• Call Today To Oppose Medicaid, Food Stamp,
  Student Loan Cuts
• Alliance Activists Overcome 2005 White House Conference on Aging’s Tight Script
• This Holiday Season Remember Hurricane Evacuees
  Thousands Mobilize for Worker Rights
• Nearly a Third of Employers Fire Pro-Union Workers
  Hundreds Gather for Memorial Tribute to
  Sandra Feldman
• Four Out of Five Large U.S. Businesses To Continue Retiree Drug Benefits, Accept Medicare Drug Coverage Subsidies
• 2005 Sales of Generic Rx Drugs Could Exceed
  $28 Billion
• Healthcare Focusing on Profitable Services, Not Cost Controls or Access for the Uninsured
• This Holiday Season Save on CDs
• Quote of Note: New Orleans Lays Off School Employees
• Web Site of the Week: http://www.santaclaus.com/stories.html
  

CALL TODAY TO OPPOSE MEDICAID, FOOD STAMP, STUDENT LOAN CUTS
Negotiations have reached a critical point in the drive to reconcile the vast differences between the House and Senate bills setting mandatory funding levels for key domestic programs. The AFT expects the final product to cut many vital programs that help our nation’s most vulnerable citizens. As the negotiations come down to the wire, urge your representative/senator(s) to Vote NO on any cuts to student loans, Medicaid, food stamps and child-support enforcement.

• Cuts to student loans would severely affect the amount a student would have to pay back for his or her student loan. For example, under these changes, a student borrowing $17,500 will have to pay an additional $5,800 in higher interest!
• According to the Congressional Budget Office, the House reconciliation bill would create $7.8 billion in new charges on students and parents borrowing to pay for college. 
• Congress is proposing to cut $11 billion from Medicaid—one of the most important programs providing long-term care to seniors and essential medical care to poor Americans.
• A cut of this size, as well as the new program changes, will cause many people to lose Medicaid health insurance or face higher out-of-pocket expenses that they cannot afford and increase uncompensated care.
• Other provisions drastically reduce welfare benefits for those in need.

All these cuts are designed to make room for more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

This vote is expected to take place any time the week of Dec. 19. Call your Senators and Representative as soon as possible starting Monday morning at the AFT toll-free number (866/327-8670), and the U.S. Capitol switchboard will connect you to your members of Congress. You also can find their direct lines at http://www.house.gov/.

ALLIANCE ACTIVISTS OVERCOME 2005 WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE ON AGING’S TIGHT SCRIPT
Activist delegates to the White House Conference on Aging (WHCoA), held Dec. 11-14 in Washington, D.C., won surprising support in spite of White House efforts to control the debate. As it has done in many other instances, the Bush administration tried to close off real debate about many key issues included on the conference's agenda. At issue for the Alliance's more than 50 delegates, including four from the AFT, was WHCoA's refusal to allow any non-agenda resolutions to be publicly discussed and debated, even if 10 percent of the delegates favored such action. This 10 percent Rule was adopted at both the 1981 and 1995 White House Conferences on Aging. Alliance delegates sported 10 percent stickers and, within a few hours of the conference's opening, collected signatures calling for such a rule from more than 20 percent of the delegates. "You'd think,” said George J. Kourpias, president of the Alliance for Retired Americans, “the president who envisioned the Medicare drug benefit to be the center of his compassionate conservatism, or made privatizing Social Security the pillar of his domestic agenda, would care to hear from real seniors about real issues of concern." That’s just what happened in the general session’s wrap-up when delegates responded enthusiastically to positions opposing privatization of Social Security and for a national drug benefit negotiated by Medicare. President Bush did make some history. He became the first president not to attend a scheduled White House Conference on Aging, choosing instead to visit a nursing home in Northern Virginia.

THIS HOLIDAY SEASON REMEMBER HURRICANE EVACUEES
More than 15,000 AFT members were forced to evacuate their homes due to hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma earlier this year. Thousands of members still have no homes to return to and, in far too many cases, no jobs. In fact, they have little more than what they could carry with them when they evacuated. Today, months after the hurricanes, the plight of victims has faded from the headlines. Their need is greater than ever, however, and we are determined to show our union brothers and sisters that they have not been forgotten. That's why we are asking all AFT members to help with a tax-deductible donation to the AFT Disaster Relief Fund. This fund provides direct assistance to AFT members who have suffered losses in these storms. The AFT has committed to raising more than $3 million to help our fellow members in New Orleans and other affected areas get back on their feet. Many AFT members have already stepped up to the plate—with contributions totaling more than $800,000. But we need to do more. In this holiday season, we ask that you remember our colleagues and their families who are most in need of our help. If you have not already made a contribution to the AFT Disaster Relief Fund, please do so today. If you have already contributed to another organization or charity, we urge you to dig a little deeper and make an additional contribution. To make your tax-deductible donation online, go to http://www.aft.org/katrina. Note that the online donation form provides a field to indicate your local/affiliate, so that your donation will count toward your local or state campaign.

