NATSS & AFL-CIO & SEIU spell DEATH to documented workers

TEMP AGENCY and OUTSOURCING VIOLATIONS and ABUSES, 2000-2006 ... learn THE LAW and how to cover your ass from these predators!

Adecco + Manpower + many others march on against workers rights!

WHAT TO DO ABOUT OUTSOURCING????

What to do about U.S. trade unions like AFL CIO and SEIU who abandon their old members and throw then under the bus as soon as things get rough? Gut them! If they register illegal aliens and undocumented workers in the millions into their flabby and flatulent membership rosters, let them roast!

National Association of Temporary and Staffing Services (NATSS)

[it is also spelled ASA -- American Staffing Association]

It rhymes a lot with defense subcontractors and FOIA bidding wars between weapons and spyware software "contractors"!

https://www.angelfire.com/planet/blacklisting_central/AISLING-recommended-sites.html

What is an "identity politics chauvinist"?

https://www.angelfire.com/poetry/aisling/speak_truth_to_power.htm

https://www.angelfire.com/poetry/aisling/identity_politics_chauvinism.htm

Recommended Websites:

https://www.angelfire.com/poetry/aisling/Recommended_Websites.htm

https://www.angelfire.com/poetry/aisling/speak_truth_to_power.htm

‘Speak Truth to Power’ Poetry Series, AISLING

TEMP SLAVES & Ned color revolutions

https://www.angelfire.com/planet/blacklisting_central/Temp_Slaves.htm

ELECTRONIC WHIP, LONDON [three issues; see links directly below]

Electronic Whip Table of Contents

https://www.angelfire.com/de/Boiishaft/The-Electronic-Whip_London.html

GOD OF WAR

https://www.angelfire.com/de/Boiishaft/god-of-war.html

Ret Marut and B. Traven
https://www.angelfire.com/de/Boiishaft/B-Traven-Circle.html

Times Square --Call to STRIKE

https://www.angelfire.com/de/Boiishaft/history-Times-Square.html

“Jumping Ship in Batumi”

http://carpathian_bronze.tripod.com/Batumi-Boat-Hopping.html

Why I love my Spydero knife
https://www.angelfire.com/poetry/aisling/Spyderco_Blues.html

click here to join a discussion group in Silicon Valley on how to sue your temp agency in a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT ... forget the humiliation of unemployment compensation .... click now!

click here to join another posting group and make your replies heard ASAP ... angry and fired temp engineers from the Department of Defense are willing to sue ... read about it here.

"OVERWHELMING RESPONSES TO TEMP JOBS BY UNEMPLOYED HOLDERS OF MASTERS DEGREES"

[excerpts from a New York Times article by DAVID LEONHARDT}

[...] The number of applicants at some agencies has doubled, while the number of job listings has fallen 20 percent or more in the last few months.

[...] The struggle of ... millions of temporary workers nationwide is perhaps the starkest sign of how rapidly the labor market has shifted since late last year.

[...] temporary employment has ... fallen by 20 percent, or 500,000 people. That is more than the combined PAYROLL REDUCTIONS at automakers, restaurants, hotels and department stores.

[...] That these stuggles are now common in ... [the] nation's economic slowdown, has spread well beyond the industrial Midwest ... many people have found their financial situation becoming precarious over the last year.

[...] "Every door I've knocked on, they say, 'We have a hiring freeze on," [she] said, adding that the few openings she has found are for low paying clerical jobs ... I think it's going to get worse before it gets a little better."

[...] One 37-year old woman said she had made $80,000 a year when working in the Human Resources department of an accounting firm in Chicago but has been unable to find a job paying $50,000[.] In the meantime, she is earning $12 an hour -- the equivalent of $24,000 a year -- doing a six month project for a medical laboratory.

[...] Besides increasing the supply of temporary workers, the recent layoffs have also reduced the demand for jobs ... as companies cut their temporary work forces as well.

[...] Quality Distribution, a trucking company ... relied on about 50 temps a year ago, is down to about 15 now: "For the first time in a long time, when we advertise, we just get an OVERWHELMING response ... We get people who are clearly OVERQUALIFIED for the types of positions we're recruiting for."

***

https://www.angelfire.com/planet/blacklisting_central/AISLING-recommended-sites.html

MASSIVE LAYOFFS HEMORRHAGE the U.S. Economy, Making Our Working and Middle Classes Deathly and Anemic: Wall Street Cheers and Celebrates!

[exerpted from David Leonhardt's article in a recent NY Times article]

"[...] Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Dell Computer and Nortel Networks are the latest to announce plans to lay off thousands and thousands of employees, joining companies like DaimlerChrysler, Lucent Technologies, Sara Lee and Whirlpool ... with their announcements of plans to eliminate about 140,000 jobs[.]

[...] As the economy's growth has slowed, investors expect managers to restore profit gains quickly, and cheer the announcement of major cost cuts and layoffs ... recent cuts have consisted almost entirely of quickly imposed mass layoffs, forcing thousands of workers to hunt for new jobs.

[...] Companies have little incentive ... because large job cuts appeal to investors and Wall Street analysts looking for signs of aggressive cost-cutting.

[...] In January, an index of consumer confidence posted its steepest drop in 10 years, largely because people expect the economy to be worse off in six months than it is today.

from the LONDON FINANCIAL TIMES, on the U.S. Economy & FIRING of TEMPS:

"... a slowdown in the US economy has forced companies to curb their rapid expansion. Take Corning, a long-established glass-maker that has turned itself into the world's biggest supplier of optical fibre for communications networks, and glass for liquid crystal displays. As a result, its staff numbers expanded from 16,000 in the mid-1990s to 40,000.

"At the end of last week, Corning said sales of optical components would not double this year, as it had believed. With customers such as Nortel cutting back their orders, it now thinks sales of components will increase 50 per cent. Having CUT ALL OF THE TEMPORARY WORKERS in its manufacturing plants two weeks ago, Corning now plans to start LAYING OFF PERMANENT EMPLOYEES as well."

from the NEW YORK TIMES 2005

"Temp Agency Slavery Soon to be as Conspicuous as Dutch West Indies Slave Shipping"

[excerpted]

"[...] Terry O'Sullivan, the president of the AFL-CIO's Laborer's Union, said LABOR READY had sent temporary workers across picket lines in at least six strikes the last few years.

While union ranks have been stagnating, TEMPORARY WORK has been growing by leaps and bounds ... revenue from the TEMPORARY WORKER INDUSTRY is expected to reach $140 million this year ... with 90 percent of American companies now using temporary workers.

The union campaign has had a limited effect on LABOR READY.

[...] The company is now rebuilding its sales force. In July, the founder and chief executive, Glenn Welstad, was forced to resign after the board accused him of taking an unauthorized loan of $3.5 million to cover a margin call on his LABOR READY stock ... LABOR READY says it is the top provider of manual laborers for temporary tasks, but it remains a NICHE PLAYER with revenue only now approaching $ ONE BILLION DOLLARS.

[...] Union officials said their members were paid $15 an hour plus benefits.

[...] LABOR READY ... last year paid workers and average of $6.94 an hour ... but makes NO PROVISION for current health care and has NO PENSION FUND.

The AFL-CIO's goal, ... "is to UNIONIZE THE WORKERS OF THE TEMPORARY AGENCIES."

from the New York Times

[excerpts from reporter LESLIE EATON]

AN ECONOMIC DISASTER OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS

"[...] Job growth has slowed in the northern suburbs and on Long Island, and has stalled in parts of New Jersey and Connecticut, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

[...] High tech centers like San Francisco, Bost and Austin, Tex., are also showing some weakness as individuals and corporations throttle back on their computer purchases.

[...] This is bad news not only for investors, but also for Wall Street. When stocks decline, securities firms may make a little money from trading, but they lose the huge fees they make from initial public offerings and mergers.

The stock market is not the only problem. The bond business has also been bad. And securities firms have been hit with a wave of mergers.

Industry estimates suggest that 10,000 workers will be laid off, most of them in New York.

[...] The industry ... is now warning of a cataclysm for the city if its profits plunge.

"The disaster to the city's and state's budgets, economies and job markets could be biblical in proportion."

Hot off the NEW YORK TIMES presses!

from a story by DAVID LEONHARDT

OVER 30 MILLION "FREELANCERS" in the US Today!

