Understanding Government

Chicago's McCormick Place

Even as both private and public sector unions lose power, labor is a powerful force in Chicago. But Illinois politicians — even Democrats who get union contributions — argue that AFL-CIO unions like the carpenters and the teamsters keep the city from seeing millions, maybe billions, of revenue at the McCormick Place convention center. But, like the dispute between Chicago-based Boeing and the machinist union, federal law has so far sided with labor.
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The Wisconsin Republican state legislature will lend a helping hand to about 4,000 residents who have been unemployed for at least a year and seen all their federal and state benefits exhausted. Erin Toner of Milwaukee Public Radio reports that the fiscally conservative legislature is OK with helping the unemployed in large part because the money will come from the federal government. The money comes from the grand compromise Barack Obama made with the GOP last December: let the Bush tax cuts continue in exchange for extended unemployment benefits.

Eventually, Wisconsin, like many other states, must repay past money it has borrowed from the federal government for unemployment benefits. The state now owes the U.S. Dept. of Labor $1.3 billion.

More and more authoritative scientific studies are saying — categorically — that mountaintop mining is dangerous to people’s health and the environment, and Allen Hershkowitz at NRDC is calling for the government to take action.  He calls for the National Research Council to look at these reports and issue its own opinion.  Until that happens, he says that

the US EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Interior should implement a categorical moratorium on the issuance of new permits, regardless of a mine’s size or location.

If mountaintop mining is stopped, it will inevitably be called a sign of “aggressive government action.”  On the other hand, stopping private companies from severing mountains in America’s last wildernesses would seem to be the perfect example of healthy conservatism.

Temp workers at a Kraft warehouse in Joliet, Illinois have filed a class action lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Chicago claiming that Atlanta-based ProLogistix staffing agency never paid them for work at the Kraft plant. Kate MacArthur of Crain’s Chicago Business reports that Kraft itself is not named in the lawsuit, just ProLogistix. The lawsuit highlights another problem in enforcing the Fair Labor Standards Act, which guarantees employees will be compensated for their work. (more…)

Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder caused a stir in March by signing a bill that decreased the number of weeks the state pays unemployment benefits from 26 to 20. Michigan GOP Rep. Dave Camp has brought the plan to Washington. William Selway of Bloomberg reports that a bill by Camp to cut federally paid for jobless benefits and use the money to business taxes passed the House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday. Camp claims that taxes on employers are “making it harder for millions of unemployed workers to get back to work.”

The unemployed might not agree with Camp, and the Obama administration and U.S. Senate probably won’t either — meaning it is unlikely the bill will become law. But other states with conservative governors and state legislatures might. Missouri recently joined Michigan in curbing the duration of unemployment benefits.