AFSCME filed the first shareholder “say-on-pay” proposals in 2005. In the four years since then, we’ve put together a broad coalition of investors fighting to get shareholders a voice on executive compensation. The U.S. House of Representatives is expected later today to vote on “say-on-pay” legislation crafted by Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA).

In this morning’s issue of the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee urges Congress to pass this bill as an important step in the effort to hold corporations accountable to shareholders.

Ridiculous bonuses justify say-on-pay for shareholders

By Gerald W. McEntee

While America’s families continue to be battered by unemployment, foreclosures and other pains associated with the worst recession in decades, Wall Street executives are raking in the big bucks again.

Goldman Sachs is preparing to hand out $6.65 billion in salary and bonuses for the second quarter after getting funds from the taxpayer through the Troubled Assets Relief Program. JPMorgan put aside $14 billion to pay top executives and traders. That’s just ridiculous. And since excessive executive compensation has flourished even when businesses are failing, shareholders need a say-on-pay.

President Barack Obama earlier this year decried the “culture of narrow self-interest and short-term gain at the expense of everything else” that has fostered corporate irresponsibility. CEOs like Martin J. Sullivan, who ran American International Group (AIG), the giant insurance and financial services firm, into the ground, illustrate the problem in our boardrooms. He was fired, but walked away with a severance package estimated at $47 million.

He wasn’t alone. While the economy was thrown into turmoil and people across the nation lost their life savings, AIG executives continued to receive hefty bonuses. We’ve all taken a hit thanks to AIG’s greedy manipulation of exotic investment products. The perverse system of excessive pay, even for failure, created incentives for foolish risk-taking by major financial institutions.

For years, AFSCME has worked to rein in the excessive paychecks unrelated to long-term performance that unaccountable corporate boards of directors have given many of America’s CEOs. We’ve argued that boards cheat shareholders and workers when they cloak their operations in secrecy or are unaccountable to shareholders.

Responsibility for the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression can be laid at the feet of those CEOs who put short-term profits ahead of long-term and sustainable wealth creation. And that threatens the interests of shareholders, including working families whose savings are invested in the market. America’s shareholders need sound management, accountability and the right to nominate members of the boards of the corporations in which they invest.

That’s why AFSCME supports House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank’s (D-Mass.) say-on-pay legislation. That bill, which passed the Financial Services panel Tuesday, would give shareholders an advisory vote on compensation packages and on “golden parachutes,” and would make compensation committees more independent from management. This legislation is an important part of the broad financial reform effort necessary to re-regulate the financial industry and protect shareholders.

A key step to fixing our economy is making sure that the interests of shareholders and stakeholders are considered in corporate board rooms. We believe that Rep. Frank’s proposal to give shareholders a say-on-pay will help hold corporations and their leadership responsible and accountable to their owners — company stockholders. It’s time to stop rewarding corporate executives for failure. It’s time to make American companies transparent and accountable. We need bold action to bring these rampant abuses to an end.

From Gerald W. McEntee, president, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Washington

The AFSCME employee pension plans own stock in Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and AIG.

AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee, in a story on National Public Radio this morning, spoke out against taxing workers on their employer-provided health insurance.

Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, says many of the public employees he represents have plans that do cost $20,000 — but only because they gave up other things in contract negotiations.

“They have struggled,” he says of the 1.7 million members of his union, “giving up wage increases, giving up fringe benefits, things of that nature, in order to get good, good health plans that would cover themselves and their spouse and children, so they would be safe.”

Listen to the full story at NPR.

From Calitics: Today we witness the damage that the line-item veto causes in the hands of a right-wing governor bent on using it to achieve his long-desired destruction of public services. Arnold’s vetoes include:

• An additional $6.2 million cut from state parks, which will likely cause as many as 50 more parks to be closed (potentially 1/3 of parks — 100 total — will now have to close)
• Elimination of state funding for community health clinic programs
• $80 million cut to child welfare services
• Total of about $400 million in health care cuts, including further Healthy Families cuts
• Elimination of funding for the Williamson Act programs to preserve farmland from development
• Deeper cuts to HIV/AIDS programs
• Cut 80% of funding for domestic violence shelters
• Elimination of funding for California Conservation Corps

Another sobering note comes from the United Ways of California: cuts to children’s health care will ensure the wider spread of H1N1 flu this fall. Children are one of the primary vectors of swine flu, and without access to health care we will see a more intense and more deadly flu epidemic when school starts this fall.

See the full list of cuts here.

Earlier today, President Obama presented a list of 8 consumer protections included in health care reform legislation that will affect Americans directly. Here’s the White House list of health insurance consumer protections:

• No Discrimination for Pre-Existing Conditions
• No Exorbitant Out-of-Pocket Expenses, Deductibles or Co-Pays
• No Cost-Sharing for Preventive Care
• No Dropping of Coverage for Seriously Ill
• No Gender Discrimination
• No Annual or Lifetime Caps on Coverage
• Extended Coverage for Young Adults
• Guaranteed Insurance Renewal

As Jesse Lee writes on the White House blog, with all the misinformation being spread in the health care debate, this information will come in handy for anyone who wants to make sure friends, family and co-workers know what is really at stake – and just how false some of the ridiculous claims being circulated by opponents of reform are.