[summary of the article]

"Self Employment Will Grow in the Coming Years"

WHY??

* Before WWII, America had many many more independent farmers

* All the widespread layoffs among white collar workers in the late 80s and early 90s

* More than 30 million Americans now call themselves "freelancers" [rather than temps], or "self-employed

MAIN DRAWBACK: HealthCare costs have grown faster and higher for self-employed than for the big companies. Other forms of NON-TRADITIONAL employment, like TEMPORARY HELP and telecommuting, are quickly gaining ground in our BOOM BOOM BOOM economy!

"ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN & Stagnation"

by Louis Uchitelle

[Excerpted from a recent New York Times feature story]

"[...] "We are in an economic slowdown," said Mickey Levy, chief economist at Bank of America. "EMPLOYERS are clearly HOLDING BACK on hiring and adding hours much more slowly for those on their payrolls."

... [in] August, 91,000 jobs disappeared ... the federal payroll ... has shrunk by 320,000.

[...] Private-sector employment has registered a similar DECLINE.

[...] The Federal Reserve has argued that the nation is in danger of an inflationary spiral[.]

[...] The average HOURLY pay of production WORKERS --- constituting roughly 80 percent [of all people employed] ... has risen a mild 3.6 percent.

[...] Manufacturers [typically big users of oil and gas] reduced their payrolls by 66,000 people, after CUTTING 117,000 jobs in August.

[...] The strong dollar and weak euro dollar have hurt exports ... and [U.S.] companies have therefore cut production and LAID OFF workers[.]

[...] Temporary agencies led in job creation ... but the growth ... had to do with abnormal seasonal variations[.]

[...] Retailers ... have failed to expand payrolls ... a stagnation that some experts attribute to ... rising interest rates.

"They see that if they are going to have to spend more on gas and heating fuel, they are going to spend less on other things [...]," said Richard Curtin, chief of the University of Michigan's consumer surveys.

for a complete synopsis of the real data on

H1-B, and H2-A, freebie work visas,

in this time of a very tight economy for 80% of us [or larger percentage] please

click for your life ASAP

====>>>>>> HERE!!!

The number of TEMP JOBS in the U.S.A rose 577% from 1982 to 1998: Overall Employment grew by a whopping 47% !!

[excerpted from a recent WASHINGTON POST article written by Frank Swoboda]

"[...] the Nation's employers increasingly rely on temporary staff to trim costs and gain flexibility. Temps, contractors and consultants who are not attached to a company's core work force make up as much as 25 percent of the nation's employment base by some estimates, or nearly 35 million workers.

The number of temporary jobs in the United States rose 577% from 1982 to 1998, according to the General Accounting Office, while overall employment grew 47 percent. MANPOWER Inc., a temp agency, is now the NATION'S LARGEST EMPLOYER.

[...] contingent workers ... have often been "relegated to second-class status and rights " because of their inability to join unions.

[...] Some unions already were planning ... to boost its organizing in hospitals that often hire temporary nurses on a long-term basis.

[...] Challenges to the widespread use of temporary workers have also landed in court in recent years. In one of the more celebrated cases, thousands of current and former independent contractors and temporary workers sued MICROSOFT CORP., essentially claiming that they deserved the same rights as permanent employees. They won in a US Appeals Court, but the U.S. SUPREME Court DECLINED to review the case.

[...] David Larson, who has worked on and off as a Microsoft temp for six years, said he is not sure the younger temp workers realize how important unionizing could be but he hopes they soon will. "The younger you are, the less you thing about things like retirement," said Larson, 44. "Once [the younger temps] start thinking about this, they'll think, "Gee, I'm coming up short here."

from recent AP Wire releases!!

Untold hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants given residence/work visas by our INS, charges the U.S. Justice Department today. CLICK HERE NOW for complete story!

"Citizenship USA", a crash program to reduce the backlog of citizenship applications "compromised the integrity" of our legal processes and gave citizenship to hundreds of thousands of people, without adequate background checks, the Justice Department said yesterday.

from the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"[...] 5,400 jobs have been cut since December 1999 at US companies that sell goods and services over the INTERNET.

[...] the cuts came from 59 companies, almost a third of which have gone OUT OF BUSINESS ... just this month 1,263 jobs have been ELIMINATED at 17 Internet businesses.

[...] Amazon.com ... laid off 150 workers in January. Other companies that have laid off workers ... AltaVista ... and a healthcare company founded by ... Everett Koop."

Watch out for

RANDSTADT (Dutch-American), Office Specialists, Accustaff, and Olsten --- they are particularly offensive temp agencies

-- read more below --- from the main East Coast Establishment newspapers! But first, a peek at how the new EU is making slaves out of all those nicely schooled German, Swedish, Danish, French, etc., Europeans, who always scoffed when told they might one day live in a HELL like the one we have here in the USA!!

from "The Economist", a London magazine

TEMP SLAVERY revvs up to HIGH GEAR in the new EU!!

[excerpted from ECONOMIST]

"[...] most of the net jobs created between 1994 and 1998 in the EURO area were of either a PART-TIME or TEMPORARY nature. Such "flexible" jobs, many of them in Internet-led services, could account for two-fifths of ALL EMPLOYMENT.

[...] TEMPORARY WORK often suits EMPLOYERS, who can hire and fire readily, more than it does their employees, for whom it offers little security.

[...] unburdened by regulation [regarding part-timers], British employers have less need to seek cheaper ways to create new jobs ... in other words, unburdened by regulation, British employers have less need to seek cheaper ways to create new jobs ... in France, the employers are negotiating with the unions to CUT unemployment benefits to those who refuse job offers. IG Metall, Germany's biggest union, is considering ways of loosening the system of industry-wide agreements, which remains one of the country's ... "hard landings"."

HARD TIMES ARE GONNA FALL

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

OLSTEN TEMP SERVICES DRAINED OFF MILLIONS

from the New York Times

[excerpts]

by Milt Freudenheim

"PENSION FUND AGENCY [PBGC] IS BEING SCRUTINIZED"

from the Sunday New York Times

by David Cay Johnston

"Costs and Safeguards Are at Issue After Lawsuit and Internal Audit"

[excerpted from the original]

"A quarter-century ago, Congress created the PENSION BENEFIT GUARANTY CORP. [PBGC] to make sure that the 42 million workers with traditional pensions would get paid even if the EMPLOYER went BANKRUPT. The legislation was hailed at the time as second only to SOCIAL SECURITY in its significance to working Americans.

How well that agency operates is now being questioned in a series of audits by the Agency's Inspector General, which are to be made public this week, and by a lawsuit charging that one of the pension agency's contractors [OFFICE SPECIALISTS Temporary Employment agency] DEFRAUDED it.

[...] Two Republican Senators ... said that hearings would be held by SEPTEMBER to investigate how well the Agency is run and why ... half of the 472,000 people covered by failed pension plans [due to their employers having conveniently filed bankruptcy] ... have not been told how much they are due [.].

[...] The audits, the lawsuit and the hearings come as Congressional Republicans are gearing up for a battle to pass major changes in the

Employee Retirement Income Security Act [ERISA]

that have long been sought by major corporations and business owners.

[...] the Pension Agency, which received five awards from Vice President Al Gore for improving efficiency and customer service, had reduced the backlog of people waiting to hear how much they are due [.].

[...] One employee of the Agency, who calls himself Jim Dough, to avoid any RETRIBUTION, has filed a LAWSUIT on behalf of the Agency against one of its biggest Contractors,

OFFICE SPECIALISTS, of Peabody, Mass.

[...] The Dough lawsuit, unsealed on March 18 by a Federal District Court judge in Baltimore, says that a senior Pension Agency official, Bennie L. Hagans Jr., steered business to OFFICE SPECIALISTS, which received a number of contracts WITHOUT competitive bidding, and ordered PAYMENTS [to the temp agency] to be EXPEDITED.

The suit also asserts that Mr. Hagans improperly intervened when Myrna Cooks, the Office Specialists' liaison to the Pension Agency, quit to form her own company and was sued by Office Specialists for violating her employment contract. Mr. Hagans, the lawsuit asserts, "threatened Office Specialists" with a loss of business from the pension agency unless it dropped its suit against Mrs. Cooks and let her assume an Office Specialists' contract valued at $13.5 million. Office Specialists then settled with Mrs. Cooks, whose business, operated out of her home, was awarded the contract.

