High Quality Child Care Is Out of Reach for Working Families | Economic Policy Institute

 

Introduction and key findings

In recent decades most Americans have endured stagnant hourly pay, despite significant economy-wide income growth (Bivens and Mishel 2015). In essence, only a fraction of overall economic growth is trickling down to typical households. There is no silver bullet for ensuring ordinary Americans share in the country’s prosperity; instead, it will take a range of policies. Some should give workers more leverage in the labor market, and some should expand social insurance and public investments to boost incomes. An obvious example of the latter is helping American families cope with the high cost of child care.

The high cost of child care has received attention from an array of policymakers. For example, in his 2015 State of the Union address, President Obama cited child care affordability as a key to helping middle-class families feel more secure in a world of constant change (White House 2015). New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recognized similar concerns and released an interagency implementation plan for free, high-quality, full-day universal prekindergarten (NYC 2014). High quality, dependable, and affordable child care for children of all ages is more important than ever, especially since having both parents in the workforce is an economic necessity for many families.

This paper uses a number of benchmarks to gauge the affordability of child care across the country. It begins by explaining how child care costs fit into EPI’s basic family budget thresholds, which measure the income families need in order to attain a modest yet adequate standard of living in 618 communities. The report then compares child care costs to state minimum wages and public college tuition. Finally, to determine how child care costs differ by location and family composition, the paper reconstructs budgets for two-parent, two-child families in 10 locations to include the higher cost of infant care, compares these families’ child care costs to those of families without infants, and compares costs for both family types with metro area median incomes.

Key findings include:

• Child care costs account for a significant portion of family budgets.
  • EPI’s basic family budget threshold for a two-parent, two-child family ranges from $49,114 (Morristown, Tennessee) to $106,493 (Washington, D.C.). In the median family budget area for this family type (Des Moines, Iowa), a two-parent, two-child family needs $63,741 to attain a modest yet adequate standard of living.
  • Across regions and family types, child care costs account for the greatest variability in family budgets. Monthly child care costs for a household with one child (a 4-year-old) range from $344 in rural South Carolina to $1,472 in Washington, D.C.
  • As a share of total family budgets, center-based child care for single-parent families with two children (ages 4 and 8) ranges from 11.7 percent in New Orleans to 33.7 percent in Buffalo, New York.
  • Among families with two children (a 4-year-old and an 8-year-old), child care costs exceed rent in 500 out of 618 family budget areas. For two-child families, child care costs range from about half as much as rent in San Francisco to nearly three times rent in Binghamton, New York.
• Child care is particularly unaffordable for minimum-wage workers.
  • The high cost of child care means that a full-time, full-year minimum-wage worker with one child falls far below the family budget threshold in all 618 family budget areas—even after adjusting for higher state and city minimum wages.
  • Among families with young children, child care costs constitute a large share of annual earnings for families living off one full-time, full-year minimum-wage income. For example, to meet the demands of infant care costs for a year, a minimum-wage worker in Hawaii—the state with the median state minimum wage ($7.75)—would have to devote his or her entire earnings from working full time (40 hours a week) from January until September.
• Other salient benchmarks highlight the extremely high costs of child care.
  • In 33 states and the District of Columbia, infant care costs exceed the average cost of in-state college tuition at public 4-year institutions.
  • In terms of child care costs’ share of total family budgets, only in a handful of EPI’s 618 family budget areas are child care costs close to the 10 percent affordability threshold established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
  • Child care costs are particularly high for younger children. When 10 family budgets in various areas are reconstructed to include two-parent, two-child families with an infant and a 4-year-old (instead of a 4-year-old and an 8-year-old), child care ranges from 19.3 percent to 28.7 percent of total family budgets. This compares with a range of 11.8 percent to 21.6 percent for families with a 4-year-old and an 8-year-old.
  • In these 10 areas, child care costs for an infant and a 4-year-old constitute between approximately 20 percent and 31 percent of median family income—far above the HHS’s 10 percent affordability standard.