THOUSANDS MOBILIZE FOR WORKER RIGHTS
Retiree activists joined other AFT members and leaders and thousands of trade unionists, civil rights and religious leaders, elected officials and others in cities across the country to commemorate International Human Rights Day, Dec. 10, and to draw public attention to the fact that here in the United States, the basic right to form a union can no longer be taken for granted. From Sacramento to Boston, rallies, town hall meetings and other events put a spotlight on the increasing assaults on worker rights by corporations and anti-union politicians, aided and abetted by the White House. The protesters took particular aim at the policies of the Bush administration, including the attack on employee overtime rights, efforts to strip union representation rights from thousands of federal employees and opposition to labor law reform that would crack down on employer intimidation and harassment of workers trying to organize. In Washington, D.C., more than 200 AFT members and staffers were among the nearly 3,000 unionists and others who gathered Dec. 8 for a rally at AFL-CIO headquarters and then marched to the White House, chanting slogans and carrying signs. AFT executive vice president Antonia Cortese told demonstrators that the Bush administration has set a "malicious anti-worker tone" that has emboldened the governors of Indiana, Missouri and Kentucky to strip bargaining rights from public employees in those states. At the Workers' Freedom Trail Rally and March in Boston, one of the largest events of the week, AFT president Edward J. McElroy told the crowd that even though the right to organize is not a radical idea and has been a "settled matter for generations," most Americans "would be shocked to find out what nonunion workers go through trying to organize and that union workers often can't get a contract." For extended coverage, go to the AFT Web site: http://www.aft.org/.

NEARLY A THIRD OF EMPLOYERS FIRE
PRO-UNION WORKERS
A new report, issued Dec. 8 by American Rights at Work, a non-profit advocacy group, demonstrates that a majority of private employers aggressively use both legal and illegal anti-union tactics during union representation elections overseen by the National Labor Relations Board. Conducted by the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Center for Urban Economic Development, the survey found that 30 percent of employers fire pro-union workers; 49 percent of employers threaten to close a worksite when workers try to form a union (but only 2 percent actually do); and 51 percent lure workers into opposing unions with bribery or favoritism. In addition, more than four out of five companies hire union-busting consultants to fight organizing drives. And more than nine out of 10 force employees to attend one-on-one anti-union meetings with supervisors. The survey, Undermining the Right To Organize: Employer Behavior During Union Representation Campaigns, is based on analysis of 62 campaigns conducted in the Chicago metropolitan area during 2002.

HUNDREDS GATHER FOR MEMORIAL TRIBUTE TO
SANDRA FELDMAN
Hundreds of union colleagues, politicians, labor leaders, friends and family met at the United Federation of Teachers headquarters in New York City on Dec. 6 to pay tribute to former AFT president Sandra Feldman, who died Sept. 18 at age 65. The memorial event brought together noted politicians from Feldman's years at the UFT and as president of the AFT—including former president Bill Clinton, members of Congress and former New York City mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins. The accolades and stories—both funny and poignant—from her AFT family, AFL-CIO leaders, personal friends and family during the nearly two-hour event revealed Feldman's toughness and persistence as well as her deep compassion and joy for life. "America gave her a chance to live her dream," said President Clinton, referring to Feldman's modest roots and rise to success though public education. "She spent her life trying to give every other child that chance." She also faced cancer "with a fierce determination and a smile," said Clinton, and although she did not win all her fights, the true test of her life's work was if the nation was better off when she left. "She was a shining triumph by that measure," he said. AFT president Edward J. McElroy, who opened the proceedings, said that Feldman recognized the transforming power of education and trade unionism. These two pillars, he said, "were of one piece for her, for together they both meant that ordinary people's lives, and therefore our society, would be improved."