WE SALUTE the efforts of BARRIE PETERSON, Director of the Bergen County Employment Action Project, the UNION-backed non-profit organization that is coordinating the New Jersey efforts to develop and promote a CODE FOR TEMP AGENCIES, and commend anyone who can implement a federally mandated CODE OF CONDUCT for all USA temp agencies.

Congrats also to Charles Taylor of the South Carolina Alliance, who is working as hard as Barrie Peterson, and the People of San Jose, California, who are also making sure the

AMERICAN STAFFING ASSOCIATION,

, a $60 billion a year lobby group in DC, receives plenty of NEGATIVE ATTENTION!!

We have nothing but CONTEMPT for radio station WNYC, an NPR corporate controlled mouthpiece for WALL STREET values. Feb. 4th, 2000, they let EDWARD LANGE, of the American Staffing Association, mouth off ZILLIONS of lies, without correcting him, or allowing CALL-IN listeners much time at all to say more than "Hi. I'm Frank from Brooklyn," or cutting off a veteran who was complaining on-air about the 22% to 49% profit his temp agency made off his graphics work, billing the client as much as they paid him (i.e. a TEMP earning $12/hr. will see his client billed $24/hr. by the temp agency, in general practice).

"Olsten to Pay $61 Million in MEDICARE Billing Case"

" The OLSTEN Corporation, a big provider of HOME HEALTH CARE and TEMPORARY Office Workers, said yesterday that it would pay $61 million, including $10 million in fines and penalties, to settle Federal investigations into MEDICARE billing practices.

[...] By agreeing to the GUILTY PLEA, OSLTEN based in Melville, NY, may be preparing to divest itself of Kimberly to keep the MEDICARE business of the parent company.

[...] Retaining the right to serve patients under Medicare and Medicaid, the Government health programs, is essential for hospital and home health care companies."
++++

UNISYS UNISYS !!!

click here for class action lawsuit against UNISYS for SEC fraud

UNISYS also in a class action suit brought by angry engineers who were laid off by the hundreds and hundreds a few years ago for reaching the age of 35!!!

UNISYS defended in court by Epstein Becker & Green

+---------------->>>>>>>>>>>

In Rodolico v. Unisys Corp., CV 95-3653 (ADS), the employer was sued over the layoff of 232 unionized engineers. The plaintiffs allege that there was age discrimination in the selection of engineers to be laid off. The collective bargaining agreement between Unisys and its engineers was negotiated by the company and Local 444 of the Engineers Union. The bargaining agreement created a seniority system within Unisys, and called for a distribution of layoffs between three tiers of seniority, with one senior engineer being laid off for every two middle-level engineers and every three junior engineers.
Paid Corporate Stooges EXCAVATING Your Personal & Confidential VIRTUAL ON-LINE Unprotected RECORDS!

PRIVACY VIOLATIONS FOR PROFIT;
CHASE MANHATTAN BANK

January 26, 2000

Chase Manhattan Bank cut a deal with an unnamed Denver Internet company to share their CREDIT CARD FILES and HOME MORTGAGE clients files on more than 18 million of their customers for a 24% COMMISSION on all sales made to these 18 million VIOLATED credit card holders and home mortgage customers by the undisclosed Denver internet company.

Pharmaceutical records are also being shared across the nation at an alarming rate. U.S. Citizens have vitually NO LEGAL RECOURSE to sustain even a modicum of privacy pertaining to their confidential electronic files since Congress REPEALED last year a depression-era law (GLASS STEAGALL ACT) that had restricted banks from entering the securities and insurance industries. This REPEAL made it a free-for-all for jointly owned corporations to share data on their customers, OPENING UP THE DOOR for virtual ACCESS on nearly any U.S. citizen and their confidential portfolios.

All EUROPEAN nation's to date have IRON-CLAD legal restrictions against such BLATANT CORPORATE INTRUSION.

U.S. Federal Government officials have completely stepped back from protecting U.S. citizens. There is currently only a FEEBLE PATCHWORK of Privacy Laws in any way protecting Americans from total loss of privacy over their personal and confidential records.

Jim Finn, spokesman for Chase Manhattan, says that this kind of snafu "... does make it easier for customers to understand their rights ... [and] gives the customer, in the end, more CHOICE."

OTHER web publications (older online magazines):

Adrian Report on Temp Agency Slavery
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/blacklisting_central/Temp_Slaves.htm
Adrian Report on Permatemps
https://www.angelfire.com/electronic2/haarpmicrowaves/permatemps.pdf
Adrian Report 2005 on Immigration Laws
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/blacklisting_central/Adrian-2005-Report-Immigration.html
Adrian Report 2004 on Healthcare
https://www.angelfire.com/electronic2/haarpmicrowaves/AdrianReport-Healthcare2004.html
Adrian Report 2002 on U.S. Prisons
https://www.angelfire.com/electronic2/haarpmicrowaves/Adrian_Report_Prisons_2002.pdf
Americans need more true red white and blue democracy in 2017
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/blacklisting_central/AMERICANS_NEED_THEIR_OWN.PDF

Giuliani & Kerick Cleaning Company
http://rebbe_rocky.tripod.com/giuliani-kerik-gangsters.pdf

from the "Chain Store Age"
trade magazine
TOYS 'R' US --- FINED $200,000
by Dept. of Labor for CHILD LABOR VIOLATIONS

[excerpted from an article written by Washington DC correspondent Ken Rankin]

"WASHINGTON OUTLOOK, 2000"

"[...] The debate over the national minimum wage and the Clinton administration's plans for raising it to $6.15 per hour, will resume early in the 2000 Congressional session as supporters of the proposal appear confident that they have enough votes to push it through this year. Retail industry lobbyists and other opponents of a rising pay floor are resigned to the prospect that some mimimum-wage legislation is likely to be enacted.

[...] In what may be the first in a new wave of such actions, the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division accused TOYS R US of a series of federal child-labor violations involving more than 300 fourteen and fifteen year old store employees in New England. (To resolve the complaint, the chain [TOYS R US] agreed to pay a $200,000 fine and to assign color-coded name badges to help store managers identify them more easily.).

[...] An even more heated controversy figures to flare up over the next few months involving the taxation of electronic commerce. Although Congress imposed a three-year moratorium on state or local taxes of Internet sales transactions, the blue-ribbon commission created to recommend a "level-playing-field" solution to this problem now appears to be hopelessly deadlocked.

[...] There will also be opportunities for the industry to support legislative corrections in laws that have proved troublesome for retailers in the past. During the coming year, for example, Congress will be debating a newly introduced LEGAL EMPLOYMENT AUTHENTICATION PROGRAM (LEAP) ACT, designed to make it easier for retailers and other employers to verify the immigration status of newly hired workers."

"THE NEW YORK TIMES"

"TOYS 'R' US HIRES F.A.O. CHIEF, HOPING TO COAX BACK CUSTOMERS"

by Dana Canedy

"[...] the appointment of John Eyler, FAOs chairman and chief executive, comes at a critical time for Toys "R" Us. The company, which has been operating without a permanent chief executive since August [SEE STORY ABOVE from "Chain Store Age"], had a dismal Christmas despite Pokemon madness."

CONGRESS'S MINIMUM WAGE PLAN

[excerpted from USA TODAY, by Owen Ullmann]

"[...] The Senate minimum-wage increase was passed as an amendment to a bankruptcy-reform bill that would make it harder for people to walk away from credit-card debts. That measures's fate is uncertain.

An increase would benefit 4.4 million workers who earn the current minimum wage of $5.15 an hour and another 7 million making SLIGHTLY more, who also would get a raise.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., assailed the GOP proposal as "a TURKEY with three right wings." He complained that it would stretch out the wage increase, eliminate overtime pay for millions of workers and give "juicy tax breaks" to the WEALTHY."

click here for PART ONE

click here MICROSOFT uss temps to avoid shelling out PROFITS!!!
[...] Jesse P. Schaudies, General Counsel for RANDSTAD North America, a subsidiary of the DUTCH company that owns OFFICE SPECIALISTS, said "we have no basis for believing there was anything improper" in its dealing with the Pension Agency."

