Defense Department last year, all but 300,000 were produced by FPI, which means that at least three out of four active-duty soldiers in the region wear pants made by the inmates of the FPI factories in Atlanta and in Beaumont and Feagoville, Texas. These sorts of numbers have earned FPI critics from a range of perspectives. FPI competitors, such as Propper International, point out that they use free labor to make the exact same trousers for the government at $2.39 cheaper per pair. Organized labor questions why the government should buy from a company which depends solely on inmate workers, while paying sub-minimum wages (from 25 cents to $1.15 per hour), skirting workplace safety standards and enjoying exemption from the payroll and Social Security taxes levied on other employers.

Which then brought me over to the UNICOR site where there are no pictures of inmates in prison garb or looking as if they're behind bars or even guards, it's pretty eerie. But I found this statement from their site more eerie and way more creepy:

The Future Challenge
The challenge for FPI is to remain financially self-sufficient while providing enough work for an increasing number of inmates. The Federal inmate population has tripled over the last 10 years, and it is projected to continue growing for the foreseeable future. In order for the Bureau of Prisons to successfully manage the increased number of inmates, FPI will have to create jobs for these additional inmates.

FPI's influence on the successful management of Federal prisons is no secret; it has been a matter of public policy for over six decades. Policymakers have long recognized that increasing the number of incarcerated individuals means increasing the number of prisons and, in turn, increasing the size of FPI in order to improve both the management of the prisons and an inmate's chances of success upon release. As we begin the next decade, continued support of Federal Prison Industries will pay important dividends for the country.

Creepy, huh?

Thanks Shirah for making me think about this.

Since I was already thinking, I decided to put the pieces together for me. I looked at the numerous reports linking crime rates, incarceration and unemployment and thought about how it is possible that it’s okay for UNICOR to pay inmates all of $1 (ish) an hour (if even that much) to produce things that American manufactures had been producing and STILL produce. I'm just not sure why this is acceptable anymore.

To me, it’s almost as if the US Government is in the business of creating inmates to work for almost nothing, driving American manufacturing into the ground and thereby, creating new inmates.

Of course, my understanding of this issue, isn’t science, I just like to read. And sometimes, things strike me. This issue, doesn’t just strike me, it makes me sick.

Honestly, this just really sucks.

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From AP (and no, still not a fan of AP for lots of previously stated reasons)

The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits last week increased by 25,000 from the week before. The unemployment rate in May jumped to 5.5 percent, up from 5 percent in April. It was the biggest one-month gain in 22 years.

"The American people are waiting to see if Congress is going to help them," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said.

But the White House already has threatened to veto the bill, and Senate Democrats have said they won't try and force their Republican colleagues to consider the House legislation.

Okay, so Reid isn't going to waste several weeks battling over a bill that will never be considered (meaning that Republicans will block it by voting to continue debate, i.e., cloture), so Reid, has decided that he wants to make sure that unemployment benefits are extended, and what better way than to attach it to a bill Republicans won't defeat:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he will try to bring up the House bill, but he won't force the issue if Senate Republicans object. "We're not wasting weeks" on it, he said. Instead, Reid said, Democrats might attach the jobless benefits extension to the Iraq war spending bill, a move also opposed by the White House.

Nice, Reid, nice, I applaud your resolve to help American workers.

Of course, the article goes on to listen to the whining Republicans who seem to think it's okay to fund war, but not help out Americans like those in Van Wert who've been locked at by Kongsberg Automotive.

And just to be even more clear, how much are we talking in weekly benefits for these workers? Depends on what state you live in, for instance, if you are one of the Janesville GM workers who will lose your job due to the closure of the facility, you're looking at a weekly benefit of: $278.89 while the Moraine Ohio worker would get $299.55. But if you're one of those mortgage industry folks working in Mississippi, you can expect to receive $178.67.

Now for everyone thinking wow, that's free money, think of it this way, at minimum wage of $5.25 an hour and 40 hours a week, these same people would earn $210 a week. On the other hand, they are likely losing a job that paid $500 to $1000 a week with benefits and now, they're getting almost nothing with no benefits.