FOUR OUT OF FIVE LARGE U.S. BUSINESSES TO CONTINUE RETIREE DRUG BENEFITS, ACCEPT MEDICARE DRUG COVERAGE SUBSIDIES
Nearly four out of five U.S. businesses that currently provide retiree health benefits will accept subsidies offered by the federal government’s Medicare drug benefit, according to a new survey of 300 large companies released Dec. 8 by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Hewitt Associates. The survey finds that 79 percent of employers that currently provide retiree health benefits will accept Medicare's financial incentives to continue providing retiree drug coverage. The incentives equal 28 percent of allowable drug costs between $250 and $5,000 per retiree in 2006. Employers expect an average savings of $644 per retiree in 2006, the survey finds. Ten percent of employers say they will provide some drug coverage to supplement the new Medicare coverage, and 9 percent say they will stop offering drug coverage to Medicare-eligible retirees. Among employers that plan to accept the Medicare subsidy in 2006, 82 percent say they are very or somewhat likely to accept the subsidy again in 2007. Fifty percent say they are likely to maintain coverage and accept the subsidy in 2010, according to the survey. Twenty-two percent say they are unlikely to accept the subsidy by 2010, and 28 percent say they do not know. The survey also finds that 29 percent of firms will drop both medical and drug coverage for retirees who enroll in a Medicare drug plan, while 31 percent say they will drop only drug coverage for retirees who enroll in the Medicare drug benefit.

2005 SALES OF GENERIC Rx DRUGS COULD EXCEED
$28 BILLION
U.S. sales of generic drugs in 2005 are expected to exceed $28 billion -- almost 65 percent more than previous estimates -- according to projections released earlier this year by IMS Health, a pharmaceutical industry research firm. Branded generics -- generic versions of brand-name drugs sold by brand-name drug makers -- largely account for the significant increase. The new Medicare prescription drug benefit will encourage generic drug use and could greatly increase generic drug sales. Generic industry analysts and consultants have said the new Medicare drug benefit could raise sales by 1 percent to 4 percent in 2006. Generic drug sales growth is expected to slow to about 6.7 percent in 2005, from an average of 13.5 percent annually since 2000. However, the higher sales projections and the new Medicare drug benefit plan could boost generic drug manufacturers, which recently have been affected financially by delays in FDA approval rules for generic biologic cancer drugs and competition from branded generics. In 2004, about half of the nation's 3.6 billion prescriptions were filled with generic drugs, according to IMS, and six of the top 10 prescription medicines were generics.

HEALTHCARE FOCUSING ON PROFITABLE SERVICES, NOT COST CONTROLS OR ACCESS FOR THE UNINSURED
The latest trend in healthcare – focusing on such lucrative specialties as orthopedics and cardiac care -- is not making healthcare more efficient, cheaper or accessible, just more profitable for hospitals and doctors, according to a report released this fall by the Center for Studying Health System Change, known as HSC. "Hospitals are concentrating on sure-fire profitable services while neglecting less lucrative care, failing to rein in spiraling costs, and leaving the uninsured without adequate access to primary healthcare," said AFT president Edward J. McElroy. The HSC study found that hospitals and physicians are competing intensely for profitable specialty services, making costly investments to expand capacity, and offering the latest medical technologies, especially in affluent, well-insured areas. Yet, the report found, employers and health plans have few new initiatives to control rising costs. Also, private physicians are more reluctant to treat low-income patients because of low reimbursements, and specialty physicians are not anxious to provide on-call coverage at hospitals because of their lucrative private practices. "We can't keep sweeping these problems under the rug and acting like they don't exist. This country needs real health reform that will contain costs and provide equal access to quality healthcare, regardless of whether you’re living in wealthy suburbia or in the city," McElroy said.

THIS HOLIDAY SEASON SAVE ON CDs
Last-minute holiday shopping? AFT members can save some serious money through the Union Plus Music Discount Club. The club has more than 15,000 CD titles representing rock, pop, R&B, jazz, rap, classical, Latin music and more.

• Single CDs only $9.99 and double CDs are $15.98
• Buy two CDs and get the third free
• Standard shipping is always free

Simply agree to purchase one CD now and one more within the next 12 months. There are no other obligations. To learn more or to see CD selections, visit http://www.unionplus.org/music.

QUOTE OF NOTE: New Orleans Lays Off
School Employees
"This is a sad day at the end of a tragic three months for the teachers, paraprofessionals, secretaries, and other employees of New Orleans Public Schools and for the city of New Orleans, which could lose more than 20,000 citizens at the same time when the mayor is asking citizens to return."

Brenda Mitchell, President
United Teachers of New Orleans, AFT
Dec. 1, 2005

WEB SITE OF THE WEEK: http://www.santaclaus.com/stories.html
 
Read classic Christmas stories from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to the New York Sun’s "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus."

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!