HI-B visa crisis

During the latter half of the 1990s the unemployment rate in the United States reached a 30 year high,

but when added since 2000 to the major influx of former welfare recipients who entered the part time minimum wage labor market and found nothing, and employers in the high tech sector who demanded criminally much lower wages from immigrants [legal?] to import skilled labor in order to meet their CEO's bottom line needs, it jumped up even higher to maybe 15-20% unemployed, by real rather than virtual counting techniques.

The time thus seemed ripe to anybody with half a brain for INCREASED job training in the United States, yet in spite of increasing cuts to education and training over the last twenty years and the request for high skill needs, the U.S. invested abysmally less in post-school training than any other advanced industrialized economy on the planet Earth.

American capitalism was stunned by yet another catastrophe on June 26 when MCI WorldCom, the nation's second largest long-distance carrier, admitted that it had doctored its books to hide massive losses.

The humbled behemoth, whose stock is now virtually worthless, admits that $3.8 billion in funds it did not have were added to its cash flow account.

As with Enron, and again with the assistance of Arthur Anderson's accounting firm, a massive minus was turned into a multi-billion-dollar plus on WorldCom's books. The idea was to prettify the figures in order to stabilize WorldCom's rapidly declining stock prices.

Even before the "accounting error" was "discovered," MCI WorldCom knew the jig was up. It was the subject of a federal accounting investigation; it was hard pressed to refinance its $30 billion debt, and its credit rating was reduced to junk bond status.

To stem the tide and reverse its declining stock price (from $62 in 1999 to 26 cents per share today), the crippled corporation, now on the verge of bankruptcy, reported profits of $1.4 billion last year and first quarter profits of $130 million in 2002. WorldCom now admits it lost money in both periods but has declined to state precise figures.

WorldCom executives announced that 17,000 additional workers would be fired, as they tried to salvage the company's remaining capital for the ruling-class few who are still in charge. Meanwhile, their banking creditors are rushing to court to prevent WorldCom's executives from running away with the loans they granted before being privy to the impending collapse

The scope of the WorldCom disaster has frightened even the most conservative of observers. WorldCom's value in June 1999 was listed at $115.3 billion. It is now worth less than $1 billion.

WorldCom is not alone in the world of major corporate fraud and failure. The nation's sixth largest cable television operator, Adelphia Communications, virtually simultaneously joined the parade of major multi-billion-dollar operations that are headed for the bankruptcy courts.

DOWN WITH ADELPHIA

ADELPHIA's problems began when it was revealed that it had loaned at undisclosed terms at least $3.1 billion to the company's major shareholders, the Rigas family.

Meanwhile, the Xerox Corporation admitted it had "misstated" its earnings for previous years-to the tune of $6.4 billion. Top executives for drug store giant RITE AID have been indicted for an accounting fraud that inflated the company's earnings by $1.6 billion.

Even homemaking expert Martha Stewart, head of a company with billions of dollars in assets, was embroiled in scandal for "insider" stock-trading.

MCI WORLDCOM follows in the footsteps of other bankrupt corporations, like ENRON and GLOBAL CROSSING, whose top executives resorted to every means necessary, including fraud and theft, to compete in the ruthless capitalist market place, where profit and profit rates are under tremendous pressure.

Profit, under capitalism, is a product of the exploitation of workers. But the absolute necessity of introducing labor-replacing machinery to remain competitive, while temporarily resulting in improved bottom lines, has in the long run led to one corporate meltdown after another.

How to smash Global Crossing,
a cover for corrupt Pentagon
military brass who play the market
with YOUR tax dollars!!

http://www.erisafraud.com/global_crossing/

This website provides information and updates regarding Jagdeo Ramkissoon, et al. v. Gary Winnick, et al. This class action was filed on behalf of all persons who were participants in or beneficiaries of the Global Crossing Ltd. Employees' Retirement Savings Plan, from September 28, 1999 to the present (the "Class Period"). The Complaint was filed in federal court in the Central District of California, Western Division.

The Complaint alleges that during the Class Period the defendants breached their fiduciary duties when executives officers of Global Crossing were made aware of numerous practices that made Global Crossing stock an inappropriate Plan investment during the Class Period. The fiduciaries failed in their duty to disclose and inform the 401(k) participants regarding this information. Instead they encouraged participants and beneficiaries of the Plan to continue to make and maintain substantial investments in the Company Stock Funds in the Plan.

This case was filed against the following administrators and directors of the Plan and the directors and/or officers of Global Crossing: Gary Winnick, Dan J. Cohrs, Thomas J. Casey, David A. Walsh, Joseph P. Clayton, Lodwrick M. Cook, Mark Attanasio, Norman Brownstein, William S. Cohen, William E. Conway, Jr., Eric Hippeau, Geoffrey J.W. Kent, Maria Elena Lagomasino, John L. Comparin, Bill Norris, K.P. Schirmuhly, Steven J. Green, Barra Rogers Casey. In addition, Plaintiffs have sued the individual members of the Company's Employee Benefits Committee during the Class Period and the individual members of the Company's Board of Directors who participated in the Plan's investment policies during the Class Period, whose identities are currently unknown.

Case Status:
Consolidated Amended Master Class Action Complaint of ERISA [Plaintiffs] 01/27/03 (247k, PDF)

Transfer Order re: Global Crossing Ltd. Securities & "ERISA" Litigation (126k, PDF)

The law firm of Keller Rohrback LLP, headquartered in Seattle with an affiliated office in Phoenix, maintains this website to keep class members informed and up to date regarding the proceedings in the Global Crossing ERISA litigation. Keller Rohrback handles complex litigation and class actions such as ERISA 401(k) litigation. Keller Rohrback and its co-counsel serve as lead or co-lead counsel in a class action on behalf of employees in 401(k) litigation involving the following companies:

Enron, WorldCom, Providian, Williams Companies, Xerox, CMS Energy, BellSouth, CIGNA Corp., Dynegy, Electronic Data Systems [Ross Perot], HealthSouth, Household International and Lucent Technologies. Additionally, Keller Rohrback is involved in 401(k) litigation with respect to the following companies: Conseco, Fujitsu and Tyco.

http://www.slaughter.house.gov/HoR/NY28/News/PRESS+RELEASES+BY+DATE/2002/2-11-02+CONGRESSWOMAN+SLAUGHTER+CALLS+FOR+CONGRESSIONAL+INVESTIGATION+OF+GLOBAL+CROSSING.htm

Rochester, NY -- Congresswoman Louise M. Slaughter today called for Congressional investigations of Global Crossing. In letters to the House Finance Committee and the House Education & Workforce Committee, Rep. Slaughter asked the committees to investigate Global Crossing’s questionable business practices related to employees and retirees 401(k) plans. Rep. Slaughter made her comments today at a news conference with Global Crossing employees, retirees and union representatives. Global Crossing’s North American headquarters are located in Slaughter’s Congressional District of Rochester, NY.

“In the wake of the Enron scandal, we have the responsibility to investigate allegations of similar practices by other companies,” said Slaughter. “Retirees and current employees need to be assured that the company followed the letter of the law as global crossing reorganizes.”

Congresswoman Slaughter called for the Congressional investigation after reviewing published reports of Global Crossing’s bankruptcy filing, and hearing from current employees and retirees of Frontier and Global Crossing. In her letter to the Chairman of a House Finance Subcommittee, Slaughter raises concerns regarding the company’s 401(k) plan, and the employees ability to sell company stock in their retirement plans. In a similar letter to the Chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, Congresswoman Slaughter asks the committee to investigate whether the handling of Global Crossing’s pension plan is consistent with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). ERISA is the federal law that governs private pension plans.

“Congress needs to investigate companies like Global Crossing to determine if there are changes that need to be made to either federal law or regulations, said Slaughter.

H1-B Visas -- June 19, 2003

IMMIGRATION ADVICE FROM THE NY DAILY NEWS: [Allan Wernick]

Q: Can I get H-1B status through sponsorship through my own company? I'm here on H-1B professional worker status, working for a fitness company. I may lose my my job in August, so I'm thinking of starting my own business. It would operate in the United States and Bermuda. If I start my own company, can my company sponsor me for H-1B status and put me in an easier position than somebody American who is seeking work?