So, explain to me why it's okay to screw workers? I'm sure there's some great explanation about Market forces and how raising the minimum wage destroys the economy, but I have to wonder how many of these people talking about market forces have any idea what it's like trying to get by on $178.67 a week with no benefits. I'm guessing, there's no clue on their part.

You can check out the Bureau of Labor Statistics info on the Washington Post.

If you're in Ohio this weekend, head out to Van Wert

United Steelworkers of America Local 1-524 is organizing the rally set to kick off at noon at Fountain Park, located at Main and Jefferson.

Judy Grubb, union vice president, said the rally is a chance to boost morale for the workers at the Kongsberg Automotive plant who have been locked out since April 2. The company locked out more than 300 employees who had voted against ratifying the existing labor contract because the company sought to slash wages

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Okay, that’s a little spun for a headline here, but right now, it sure feels right.

You see, Republicans in the Senate blocked further consideration of a bill that would have allowed the Justice Department to pursue OPEC members for price fixing, from the Post:

The bill also would have instructed the Justice Department to pursue members of OPEC for alleged price fixing and required oil traders to put up more cash on futures exchanges to address speculation, which many observers believe is contributing to the unprecedented run-up in world crude oil prices.

The bill did a few other things as well, like taxing oil company windfall profits as well, but the goal here is that they want to drill. Yep, the Republicans in the Senate, with their heads up their asses, continue to deny global warming and their idea on global warming is to drive more, burn more and drill more. Again, from the post:

They said the nation could combat high fuel prices more effectively by increasing domestic oil supplies by permitting new exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in waters on the Outer Continental Shelf. Most congressional Democrats oppose drilling in those areas.

But for once, I have to agree with Kay Bailey Hutchison on this one:

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) added: "Anyone in America who is filling their gas tank must think that Congress is fiddling while Rome burns. The idea that we would bring up a bill that is called an energy plan, that has no energy production in it, is ludicrous."

Of course, her stand would make more sense if she also supported tax breaks for renewable energy, ah but there’s no need for that sort of thing. Of course, I think that Sherrod Brown hit the nail on the head in this Politico piece by way of CBS News (BTW, Politico, do you also note all the conservative Senators? I’m guessing, you don’t…good thing that Sherrod doesn’t mind being labeled).

Brown, a liberal freshman senator whose home state of Ohio has been particularly hard hit by manufacturing job loss, seemed almost apologetic for voting against the bill. He called global warming "the moral question of our time" and said he supported a cap and trade system. But Brown said he feared that the cap and trade system as written would allow the United States to "export emissions" rather than reducing them because foreign countries without tough pollution standards would take the U.S. jobs eliminated under a cap and trade mandate.

Gee, that’s what Brazil, Poland, China and Mexico have been doing for years. Wait, I wonder what the oil executives view all of this is? The NYTimes posted a little ditty on their testimony before Congress and I had to chuckle as the same White Men’s chorus has been sung out loudly by Republicans in Congress lead by the solos of Mitch McConnell:

The executives politely but just as firmly insisted that Congress should focus its efforts on allowing more drilling and exploration for domestic oil — in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, offshore in the Atlantic and Pacific, and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. They insisted that they were investing heavily in search of new oil supplies.

And they strongly warned against other measures: any new tax on profits would put American companies at a disadvantage and only further decrease oil supply; a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax would increase demand and only raise prices more; lawsuits against foreign nations would do nothing to lower prices.

I was really worried that the CEO’s that make more than I can even think of could actually sit before Congress and tell them and the world that lower profits is bad for the world because it means more money paid by the little guy. I’d probably buy this argument if one of them even knew what it meant to be a little guy.