The cost of doing nothing to fix our health care system is just too high to let false rumors and attacks prevail. Visit WhiteHouse.gov to read a message from the President and see the full list.

UPDATE: AMERICAblog has video from today’s speech in North Carolina:

AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee appeared on the Bill Press Radio Show on Monday to talk about AFSCME’s aggressive campaign for health care reform. McEntee said AFSCME and other unions would use the congressional recess to put pressure on elected officials to pass health care reform.

Listen here (10 min. 43 sec.):

States saw a nearly 12% drop in tax revenues collected in early 2009, the largest decline in 46 years, according to a recent report released by the Rockefeller Institute of Government.

The loss of revenues and the persistence of the current recession — now 19 months long and still going — will lead to deeper and expanding state budget shortfalls. According to a recent report from the National Conference of State Legislatures, states’ budgets are strained as lawmakers have struggled to close at least $268.6 billion in gaps since the recession started in December 2007.

The silver lining in state finances in FY 2009 and FY 2010 was the AFSCME-supported federal funds available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), signed into law by President Barack Obama in February. Before the act was approved, state lawmakers were considering even deeper cuts to public programs and jobs.

For FY 2010, the ARRA federal funds have staved off some of the cuts and helped to ease budget gaps. The bulk of ARRA state fiscal relief funds ($100 billion) will be disbursed by the end of this year; states will have about half that amount next year. In the meantime, AFSCME continues to press Congress to provide additional fiscal relief for states.

Patients aren’t the only ones crying out for health care reform.

That’s the message in this new television ad, “Nurses,” as seen on Politico and Huffington Post. The ad features AFSCME Nurses highlighting the desperate need they see for health care reform as they serve on the front lines of the crisis each day.

The ad started airing on Sunday and will continue on networks and cable through July 29.

Corrections Officer Jeff Arsenault, AFSCME Local 2968

AFSCME Corrections Officer Jeff Arsenault and Local 2968 were singled out recently by the Maine AFL-CIO for their efforts to win passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

Jeff serves on the Maine AFL-CIO Executive Board, is a dedicated union activist and a firm supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act. He and Local 2968 have been writing and calling Maine’s senators continuously in order to pass this important legislation.

As public employees the Act would not directly affect them, but they persist because they hope that if the Employee Free Choice Act is passed for the private sector similar reforms will be easier to get in the public sector.

On a more personal level, Jeff also wants there to be good jobs and opportunities for the next generation. “It behooves the leaders of today to provide opportunities for the next generation” said Jeff. He works with incarcerated youth and he makes a point of trying to persuade them that “there is a better way.” Without good job opportunities though, Jeff says that becomes harder and harder.

Watch the video for more:

On Friday, GOP Senator Jim DeMint told a special interest group against health care reform that if they’re “able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”

Break President Obama?

There are a lot of things one can say in response to this – most of them not printable. President Obama himself says it best:

OBAMA: Just the other day, one Republican Senator said, and I’m quoting him now, “if we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” Think about that. This isn’t about me. This isn’t about politics. It is about a health care system that is breaking American families, breaking America’s businesses and breaking America’s economy.

The AFL-CIO Now blog reflects on the passing of Joe Ames, AFSCME’s former secretary-treasurer.

Joseph L. Ames, 83, former AFSCME secretary-treasurer, died June 17, the union reported last week. Ames served in the post from 1968 to 1972. Prior to that, Ames was secretary-treasurer at AFSCME Local 410 in St. Louis and served as president of the Missouri AFL-CIO.

AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee praised Ames and said Ames was

a man whose vision of fairness and justice in the workplace extended beyond his own union to the everyday men and women who work hard to live the American dream. Joe helped build AFSCME into the union it is today, and we will always be grateful for his dedication.

Ames also served on AFSCME’s executive board, chaired the commission that rewrote AFSCME’s constitution (adopted in 1965) and helped establish the guidelines and precedents for the union’s Judicial Panel, which he also chaired. The panel decides challenges concerning the eligibility of nominees for office and other matters.

The Washington Post said Ames—who lost a leg in combat during World War II—became a “a civil rights activist” when he returned to St. Louis after the war. He also served one term in the Missouri House of Representatives.

Ames also was close friends with the “Labor’s Troubadour” the late Joe Glazer. He co-wrote several songs on Glazer’s 1984 album “Jelly Bean Blues.”

His survivors include his wife of 56 years, Lillian, and three children. Memorial donations may be made to The Southern Poverty Law Center, the Georgetown University School of Medicine or a charity of choice.

Read more about Ames at AFSCME.org here and here.