A: You can form a company and your company can petition for H-1B status for you. Readers may recall that H-1B temporary worker status is available for people with a four-year college degree or the equivalent in education and experience [this freedom of "or equivalent experience" does NOT apply to Americans seeking work in Canada under NAFTA regulations].

In H-1B cases, unlike in most employment-based immigrant categories, the employer need not prove that "a qualified U.S. worker is not available".

Because U.S. law considers a corporation and its owner to be separate entities, a corporation can sponsor its owner for H-1B status, even if the sponsored employee solely owns the corporation, such as in your case. Welcome to America, land for part time immigrants and not nearly so good for its own citizens!

SPECIAL VISAS a boost to Silicon Alley
New York Daily News; New York, N.Y.; Oct 4, 2000;
RACHEL SCHEIER and JUDITH SCHOOLMAN DAILY NEWS
BUSINESS WRITERS;

Words in Document: 514

Abstract:
Companies typically pay transportation from the home country, visa fees and temporary housing allowances. "It's $10,000 or more to bring one person to the U.S.," said [Shailesh Gala], who's also president of the Immigration Support Network, an organization with more than 17,000 members.

According to the most recent figures from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, such major high-tech firms as Motorola, Oracle, ...

PERMATEMPS: WHAT ARE THEY? click here now ...

U.S. Unemployment Rate Reaches 20%

"Layoffs increased more sharply in New York than in any other state in September 2002, according to new data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of New Yorkers left jobless by layoffs of 50 or more workers rose by 5,035 compared with the same month last year. In all 11,213 New Yorkers lost their jobs in September because of large massive layoffs. The state was the third-hardest hit in total workers laid off [above New Mexico Indian reservations]. Big reductions occurred in temporary employment agencies [as big as the airline layoffs], and in transportation [not very many workers need to commute into a city with barely any jobs]."

Our Unemployment Figures are a Hoax!
A temp agency hires minimum wage lackies to phone "Leave it to Beaver" households and ask if they "are employed" via a small telephone home survey!

By Reuters -- [abridged]

U.S. payrolls outside the farm sector fell by 43,000 in September, in contrast to the 5,000 gain private economists had predicted, the Labor Department said.

Although economic forecasters look to both the payrolls series and the unemployment rate as gauges of the job market and the overall economy, many put more weight on the signals offered by the payrolls survey.

``They are two different surveys. They measure two different things,'' BLS economist Howard Hayghe told Reuters.

"... any time you have payrolls falling, you're taking much needed wind out of the sails of the economic recovery," Yamarone said.

The payrolls data are based on a survey of real employers, while a commercial small poll of households is used to calculate the U.S. official unemployment rate!

BLS's Hayghe said that among other differences in the two surveys, the small commercial household survey includes self-employed people while the hard payroll series does not. He said that recently, the household survey has been greatly boosted by the number of teenage workers who have held on to their summer jobs, to the detriment of unemployed masses, rather than leaving the workforce -- as many use to do in the fall.

"This time of year the official telephone based household unemployment data are more subject to inaccurate seasonal swings," he said.

***

While European countries have maintained huge social-service programs and paid for them with high unemployment, the United States sharply curtailed its best-known welfare program in the mid-1990's.

But the current downturn is beginning to expose an uncomfortable truth: the American economy looks more like Europe's than most people ever imagined during the 1990's.

Millions of people, particularly men, dropped out of the labor force over the last decade, apparently unable to find work that pays near what they once earned in the blue-collar jobs that have since moved to lower-wage countries. Neither employed nor looking for work, they are not counted in the official U.S. jobless rate statistics, and a surprising and growing number of them instead depend on a government check to get by.

In the last two years, the official jobless rate has risen and an additional three million people appear to have dropped out of the labor force. Today, the real level of unemployment for men probably approaches the level of the recession-mired early 80's [close to 20% like in East Germany today].

Robert H. Topel, an economist at the University of Chicago and author of the most detailed recent study of the changes, says: "Employment opportunities for the less skilled are not what they used to be, so people just leave the labor force."

To pay their monthly bills, many of these missing workers have turned to disability insurance, a government program under Social Security that has become the centerpiece of the new American state. Since 1990, the number of people receiving disability pay has nearly doubled, to 5.4 million, and the government now spends far more on the program than it does for food stamps or unemployment insurance.

People who once may have worked through injuries or chronic pain, particularly those without a college education, are increasingly making a choice economic planners did not foresee. They have decided a government benefit, in the form of the roughly $800 in average monthly disability pay, is more attractive than any job.

They make up the biggest group that has left the labor force and help depress the unemployment rate.

The growth of the prison population — to about 2 million today, up from 1.1 million in 1990 and 500,000 in 1980 — has made another large group of people dependent on the government. [these prisoners and parolees are considered "employed" by our Labor Department].

Other labor-force dropouts are harder to count because the government does not support them. Some have moved in with friends or family, economists say. Still others, caring for children or retired, while their spouse works, are properly not counted as unemployed. [many turn to crime as the last hope of survival].

Some of the biggest beneficiaries [of the 1990s latch-key household syndrome] were women, who poured into the job market and whose wages crept closer to men's. Today, 63 million women hold a job, up almost 9 million from a decade ago, according to the Labor Department.

But even the economy of the late 90's failed to reverse the gradual overall increase in the number of men dropping out of the labor force. It also could not halt the long-term rise in the duration of unemployment for those people who kept looking for work and therefore appeared in the official "employed" statistics.

Many of these workers have now been out of the job market for long enough that they may never come back. If they do, they are almost certain to make much less than they once did, economists say.

"People used to drift in and out of the labor force," said Mr. Topel, whose co-authors were Chinhui Juhn at the University of Houston and Kevin M. Murphy at Chicago. "Now, leaving the labor force is more like death — you leave and you don't come back."

A clear sign of the labor market's quiet troubles has long been evident, though its significance was obscured by the falsified "official" jobless rate. While unemployment was supposedly falling over the last 20 years, the median hourly wage has grown only about 6 percent, after adjusting for inflation, according to the Labor Department.

Reflecting workers' meager bargaining power, the Census Bureau said last week that income for the typical household had fallen in 2001 for the second consecutive year. The poverty rate rose.

With scant reason to think that the economy will grow rapidly in the next couple of years, the labor market's woes present a serious challenge for government.

The country can cut benefits at a time when joblessness is rising and leave relatively unskilled workers to fend for themselves. Or it can maintain and expand a safety net that is already larger than many people had thought, possibly giving more discouraged workers reason to depend on a government check.

LAST week, a mostly Democratic group of senators introduced a bill that would extend unemployment benefits to the same length as in the recession of the early 90's. As for the disability program, even without any legislative changes its costs will rise 15 percent to $69 billion this year, according to the Social Security Administration. Containing those costs would require cracking down on people with bad backs or carpel-tunnel syndrome and few good job prospects.

The country now faces a series of difficult decisions balancing the ideals of a free market with those of a humane economic policy. Only a few years ago, compromises did not seem necessary.

Go to Part 2 now ... click here!

CLICK HERE for PART 1 of HMOs Are Out to Kill You!!

CLICK HERE for PART TWO [2] of HMOs Are Out to Kill You!!

CLICK HERE for PART 3 of HMOs Are Out to Kill You!!

4/25/2004 10:55 PM

HMO-HMA and Medicare Out of pocket costs may soar

By Julie Appleby, USA TODAY

Sharply higher health insurance deductibles may hit workers in the next two years as employers embrace newly created tax-free Health Savings Accounts. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of employers asked by Mercer Human Resource Consulting said they were likely to offer the new accounts to their workers by 2006, according to a survey to be released this week.

"We're looking at a major market change," says Linda Havlin, Mercer's Midwest health care practice leader, noting that a 73% interest in adopting a new program within two years "is unprecedented."

The interest reflects employers' frustration with double-digit increases in health care costs and a dearth of new ideas for dealing with those costs.

The accounts, known as HSAs, enable employers to shift some of the cost of health care to workers and may also result in lower insurance premiums. HSAs, approved by Congress last year as part of the Medicare reform legislation, let policyholders set aside money tax free to cover health care costs.