Child care costs and EPI’s basic family budgets

Perhaps the best way to evaluate the affordability of child care is to determine the share of a family’s budget accounted for by child care costs. Toward this end, this paper relies upon EPI’s Family Budget Calculator (Gould, Cooke, and Kimball 2015), which measures the income families need in order to attain a modest yet adequate living standard where they live by estimating community-specific costs of housing, food, child care, transportation, health care, other necessities, and taxes, for 10 family types living in 618 U.S. communities.

Background on EPI’s basic family budgets

EPI’s basic family budgets differ by location, since certain costs, such as housing, vary significantly depending on where one resides. Geographical cost-of-living differences are built into the budget calculations by incorporating regional, state, or local variations in prices (depending on item). Basic family budget measurements are also adjustable by family type because expenses vary considerably depending on the number of children in a family (if any), and whether a family is headed by a single parent or two parents. The 10 family types include one or two adults with zero to four children. To estimate family costs, we assume one-child families have a 4-year-old, and that a second child is 8 years old, a third 12 years old, and a fourth 16 years old. (For more on the methodology used to construct the budgets, see Gould et al. 2015.)

The shares of expenses going to various categories vary substantially across areas and family types. Unsurprisingly, the lowest family budgets are for a single person. Except for child care (in which case families composed of two adults with no children also spend nothing), one-person families have the lowest expenses in every category. For example, they require only efficiency housing and only need to purchase other items, such as food and health care, for one. Budgets rise significantly with family size, since more children require more housing, food, health care, and child care.

What it takes to get by varies greatly across the country, as displayed in Figure A. For a two-parent, two-child family, the family budget threshold ranges from $49,114 (in Morristown, Tennessee) to $106,493 (in Washington, D.C.). In the median family budget area for this family type—Des Moines, Iowa—a two-parent, two-child family needs $63,741 to attain a modest yet adequate standard of living.

Read more by clicking on the following:  High Quality Child Care Is Out of Reach for Working Families | Economic Policy Institute

Gov. Brown signs climate change bill to spur renewable energy, efficiency standards - LA Times

 

Jerry Brown on Wednesday signed a pared-down climate change measure that will increase renewable energy generation and make buildings more energy efficient.

The legislation, SB 350 by Senate leader Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles), was amended to remove a third component that would have required reduced gasoline use on California roads. The battle over the controversial proposal dominated the closing weeks of the legislative session last month.

Despite ceding some ground in a tug-of-war with oil companies, Brown and De León have touted the remaining parts of the legislation as significant steps in California’s fight against climate change.

Brown said the law would help the state lead a worldwide effort and improve the health of Californians.

"This is big," he said. "It’s big because it’s global in scope. It’s also big because it’s local in application."

A quick guide to California's climate change battle

Chris Megerianneed to invest in storage technology and other initiatives

California's battle against climate change involves an alphabet soup of agencies responsible for different programs and several key laws that guide state actions. Here's a glossary:

SB 350: This bill is now law, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in Los Angeles on Wednesday. It sets two targets for 2030...

California's battle against climate change involves an alphabet soup of agencies responsible for different programs and several key laws that guide state actions. Here's a glossary:

SB 350: This bill is now law, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in Los Angeles on Wednesday. It sets two targets for 2030...

(Chris Megerian)

The bill will require California to generate 50% of its electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind by 2030, up from the current target of 33% by 2020.

“We’re mainstreaming clean power," De León said. No matter where Californians live, “you will have the same access to clean electricity and clean air.”

The state’s target is expected to stimulate the development of more solar and wind power plants, but it will also raise new challenges. Renewable energy can be unreliable because it's impossible to predict when the sun shines or the wind blows, and experts say California will to ensure the right amount of electricity is available when it's needed.

The state will also need to become twice as energy efficient by 2030 under the new law. For existing buildings, that could include installing newer appliances or improving heating and air conditioning systems.