On the issue of Fuel costs, Food Costs and drilling in ANWR, Republicans are dead wrong. Their half assed backwards and wrong. But what’s worse is that any of us in this country could even have illusions that anything is going to bring down the price of oil. Oil isn’t the future, it’s the past and we need to invest in renewable sources for energy. If we don’t, there will not be roads to repair, crops to harvest or houses to heat. Life as we’ve known it over the past 100 years is over and we need to find the next great thing, we need to find our next “oil” to meet our energy needs.

Oil is finite and until we all realize this, we’re all screwed. I suppose that's what Oil Executives love, screwing consumers. And it Oil Execs love it, you know thier lap dogs, Congressional Republicans, can't wait to help them do it.

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There's movement at AAM, but it doesn't really seem that good. There appears to be a framework to create local agreements:

from Freep:

More than two months into the UAW's strike at American Axle & Manufacturing, it appears that the two sides have pulled together a potential framework for a settlement, which likely will include buyouts, buy-downs in exchange for lower wages and the closure of at least two plants.

A settlement potentially would shed American Axle's national UAW contract, replacing it with individual agreements for the surviving plants, said people briefed on the talks.

Local agreements are the equivalent of a million paper cuts to the overall health of a union

Due to the local contracts that discuss the specifics of jobs and skills, we now have the potential of bigger issues to resolve. The new GM contract from the summer seems to have created greater issues for the locals in that they must now bargain on their own with GM in relation to what is considered "skilled" More from the Plain Dealer:

The bigger issue in November was skilled trades. At the time, Boneta said the company wanted to consolidate several job titles, eliminating positions for some of the plant's highest-paid workers.

Instead of having machine repair, millwright, tinsmith, pipe fitter and maintenance welder positions, GM asked for one position called maintenance, Boneta said in November.

Today, he declined to say what issues remained between the union and the company.

The loss of multiple skilled trades categories could mean demoting skilled tradesmen to the production line or cutting jobs.

And there's still more from Freep:

A settlement could include buy-downs -- which are lump sums of money offered in exchange for lower wages -- of $90,000 over three years and buyouts of $140,000 over two years. Wages at the company's U.S. axle operations are shaping up to be $17 an hour for production workers, $14 an hour for nonproduction workers and $25.50 for skilled trades workers...

>snip<

Before the strike, workers at American Axle were making about $28 an hour, and skilled workers were making more than $30 an hour.

There also is the potential for an 8% match on 401(k) contributions.

Forging plants in Detroit and Tonawanda, N.Y., near Buffalo are negotiating deals that would close those factories, according to people familiar with the talks. It is unclear what would be offered to those workers in the event of a closure.

AH- more stupid local agreements. Wonder if AAM strikers will like this agreement or maybe they'll look at it the same way Parma GM workers did...they rejected it

UAW Parma local REJECTED their contract

Workers in Parma rejected a new local contract earlier this month. UAW Local 1005 President Tito Boneta, in a letter to his members, said voter turnout was less than 50 percent for that rejection, so the union's leadership is putting the tentative pact up for a new vote Wednesday.

Okay, so for me, this is the money quote:

That the four plants involved in the strike would have their own deals is a move that makes American Axle's labor contract more like those at other suppliers, which negotiate their terms on a plant-by-plant basis.

Dick Dauch's been pushing for "more like Delphi" and other similar screw the worker agreements forged between Bankrupt corporations and their workers. This of course is where trade kills the American worker.

It's not worker against worker as some on this site have claimed, it's really corporations against countries. Trade has everything to do with Environmental standards, labor laws, labor costs, benefits, safety rules, even the tax rate of these countries.

Trade isn't as simple as labor costs, it's much bigger and much worse than that.

We have an inability to force other countries to bring up their standards and when we can get them to raise their standards, we forge ahead and lower ours. Weeklytoll provides a toll that this has on work place safety

So, theUAW is going to bend over backwards and tell Dick to take whatever he really wants. So, how has this served the membership? I'm not feeling like this has served the membership, especially today of all days, May Day.

What the Fuck is the UAW thinking? In fact, I'm wondering if they're thinking at all, and I don't just mean the national here, I mean the freaking locals, too. WTF?

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