Unspent money earns interest and can be rolled over, but the accounts must be coupled with insurance policies with annual deductibles of at least $1,000 for individuals and $2,000 for families.

Widespread adoption of the plans could drive up the average annual deductible paid by workers, which is now about $300 for single employees and $600 for families, according to data from Mercer and the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Mercer's survey of 991 employers found that 61% would set the individual annual deductible for an HSA plan at $1,000. But 17% chose $1,500, 11% said $2,000 and 10% were above $2,000.

Don't expect employers to pay that deductible: The Mercer study also found that 39% would not put any money into the savings accounts for workers, while 24% would put in $500 a year, leaving it up to the workers to fund the rest.

Supporters say the accounts will help increase the number of insured Americans and help Americans save for retirement health costs. Critics say the accounts will mainly benefit the rich and could ultimately leave workers paying the majority of their own health costs, much as pensions were replaced by 401(k) savings accounts at many workplaces.

In a March survey, the National Business Group on Health found that 25% of employers surveyed already had a high-deductible health plan as a benefit offering.

"There will be a big jump in interest," says Helen Darling, who heads the employer coalition.

"With any new idea, there's a lot of publicity, and employers say they're interested," says Bill Sharon, senior vice president Aon Consulting. "But after they have time to reflect on it and see whether it fits into their own organization, that number comes way down."

--summarized from FORTUNE MAGAZINE, May 2004 issue--

The TOP SEVEN [7] HMOs [i.e. 7 deadly sins] on the stockmarket and by logical extension the 7 most likely to phuck you --->>

1) Stryker prosthetic devices [which started in WW2 with a cozy relationship between the military and today's mutual funds]-- artificial legs and arms and other body parts due to all the U.S. air strikes worldwide and due to mines set by resistance movements to get US imperial troops out of their lands.

2) Zimmer Holdings -- grew up around 1927 during the Great Depression and has since merged with a big mean Swiss multinational -- medical devices and spinal replacements -- titanium polluters.

3) IMS Health -- medical IT databases that will destroy your privacy -- selling out your data to big pharmaceutical combines -- get ready for spam emails and cold calls at your home on the telephone! Bush is a big advocate of this company and so is Homeland Security! Do your patriotic duty and get phucked!! 5000 national hospitals may all be on the IMS database soon!

IMS Health -- the "dominant" provider of sales and marketing information to the drug industry, with an unrivaled database that TRACKS 75% of all drugs consumed in the world today, ALREADY !!!!!!!!! Bet you didn't know that!! Their database and software "tabulates the exact number of pills each doctor is doling out."

This company started 50 years ago by one of the founding fathers of the drug marketing business, Ludwig Wilhelm Frohlich. Pharmaceutical supply databases were just 15 years ago rinky dink syndicated publications in hard copy, and now such electronic extensive databases have exploded into the $470 billion pharaceutical industry colossus that it is today! IMS Health's CEO is a former IBM manager. IMS is "strictly" a data vendor in this behemoth market that your Congress is making as easy as duck soup out of all of us!!

4) Cerner -- founded in the early 1990s by a former ARTHUR ANDERSON [hooray for ENRON!] consultant, Neal Patterson, born in Oklahoma, who sees bioterrorism everywhere!! Bio-Terror will be a hip new lucrative growth industry and Patterson chastised all his employees with a corporate wide email because he found out that the parking lot after 6pm at the plant was nearly empty thus not many workers were putting out free overtime!!! Nice guy!!!!!!!!!!! All the large drug companies depend on his type of global database connected to medical records to hawk their pills and goods!

5) Teva Pharmaceuticals -- Generic drug powerhouse is the largest pill supplier in the US -- do you think they are on your side?

6) American Healthways (AMHC) -- a Nashville, TN company that has ties to the board members of THE NEW YORK TIMES -- Cigna, Oxford, Anthem are clients!!

They call themselves "disease management" specialists in which anyone connected to their system must be policed by computer and by their physician and insurance companies -- ie. a diabetic must check his/her cholesterol once a year when the computer tells them to or they lose their benefits -- an asthmatic must check their lung capacity and switch to the new inhaler of the moment at their physicians command once a year, etc.]

7) Omnicare -- specializes in nursing homes, i.e., "long term care", a no-holds-barred profit crunching market with little oversight built into our laws! Kentucky-based. This company spun off of the notorius W.R. Grace company which saturated the USA with asbestos fibers!!! Omnicare has had a contract since 1994 with the largest nursing home operator in the world, HEALTH CARE & RETIREMENT CORP [HCRC].

Saul Friedman , NEWSDAY The Return of HMOs: A Cynical Celebration

FEB. 27, 2004

They're b-a-a-a-ck! Those HMOs that deserted more than 2.4 million Medicare beneficiaries over the past four years because they were not profitable enough, are again looking for Medicare business, offering lower premiums and more benefits. And from Long Island to San Francisco, seniors are celebrating.

Older Americans desperate for more affordable health insurance have reason to cheer, but forgive me if I rain on their parade. They're cheering for an unprecedented 10.6 percent increase this year in the federal subsidy for the insurance industry that translates to $500 million for 2004 and $14.2 billion over the next 10 years. And every penny to support the HMOs is at the expense of the 40 million Americans on traditional Medicare, which is suffering slow strangulation at the hands of this Congress and the administration.

The increased subsidy for the HMOs (and other managed-care plans) was part of the Medicare privatization bill, which included a flawed prescription drug benefit that won't begin until 2006. But the first installment of the HMO windfall (15 percent of which will be used for administrative costs and salaries) will be paid beginning next month.

Insurance companies announced that they would use the money to lower premiums and raise benefits, and San Francisco beneficiaries who had lost their HMOs flooded phone lines to sign up again. Insurance companies clamor for federal approval of new plans to be offered after March 1. And Newsday reported that Long Island seniors celebrated when HMOs in Nassau and Suffolk counties announced they were reducing premiums in line with those of New York City.

The celebrants included Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), both of whom sought to increase federal payments to HMOs on Long Island, especially Suffolk. Long Island HMOs were due for a raise, but the subsidies included in the Medicare bill were beyond their expectations. As Schumer told a reporter, "This isn't just nickels and dimes, this is a quantum leap in the amount of money HMOs will get for serving seniors." Interestingly, Israel and Schumer voted against the Medicare bill (correctly, I believe) because, like most opponents, they believed the drug benefit was too little, too late, the bill was too generous to the drug companies and it undermined traditional Medicare by virtually forcing beneficiaries into private plans. But once the bill passed, Israel and Schumer were only doing their jobs when they welcomed the windfall for their constituents' HMOs.

Nevertheless, don't forget the downside. If you quit Medicare for managed care, you may have to change doctors. The hospital that specializes in your illness or the specialist you want may not be part of the HMO's network. Your coverage may not be good if you travel or spend time in Florida. Chances are the HMO will not be as generous as Medicare in covering hospital stays or rehabilitation. And the HMO can't guarantee it won't desert again.

"Watch out," said Robert Hayes, president of the Medicare Rights Center. "There may well be some attractive deals. But the administration is forcing people to give up their choice of doctors and even gamble with their health care. ... People with Medicare need to be very cautious." The new program to encourage beneficiaries to switch to an HMO is called Medicare Advantage rather than Medicare+Choice, but even $14 billion may not be enough to satisfy the profit targets of the HMOs when subscribers need expensive care.

Said Hayes, "Experience shows that unlike traditional Medicare, private plans too often fail people with costly health needs." Congress is balking at the costs of the Medicare bill, $534 billion over the next decade instead of the original estimate of $395 billion.

As program costs rise, Rep. Pete Stark of California, senior Democrat on the Ways and Means health subcommittee, doubted Congress would be so generous to the insurance companies in the next years. "If the plans do not make enough profit, they may reduce benefits or withdraw from Medicare." The $14billion "slush fund," as critics call it, was designed by lawmakers and the Bush administration to lure beneficiaries away from Medicare into HMOs. Until now, HMOs have been paid 95 percent of what it costs Medicare per beneficiary. Now they will be paid 105 percent of Medicare's cost.

The administration's goal is to attract 35 percent of Medicare's beneficiaries to private plans, most of them younger, healthier Medicare enrollees who won't cost the insurers as much as older, sicker recipients. If the percentage of beneficiaries in managed- care plans grows, they will have the political clout to prevail over traditional Medicare in the annual struggle for funds, especially if an administration hostile to Medicare continues to dominate Congress.