“What we’re trying to do is facilitate, where necessary, the marketplace for energy efficiency, for building upgrades, for remodels," said Andrew McAllister, a commissioner at the California Energy Commission.

Above is from:  Gov. Brown signs climate change bill to spur renewable energy, efficiency standards - LA Times

Byron nuclear power station completes refueling outage

 

Operators returned Byron Generating Station Unit 1 to full power Monday, marking the end of the unit’s scheduled refueling outage that began Sept. 14th.

Approximately 2,000 Exelon employees and supplemental workers performed more than 10,000 carefully choreographed activities during the outage. The activities included safety inspections, equipment tests and plant refurbishments. By replacing and updating equipment on an ongoing basis, it ensures the plant uses the most up-to-date technology. Operators also replaced about one-third of the of the reactor’s fuel.

The work performed during the refueling outage is designed to ensure the facility’s ability to provide clean, safe and reliable electricity through the unit’s next 18-month operating cycle.

"Home owners and businesses rely on power from Byron Station to keep their places of work running and make their homes a place of comfort,” said Site Vice President Russ Kearney, the station’s senior executive. "The work completed during this refueling outage will ensure we are able to provide this service.”

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Byron Station Unit 2 continued to operate at full power during the Unit 1 outage.

Byron Station is located in Ogle County, Ill., about 25 miles southwest of Rockford. At full power, the facility’s two generating units produce more than 2,300 megawatts of carbon-free electricity, enough to power more than two million typical American homes.

Byron nuclear power station completes refueling outage

Former Rockford police officer seeks clemency in 2012 Boone County DUI crash - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

By Jeff Kolkey

Posted Oct. 6, 2015 at 9:43 AM
Updated Oct 6, 2015 at 9:01 PM

BELVIDERE — Former Rockford police officer Daniel Cruz is asking for clemency after he injured three Poplar Grove women and paralyzed another in May 2012 when he rammed their Oldsmobile Bravada off the road while off duty and driving drunk.

Cruz, 41, pleaded guilty and was sentenced in May 2014 by Judge C. Robert Tobin III to eight years in prison for aggravated DUI causing great bodily harm. His projected date of release is February 2021, but his prison term could be cut short if granted clemency by the governor's office.

"I know the wrong I have done, and I vow to continue to make positive choices in my life," Cruz wrote in a clemency petition filed with the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. "Please know I will never drink and drive again, as God (is) my witness. In addition, I would follow any probation or rules placed upon me."

Saying he has made positive changes in his life since the crash, Cruz on Wednesday will argue before the board that releasing him would benefit his sons, ages 7 and 9, who are suffering because of his absence.

A Rockford Police Department officer for 13 years and a U.S. Army veteran, Cruz said that since the crash he has undergone alcohol addiction treatment, obtained advanced degrees, taken parenting classes and served as a model prisoner.

Cruz wrote that he would agree to ankle monitoring or home confinement.

But Boone County State’s Attorney Michelle Courier will travel to Springfield to fight Cruz's request.

Similar arguments were made at his sentencing hearing before Judge Tobin. The judge noted Cruz’s clean criminal record, track record as an outstanding father, military service and years as a police officer before passing sentence.

Cruz was off duty and driving with a blood alcohol content nearly twice the legal limit just after 9 p.m. on May 21, 2012, on Beloit Road.

Four Poplar Grove women had piled into an SUV after attending an informal book club meeting and were headed home. Cruz attempted to pass their Oldsmobile in a no-passing zone near a sharp curve in the area of Townhall Road.

He crashed into the Oldsmobile rather than collide head-on with an oncoming pick-up truck. The Oldsmobile was sent rolling over through a farm field before coming to rest on its tires.

