The overtime battle is almost won

An avalanche of calls, e-mails and faxes from union members throughout the nation helped secure a key victory on overtime rights for American workers. The U.S. House of Representatives voted 221-203 on Oct. 2 to instruct its conferees to keep a ban on the Bush administration’s new rules that would redefine who is eligible for overtime and potentially leave 8 million workers without overtime pay.

Although it’s nonbinding, the motion gives leverage to conferees to keep the language of an amendment  by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) that passed in the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill.

The battle to protect hourly wages is not over yet. President Bush has threatened to veto any legislation that protects overtime. Go to the AFT Web site to write to Congress and the administration to demand they save overtime.

TAX CUTS ARE NOT DELIVERING ...

Unemployment figures released in October exposed a grim reality for those in and out of the job market. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), unemployment stayed at 6.1 percent in September. Despite a net gain of 57,000 jobs for the month, that number still fell 287,000 short of what the Bush administration promised. In April, when the administration put through its third tax cut for the wealthy, it called the program a “jobs and growth” package and predicted it would generate 344,000 new jobs per month. Since May, BLS statistics show, employers have cut 225,000 jobs.

... AND THEY’RE UNPOPULAR, TOO

Several new polls have tested the assumption that tax cuts have grass-roots support. One of the latest surveys came in September when an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll presented Americans with several options to pay for the nation’s involvement in Iraq. The option 56 percent of Americans favored: Repeal at least some of the tax cuts Congress passed in May. And funding public education has traditionally and consistently been embraced over tax cuts by voters in a wide range of surveys taken during the past several years.

'PRICE CONTROLS' IN HIGHER ED?

Price controls are anathema to Republicans except, apparently, where higher education is concerned. In legislation he introduced last month, Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R.-Calif.) is proposing to withdraw federal dollars from some institutions that increase their tuition at more than the rate of inflation for a three-year period. McKeon chairs the House Subcommittee on Education and the Workforce, which is in charge of the Higher Education Act reauthorization. Last month, experts testifying at a hearing on college costs said McKeon’s plan for price controls would hurt both the quality of colleges and universities and the very students the federal aid is supposed to help.

GAINS AND LOSSES ON PELLS

The U.S. Senate passed an amendment sponsored by Sen. John Corzine (D-N.J.) and supported by the AFT that reverses proposed changes to the federal need analysis formula that would have resulted in an estimated 84,000 students losing their Pell Grant eligibility. A letter is circulating in the House urging members to support the Senate amendment. The Senate did not do so well on another measure, however. It fell short of passing an amendment that would have raised the maximum Pell Grant.