Combine that with the new bill's requirement that anyone who wants drug coverage in 2006 must sign up with a private plan and there may not be much left of the only universal government-run health insurance program we've known as Medicare.

Some optimists have hoped that the fiasco of the Medicare bill could hasten a national health plan. One might think so, given the growing numbers of uninsured and the cancellations of employer health insurance for workers and retirees.

But the celebrations of HMO subscribers and lawmakers like Schumer and Israel at the expense of Medicare seem to confirm the cynical view of Princeton health economist Uwe Reinhardt: "The sense of social solidarity that is the sine qua non of universal health insurance just does not exist in this nation of individualists."

Write to Saul Friedman, Newsday, 235 Pinelawn Rd., Melville, NY, 11747-4250, or by e-mail at saul friedman@comcast.net.

Making the Presdent's Medicare Drug Plans Viable is Grunt Work

By Donna Shalala

Monday, December 29, 2003

THE WASHINGTON POST

The writer, who was secretary of health and human services from 1993 to 2001, is president of the University of Miami.

The passage of Medicare prescription drug legislation will present the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services with the biggest challenge it has faced since its inception. HHS, the agency that manages Medicare, has the tough job of transforming a very complicated, ideologically driven piece of legislation into a practical drug benefit that will work for our older and disabled citizens when they go to the pharmacy to get the drugs they need.

The stakes are high. The president and the congressional leadership invested substantial political capital in passing this benefit, and they clearly expect to get credit from seniors and the disabled for addressing an important issue. Whether Medicare beneficiaries will applaud or bemoan it depends in large measure on the decisions HHS makes over the next few months on scores of design and implementation issues.

The agency has much work to do and no real-life examples to look to. Congress, for better or worse, determined that most beneficiaries would receive drug benefits from new, private prescription drug plans. This type of plan does not now exist anywhere in our health care system, and no one can currently say who will offer this coverage or how precisely the plans will operate.

[The HHS] will get a strong push from industry groups to write minimal regulations that leave most of the details to the private prescription drug plans. That is largely what Congress did in drafting the law.

In my view, HHS will need to go further and write regulations that establish meaningful minimum standards to protect beneficiaries from potential market abuses.

Let me offer just two examples of areas where HHS needs to move beyond the minimal provisions in the law to protect legitimate needs of beneficiaries.

The first ... the law apparently does not give beneficiaries access to the preferred drug lists of the competing prescription drug plans before enrollment. Without access to these lists before enrollment, picking a plan could be a roll of the dice: beneficiaries would have no way to know whether the plan covers the drugs they are taking. HHS must address this deficiency.

A second and more serious example involves ensuring that coverage is adequate to meet the needs of beneficiaries. Although most plans are expected to use preferred drug lists (sometimes called formularies) in their benefit designs, the law provides almost no protection for consumers against potentially abusive practices. Plans are left free to design very restrictive preferred drug lists and may change these lists after a beneficiary enrolls in a plan (despite the fact that the beneficiary is locked into the plan for a year). While plans must provide coverage for drugs from each "therapeutic class" (that is, similar drugs that are intended to treat similar medical conditions), the law does not specify that drugs from each class be on the plan's preferred list, nor does it prevent a plan from varying the cost-sharing amounts for its preferred drugs in different classes.

There are other important challenges. Perhaps the most egregious example of where the law may not measure up to its press releases is in guaranteeing the neediest seniors assistance. Although the law offers seniors with incomes below 135 percent of the federal poverty level a full premium subsidy for the average-cost plan in their regions, they will have to navigate unnecessary bureaucratic hoops to get it.

Unfortunately, the states have a terrible record here. Recent reports indicate that no more than 60 percent of the very lowest-income seniors received Medicare premium assistance they were entitled to under the longstanding Qualified Medicare Beneficiary program.

GW Bush can not literally sleep in peace until we are all dead bodies from a war, or by slipping into a genetic modified/engineered food product coma, or perhaps least of all evils, being strapped into a harness for total commercial organ harvesting ... routine free market human body parts vivisection ... read more below!

June 28, 2003

"House & Senate Make MEDICAID into a Kind
of Lucky Lotto -- Many Lose, Very Few Win
in an Undervalued Voucher System"

RECORD 42 MILLION IN USA --- NO MEDICAL COVERAGE !!

By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 2003 The number of Americans without health insurance rose to 41.2 million last year, an increase of 1.4 million, and small businesses accounted for much of the erosion in coverage, the Census Bureau said today.

Lawmakers and lobbyists said the increase could propel health insurance back to the forefront of national political debate. But even as the need grows, the federal government and the states are less able to provide aid because their revenues have shrunk in the recession.

Economists and health policy experts suggested several reasons for the latest increase in the uninsured: many people lost jobs last year, and employers are the primary source of health insurance for most Americans; rising health costs pushed up premiums, making insurance less affordable; employers passed on more of the costs to workers.

Households at every income level were more likely to be uninsured last year, the Census Bureau said. The change was particularly noticeable among people with moderate and high incomes.

The number of uninsured people with household incomes of $75,000 or more jumped to 6.6 million last year, an increase of 811,000 or 14 percent, from 2000.

Coverage appeared to deteriorate for adults, but not for children. The number of uninsured children, which declined in 1999 and 2000, was virtually unchanged last year, at 8.5 million. But the number of uninsured adults rose to 32.7 million, from 31.2 million in 2000.

The Census Bureau said that 11.7 percent of all children, 21.3 percent of poor children and 30.7 percent of all poor people were uninsured for the entire year in 2001.

"They told me, "Marat, all you have to do is sign away your organs to charity here on this line and you get a $300 tax rebate", those Republicans did, and I believed them. Hell, if I had known that they would start to carve me up before I was even dead -- I would have requested the $300 in cash and not a never-to-arrive tax rebate!"

Classic Result of Medical and Hospital Gouging

Small businesses are much less likely than larger companies to offer health insurance. At companies with fewer than 25 employees, the proportion of workers with health insurance declined last year, to 31.3 percent.

Still, employers of all sizes are passing on more of their health costs to workers and retirees.

Kate Sullivan, director of health policy at the United States Chamber of Commerce, said that many employers, while continuing to subsidize insurance for workers, had reduced subsidies for dependents.

"A lot of insurers are dropping out of the small-group market, and customers are balking at what they have to pay," Ms. Sullivan said. "A small employer with seven employees can easily spend $6,000 a month, nearly $1,000 per employee, for family coverage. Premiums are rising 20 percent a year."

States have not used all the money available to them under the Children's Health Insurance Program. When the new fiscal year begins on Tuesday, $1.2 billion of federal money will revert to the Treasury [or the Pentagon] and can be used for other purposes [bombs] unless Congress preserves it for child health care.

"It would be a huge mistake to let this money disappear," said Thomas A. Scully, administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Former Hospital CEO Sentenced

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 12:09 p.m. ET, Sept. 1, 2002

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The former head of a bankrupt hospital chain pleaded no contest to misusing about $30 million in donations in a failed effort to save the network.

Thursday's plea by Sherif Abdelhak closed a 2 1/2-year criminal case involving Allegheny Health, Education and Research Foundation, which had 14 hospitals across the state and a medical school in Philadelphia.

Abdelhak, 56, who now lives in Louisville, Ky., was sentenced to 11 1/2 to 23 months in jail.

The chain declared bankruptcy in 1998.

Separate civil suits have put the total losses to the endowments at $78 million.

Abdelhak and the other executives had originally faced 1,500 charges when they were accused in March 2000, but judges had whittled them down to just a few hundred over the years, and last week, County Judge Raymond Novak tossed out hundreds more, saying that while Abdelhak's behavior may have been improper, it didn't amount to theft.

The other two executives charged were former chief financial officer David McConnell and former general counsel Nancy Wynstra.

All charges were dropped against Wynstra, who died in January.

$8M Brain Tumor Verdict Overturned

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

click here for Part 2 [TWO] !!

By Donna Shalala

Monday, December 29, 2003

THE WASHINGTON POST

The writer, who was secretary of health and human services from 1993 to 2001, is president of the University of Miami.