Lynn S. Acker, Sara Cernohous and Kim Hawkinson all suffered injuries. Renowned area golfer Mary “Suzie” Danielson was left paralyzed from the neck down. An autopsy determined that Danielson died in September 2014 of a viral infection that was unrelated to injuries she suffered in the crash.

Tobin found that instead of rendering aid, Cruz tried to leave the crash scene and lied to a firefighter about his involvement in the crash as he tried to flee.

Page 2 of 2 - “You didn’t call 911, you called for a getaway car,” Tobin said at the May 2014 sentencing hearing. “You had two choices: Stick around or flee. You fled.”

Despite his claims to accept responsibility for his actions, "he has spent more time making sure he is viewed as the victim," Courier said.

He blames his work for the Rockford Police Department for his drinking problem, blames the women in the crash for refusing his "military combat lifesaving skills," and law enforcement for not understanding that he was actually trying to help, Courier said.

"Sadly, Mr. Cruz has noted his children are facing difficulties ... what Mr. Cruz needs to understand is that he is solely responsible for those difficulties," Courier said. "Cruz claimed to accept responsibility for what he had done, but he never identified in his petition anything he did was wrong. The state believes Mr. Cruz will only learn how to be held accountable by serving the remainder of his sentence.”

Dorothy Schneider contributed to this report.

Former Rockford police officer seeks clemency in 2012 Boone County DUI crash - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

These People Are the Secret to Bernie Sanders’s Success | The Nation

 

 Manchester, New Hampshire—“There is no secret formula to winning in New Hampshire,” says Julia Barnes. “Volunteers recruited plus tactics equals the win number.” A native of Hollis, a town about 25 miles south of here, Barnes is the state director for Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign. By “tactics,” she means boots on the ground: the slow, unglamorous, persistent work of contacting likely primary voters and identifying Sanders supporters—and then making sure all of them actually vote.

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By “volunteers,” she means people like Elizabeth Ropp. “I watched Bernie filibuster against tax cuts for the wealthy, and I really hoped that someday he’d run for president,” Ropp tells me. A community acupuncturist in Manchester—“We provide affordable acupuncture on a sliding-fee scale”—Ropp, with her husband, hosted the first Sanders house party in the state earlier this year. “I live in a small bungalow, and our living room, dining room, and kitchen were crammed,” she says. “We had about 130 people, and some of them had to stand outside.”

Or Janice Kelble, a post-office employee for 29 years who now works for the New Hampshire Postal Workers union. Last month, when it became the first union in the state to endorse Sanders, Kelble almost missed the announcement. “My husband has pretty advanced Parkinson’s disease,” she says, “and I didn’t think he could sit through the whole event. So I had to run home and then hurry back to Manchester. It’s kind of hard to juggle, but Bernie has been there for us, and I really wanted to be there for him.”

Or Bob Friedlander, a doctor who practiced clinical oncology for 27 years before switching to palliative medicine. Back in 2003, Friedlander founded Doctors for Dean in support of his fellow physician’s short-lived campaign for the presidency. This August, he heard Sanders in person for the first time, at a Friends of the Earth meeting in Concord. “Afterwards I thought, ‘I really want to work for him,’” Friedlander says. “In a way, this feels like an extension of my work in palliative care. That was about seeing the patient as a whole person and helping them to vocalize what mattered most to them. Here, too, we’re focusing on what really matters.”

Presidential campaigns are like icebergs. There’s the part you see: the candidate, making speeches or appearing on television, and the supporters, cheering at rallies, wearing buttons, knocking on doors. Then there’s the much larger part you can’t see: the tables at campaign headquarters piled high with leaflets and lawn signs, the paid staff—and the army of volunteers with clipboards working phone banks, keeping track of voter preferences, and making sure “leaners” and undecideds get plenty of follow-up.

New Hampshire’s primary is currently scheduled for February 9, 2016. Bernie Sanders has no path to the White House that doesn’t begin with a win here. In May, he trailed Hillary Clinton among likely voters in the state by 38 points. At the beginning of the summer, he was still 10 points behind. The latest poll puts Sanders ahead of Clinton 42 percent to 28 percent— a margin traditionally described as a “comfortable lead.” In another sign of his surge, in late September, a Sanders rally at the University of New Hampshire drew over 3,000 supporters; a Clinton event two days earlier at the same place attracted just 600.

How did Sanders pull ahead? His supporters in New Hampshire were happy to talk about what motivated them. But the more I heard, the more I realized that the Sanders campaign really was different—and not just because it had less money. As anyone who has ever watched The War Room can tell you, maintaining message discipline is crucial to a winning campaign. (Remember “It’s the economy, stupid”?) Which in turn means a tight, top-down command structure to keep everyone “on message.”

 

The Sanders campaign is nothing like that. Look below the waterline and instead of a single streamlined operation, you find twin hulls. One is a professionally run, locally focused effort where the candidate’s position on the Northern Pass (a controversial plan to build a high-voltage power line through the state) is as important as his views on immigration and taxes. The other is a parallel structure, a volunteer-based reservoir of energy, talent, and enthusiasm that propelled a senator from a tiny state into a national figure. I’ve come to think of this operation as the Sanders second shift.

* * *

Aidan King graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 2014. But I met him back home in Montpelier, Vermont, a two-hour drive up I-89. Well over six feet tall, with a boyish face framed by blond fuzz, King is the digital-marketing coordinator for a local winemaker—which, as it’s harvest season, also means he picks his share of grapes. Since December 2013, when he founded Grassroots for Sanders with David Frederick (“a stranger I met on the Internet who lives in San Jose”), King has spent most of his nights “glued to my computer…. Sometimes my girlfriend says, ‘Dude, you’re on the computer too much!’, and I take a break.”

“I put a lot of stake in authenticity. And I’ve been exposed to Bernie’s honesty since I was in diapers.” — Aidan King

King, who turns 24 this month, is the group’s senior digital organizer. Among other things, he runs the San- ders for President forum on Reddit, the massively popular news and social-networking website. King’s subreddit— a place for the online discussion of all things Bernie—has amassed over 113,000 subscribers to date. If that sounds inconsequential, you probably weren’t paying attention on April 30, when Sanders used Reddit to announce his candidacy. Or to the AMA—“Ask Me Anything”—he did on the site in May. Or to the news on October 1, when the Sanders campaign announced it had raised a whopping $26 million, largely from small donors online. That put the Vermont socialist within touching distance of Clinton’s $28 million for the quarter.

In an age when social media have been credited—or blamed—for everything from the Arab Spring to the decline of Western civilization, it’s important to be clear: Facebook “likes” won’t get anyone elected. But social media’s low entry costs have allowed what, at least at this point, remains a decentralized, volunteer-driven guerrilla campaign to challenge the Clinton machine. “You need a lot of people doing stuff for free,” says King, whose earliest political memory is of “when my mom took me to Washington to protest against the Iraq War.”

Aidan King’s Sanders for President forum on Reddit has amassed over 113,000 subscribers.

“I was so excited about Obama. And I still think he’s done amazing things. But I wanted more follow-through,” says King, listing “drone strikes, kill lists, NSA spying on Americans, the expansion of Bush-administration policies, a failed drug war, failed foreign policy,” and the increasing influence of money in politics as his main concerns. “I put a lot of stake in authenticity,” he says. “And I’ve been exposed to Bernie’s politics and his honesty since I was in diapers.”

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Hillary Clinton, adds King, “is obviously a smart and powerful woman. I consider myself a liberal, and would of course prefer her to Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush. But I get $20 haircuts, and I don’t feel represented by someone who was on the board of Wal-Mart. If we can do better—and I think we can—why not try for it?”

Although he’s in regular contact with Kenneth Pennington, the Sanders campaign’s digital director, King and his fellow volunteers “don’t take orders. They don’t dictate the content, although if they want to promote an event or a particular issue, they’ll ask. We’re here to help, not to compete,” he says.

* * *

Daniela Perdomo’s relationship with the Sanders campaign is even more detached. “I’ve never even been to Vermont,” she laughs. The US-born daughter of an Israeli mother and a Guatemalan father, Perdomo spent most of her childhood in Brazil, returning to the United States for college, where she volunteered as a community organizer. After a stint as a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times—“because I spoke Spanish, they put me on what I call the ‘structural inequality’ beat. Basically, I was writing about brown people”—she took a series of tech jobs on the West Coast and wrote for Alternet. Then the recession hit.

Following the job market back to New York, Perdomo worked for a couple of start-ups before founding her own company, goTenna, which lets mobile-phone users send texts and share location data even in areas with no phone service. Her personal trajectory may be unusual, but the political impulse that spurred Perdomo to also work a second unpaid shift is beginning to sound familiar.

“I first came across Bernie Sanders during the Obama- care debate, when it seemed like there was a real chance for universal healthcare. I was on board with Obama from the first day, but when he took the public option off the table, I was pretty disappointed,” she says.

Daniela Perdomo. (Jane Hu)

“When Sanders first talked about running, I thought, ‘He can’t win.’ I donated, because that’s how democracy should work: You should put your money behind a candidate who represents your views. I still couldn’t convince any of my friends.”

Until she found her way to the Sanders subreddit. “Suddenly, I heard conversations no one in my office was talking about,” she says. But when she tried to research Sanders’s record, “all I found were dismissive news stories. So I decided to build a website optimized for search and social media.” Before she knew it, Perdomo had 125 volunteers, and in 32 days had made FeeltheBern.org. “This is support you cannot buy. It can only be free,” Perdomo says. Since its launch on August 12, the website has garnered over 2 million views.

What does the Sanders campaign make of her effort? “I wasn’t even in touch with them until we launched,” Perdomo says. “They trust what we’re doing.” Sanders’s headquarters in Burlington, Vermont, “may be the sun, but there are a lot of planets. And here’s why it’s so easy to coordinate: because we don’t have to.

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“What are you going to do? Stay home because you’re afraid of heart- break?” — Elizabeth Ropp

“Getting out the vote, meeting people face-to-face—those are still crucial,” Perdomo says. “But it’s so exciting seeing what can be done with the new tools available.”

Another example of the new tool kit is the Bernie Post, a news website devoted to covering the campaign. Unlike the Reddit page, its look is slick and fairly traditional. Launched in August, the Bernie Post attracted 40,000 readers in its first three weeks. When I contacted editor Torin Peel to request an interview, he told me he lives in Geelong, Australia—and that he’s still in high school.

“I’m really interested in political campaigns because I’m a strong believer in grassroots politics. I want to make sure that everyone’s treated equally, that the planet is looked after,” he tells me via Twitter. “I don’t like being 16. It’s something I don’t tout around, because it draws interest right away. Also, I don’t think it’s all that unusual anymore for people my age to be getting involved with stuff like this. Perhaps in previous election cycles, but I’ve seen so many young people fired up by this campaign.”

* * *

Back in New Hampshire, Julia Barnes says that with eight offices spread out across the state, the Sanders campaign is still “in the middle of Act I. We’ve got our stage sets, and we know who our actors are.”

So what happens next? “A ton of voter contact,” she says. “Folks sit down with you and talk about their issues. Healthcare. Student loans. Campaign finance. The environment. And you have to reach out to all kinds of groups. Issue groups. Neighborhood associations. Knitting circles. Plus there’s a fundamental independent streak that runs through this state, which also keeps things interesting.” …

Read more:  These People Are the Secret to Bernie Sanders’s Success | The Nation

Fiat Chrysler work schedules helped kill UAW deal

 

DETROIT — Frustration with a type of work schedule that some describe as inhuman — when employees work four, 10-hour shifts per week and switch from late-night shifts to predawn starts within a few days — contributed heavily to the rejection of a UAW labor deal last week.

“Alternative work schedules,” as they are called at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, have become increasingly common across the auto industry because they let plants keep the line running for four extra hours per day without paying significant overtime.

“It deprives people of sleep and damages their health,” said John Klik, who retired a year and a half ago from the Warren Stamping Plant. “Anyone with a young family is screwed. It’s not a life. It’s an existence.”

USA TODAY

UAW threatens strike at Fiat Chrysler

The UAW’s tentative deal with Fiat Chrysler was rejected last week with 65% of Fiat Chrysler union members voting it down. Workers cited entry-level pay, but the work schedule issue has been bubbling for some time, and workers had been looking for more relief.

“It is physiologically more stressful and sociologically more stressful.”

Bill Davis, vice president of operations at Circadian

Under the Fiat Chrysler alternative schedule, plants churn out cars or trucks 20 hours per day, instead of the usual 16, and few workers (if any) earn overtime, even if they work on a Saturday.

The labor agreement would have provided for paying time and a quarter for Saturday hours. But most workers want regular eight-hour shifts with more traditional opportunities for overtime.

“I did it for four and half months, and it’s depressing,” said Tim Manriquez, a skilled-trades worker at a Kokomo, Ind., transmission plant. “After 10 hours, by the time you get home, everything is closed. It’s hard to get anything done outside work.”

What would Manriquez propose?

“Go back to five, eight-hour days. That’s what everyone wants,” he said.

USA TODAY

UAW vows to 'to tell whole story' to members

That takes out the four extra hours of output and raises the possibility that some workers will put in overtime when sales are strong.

“I did it for four and half months, and it’s depressing.”

Tim Manriquez, a skilled-trades worker at a Kokomo, Ind., transmission plant

Much like the two-tier wage structure the UAW agreed to when the automakers were on the brink of failure in 2009, the alternative work schedules were sold as a way to keep production and jobs in the U.S. Now, both concessions are hard to undo.

Fiat Chrysler has been using alternative schedules since 2011, when sales of Ram pickups and Jeep SUVs began rising. That year’s labor contract enabled the UAW’s vice president for the Chrysler department, then General Holiefield, to approve the details of shift schedules.

General Motors uses a range of work schedules, but it currently has no plants where any one shift swings from days to nights in the same week, according to a company spokesman.

Ford uses variations of Fiat Chrysler's schedule, but gauging the level of discontent over it is difficult because Ford is not as far along in its UAW negotiations this year.

USA TODAY

UAW, Fiat officials miscalculated young worker angst

Gary Walkowicz, bargaining chairman at Local 600, which represents workers at Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant, said schedules aren’t the first issue workers bring up when discussing what they want in a new agreement, perhaps because the 10-hour shifts have been in place longer. “But if you bring it up, they will say they don’t like it,” he said of Ford’s schedule, in which one crew works shifts between days and nights, working Monday night, then Friday and Saturday days and then Sunday night.

“It’s how it disrupts your life. It is not a humane way to work and not a healthy way to live,” Walkowicz said. “More compensation doesn’t fix it,” he said of the Fiat Chrysler agreement that provides double time for Sundays.

USA TODAY

UAW votes down Fiat Chrysler contract

A recent Harvard Medical School study that found a quarter of all U.S. workers have insomnia, costing U.S. employers $63 billion in lost productivity each year.

“Studies have indicated that those (who) work across (the) night shift do have higher incident of cardiovascular disease. It is physiologically more stressful and sociologically more stressful,” said Bill Davis, vice president of operations at Circadian, a company that advises companies that run production and deliver services on a 24/7 basis.

Some have tied this type of worker issue to lowered product quality, including increased recalls of vehicles, but there is no research that shows alternative work schedules are causing increased quality problems.

“The company would have data that sheds light on that issue,” said Peter Berg, professor of employment relations at Michigan State University's School of Human Resources and Labor Relations. While the schedules help increase production, Berg said the union might want to ask for evidence that savings from not paying overtime exceeds the cost of quality and safety recalls.

Contributing: Alisa Priddle, Detroit Free Press

Warren Stamping Plant

A Shift: 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday to Thursday

B Shift: 4:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. Wednesday to Saturday

C Shift: 4:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. Monday and Tuesday; off Wednesday and Thursday, then 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Kokomo Transmission

A Shift: 6 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday to Thursday

B Shift: 4:30 p.m. to 3 a,m. Wednesday to Saturday

C Shift: 7:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. Sunday, and Monday into Tuesday; off Wednesday and Thursday, then 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Fiat Chrysler work schedules helped kill UAW deal

Education Week: Teachers Endorse Hillary or did they really?

 

 

Behind the Scenes of NEA's Endorsement: Which Affiliates Backed Clinton?

By Stephen Sawchuk Oct. 6, 2015

 

Education Week

There has been a great deal of media interest in the National Education Association's decision to endorse Hillary Clinton in the primary campaign. On paper, it joins its sister union, the American Federation of Teachers, and increases pressure on other on-the-fence labor groups to make up their own minds.

Behind the scenes, the NEA's endorsement process was a lot more complicated, and even contested, than it looks. Let's dig in.

Hillary Clinton spoke to the NEA Board of Directors before it voted. I tweeted this a day before it happened, and although it's hard to tell what effect it had, it certainly shows how badly Clinton wanted the nod.

The union's PAC Council took a roll-call vote. Remember how I said this was unlikely? I was wrong. Usually, the union's endorsements are pretty pro-forma.This time, apparently, there was sufficient disagreement that someone demanded a roll-call vote. Kudos to Mike Antonucci, who posted the results on his blog. As he notes, the PAC Council approval came by a margin of 85 percent of votes cast, but there were a significant number of abstentions—more than 1,100 or 41 percent of available votes! Note also that certain states gain power because of the council's weighted voting structure. The Delaware affiliate has only 4 percent of the membership of NEA's largest affiliate, California, but it has 32 percent of California's PAC Council votes. That's because it raises a lot of cash per head for the NEA's PAC.

The NEA's Board of Directors split over the vote. As expected, the board of directors approved a Clinton vote, with a 75 percent margin of votes cast. But the actual vote tally, which got passed to me today, is fascinating. (See it below.)

• Board members from Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, as expected, voted against the recommendation. But so did Arkansas, Alaska, Connecticut, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island;
• Board members in California, Nebraska, Ohio, Iowa, and Washington split their votes;
• Nevada and Delaware abstained; and Alabama, Calfornia, and New Jersey also had at least one abstention.

It's hard to know how this is all going to play out in the future, but two things are for sure. For one, should she win, Clinton will owe the teachers' unions more than than Obama did. Second, in pushing so hard for Clinton, NEA President Lily Eskelsen-Garcia has used up a lot of political capital in her union. Expect to hear some dissent about how this all went down at next year's Representative Assembly.

Plote applies for pre-annexation zoning with City of Belvidere

 

--------------------FLASH- Hearing Postponed until November 10, 2015-------------------

 

 

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Plote is currently in court regarding this same gravel pit for alleged infractions of Boone County zoning ordinances and alleged contempt of court orders.  SEE:  http://boonecountywatchdog.blogspot.com/2015/08/update-8-21-2015-plote-case-was.html

 

Plote Construction  (dba:  Beverly Material LLC) will have a public hearing with Belvidere Planning and Zoning Commission at Belvidere City Hall, changed to November 10 see above photocopy of agenda.

 

Plote’s application for city zoning and the planning staff’s recommended approval is available on line on pages 26-63 at:  http://www.ci.belvidere.il.us/images/filecabinet/packets/pzc%20sept%208%20agenda.pdf