In my view, HHS will need to go further and write regulations that establish meaningful minimum standards to protect beneficiaries from potential market abuses.

Let me offer just two examples of areas where HHS needs to move beyond the minimal provisions in the law to protect legitimate needs of beneficiaries.

“Legislators must focus their attention on the efforts by HMOs to weaken the state's Patients' Bill of Rights--even the sneak attacks.”

By Jamie Court

-----------------

The above op-ed was printed in The Los Angeles Times on June 10, 2002.

E-mail: Jamie@consumerwatchdog.org.

-----------------

California HMOs are slyly attacking the new patients' rights laws touted by Gov. Gray Davis as the toughest in the nation. The industry can't be allowed to undermine the two pillars of HMO patients' rights it has targeted effective state regulation and legal accountability.

In the latest assault, Kaiser Permanente convinced an administrative law judge to rule that the state's HMO regulator could not intervene in most patients' quality of care problems.

The dangerous reasoning grew out of Kaiser's aggressive legal opposition to a $1.1-million fine levied against it after three patients with ruptured abdominal aortal aneurysms died after their access to treatment was blocked by Kaiser's unresponsive telephone call system or its over-capacity emergency rooms.

Newly uncovered internal documents have proven the systemic nature of Kaiser's problems, although these were not introduced as evidence in the case. In a program Kaiser claims to have ended, the company's telephone clerks who handled patient calls were paid financial bonuses to limit doctor appointments, to not transfer calls to nurses and to hang up quickly. For its part,

Kaiser has contended that its patients' quality of care is its doctors' problem, not the HMO's.

The state medical board, which regulates doctors, says it has no authority to address systemic quality of care and access to care problems at HMOs or in doctor-run medical groups; the board leaves those problems to the HMO regulator, the Department of Managed Health Care.

Kaiser now is seeking to turn this crack in the law--the lack of regulation of doctor-run medical groups--into a gaping loophole.

For the largest HMO in the nation to hide behind its doctors, who work only for Kaiser, is like an auto manufacturer claiming it is not responsible for the design of its exploding gas tanks because its workers built them.

Fortunately, the Department of Managed Health Care rejected the administrative law judge's decision, saying, "California's reforms are a beacon to the nation and we will not turn back the clock." Department Director Daniel Zingale also urged Kaiser to reconsider its "legal strategy of arguing that limitations on patient protection laws render this case unenforceable."

Now, Kaiser can decide whether to pursue its case in state Superior Court, where a similar ruling could undermine the authority of the agency created in 2000 specifically to enforce the California HMO reform package.

Kaiser and other HMOs supported much of this reform legislation to quell a public backlash at the time; now they must begin to live within those laws rather than continually try to obstruct them.

Ironically, Kaiser's litigiousness over the company's rights contrasts starkly with HMOs' evisceration of the legal right extended to their patients in 1999. The mandatory binding arbitration agreements HMOs have forced their patients into as a condition of enrolling have become a means of disemboweling the HMOs' legal accountability to the individual.

Until the state's "right to sue" law, most patients could not recover damages when HMOs harmed them. Effective in 2001, the liability law gave all patients that right when their HMO interfered with the quality of their care but did not specify in what

forum. Currently, there is no public record of any patient using the law. Forced arbitration has prevented cases from coming before judges, which keeps case law beneficial to patients from developing.

Without such precedents to determine the scope of HMOs' liability, the industry is evading accountability on yet another front.

Legislators must focus their attention on the efforts by HMOs to weaken the state's patients' bill of rights--even the sneak attacks.

----------------

The above op-ed was printed in The Los Angeles Times on June 10, 2002.

Filed at 10:10 a.m. ET, Sept. 1, 2002

BOSTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court tossed out an $8 million jury verdict against Massachusetts General Hospital and a neurosurgeon sued by families of two brain tumor patients who died during experimental nuclear treatments in the 1960s.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled there was ``insufficient evidence'' presented during the 1999 trial to support the jury's finding that the hospital and Dr. William Sweet hastened the deaths of the patients by using them in a government-funded cancer research project.

A report written by Sweet in 1962 about the unsuccessful nuclear therapy administered to some 60 patients at the hospital in the 1950s and '60s had the benefit of ``hindsight'' and failed to show what he knew at the time of the trials, the appeals court concluded. A lawyer for the hospital and Sweet called the ruling "complete and absolute vindication."

Surgeons Are Warned About Organ-Tissue Transplant Ultra Lethal Fungi

By SANDRA BLAKESLEE, The New York Times, Sept. 1, 2002

Two weeks ago, the Food and Drug Administration ordered CryoLife Inc. of Kennesaw, Ga., a leading supplier of donated human tissue, to recall all tissue used in orthopedic surgery — ligaments, tendons, cartilage and other soft tissue popular for repairing knees and joints. The agency said CryoLife could not assure that its tissues, taken from donated cadavers, were free from dangerous bacteria and fungi.

CryoLife has about 70 percent of the nationwide market in these valves, and while it uses the same process for removing microbes from them as from other kinds of tissue, the F.D.A. is only warning heart surgeons to watch for bacterial or fungal infections in patients who have received CryoLife valves.

In recent months, CryoLife tissues have been implicated in one death and at least 25 serious infections following routine knee surgery.

The American Association of Tissue Banks has drawn up technical guidelines for handling tissues and regularly inspects its members' operations. But CryoLife does not belong to the group and has its own procedures for handling tissue, which it does not disclose.

Many valve recipients are elderly, and when an older person has a stroke months after heart surgery, doctors are likely to blame a blood clot, not bits of fungus that break off the valve and lodge in the brain.

Ken Alesescu, who received a CryoLife heart valve in July 2001, does not fit that profile. A 50-year-old chiropractor from San Luis Obispo, Calif., he was relatively young and active but had high blood pressure because of a faulty heart valve. His case was first reported last night on the CBS Evening News.

Within a month of surgery to receive the replacement valve, Mr. Alesescu began losing weight, then developed fever, chills and diarrhea, according to his wife, Pam.

Then, in January, he suffered a stroke that paralyzed the left side of his body, and underwent emergency brain surgery to remove a blood clot. In February, a test revealed the heart valve was contaminated with fungus. A new one was implanted, but Mr. Alesescu continues to have a fungal infection throughout his lower spine. Mr. Alesescu is suing CryoLife, contending that the replacement valve caused his illnesses.

David Fronk, vice president for clinical research at CryoLife, said any kind of heart valve, whether synthetic or biological, could carry infections. Moreover, he said, CryoLife has never labeled its products as sterile. It is not possible to guarantee complete sterility, he said.

Assuring that the tissue used for such transplants is uncontaminated is difficult. The cadavers from which the tissue are drawn may contain microbes like bacteria and fungi that can contaminate the tissues. Sterilization can kill microbes, but it can also damage human tissue, sometimes destroying its usefulness.

Once donor tissue is implanted, certain kinds of microbes, under certain conditions, can undergo explosive growth; some release deadly toxins that are difficult to eradicate once an infection occurs.

Most processors test each piece of tissue for microbes when they receive it. If there are signs of contamination, they discard the tissue, said Dr. Marion Kainer, a former epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who recently investigated the industry after a 23-year-old Minnesota man died following routine knee surgery.

"A cabal of silent corporate Democrats vote against HMO patients’ interests"

By Jamie Court, June 26, 2002

Ignoring the pleas of a Health Net patient locked out of the court system by mandatory arbitration, a cabal of silent Democrats friendly to corporations joined with Republicans to put the interests of the HMO industry above those of patients. They refused to support, or to oppose, legislation … that would have allowed patients seriously injured by their HMO to choose between courts and arbitration.

Without such precedents to determine the scope of HMOs' liability, the industry is evading accountability on yet another front.

Legislators must focus their attention on the efforts by HMOs to weaken the state's patients' bill of rights--even the sneak attacks.

----------------

Residents' Hours Worry Teaching Hospitals -- Maybe the Surgeon Who Cuts You Open Will Have Slept As Many as Twelve Hours in 7 Days Before He Opens You Up

June 14, 2002

By REED ABELSON , The New York Times

Many of the nation's teaching hospitals, already under financial pressure, are raising concerns about the effect of new rules that will limit the number of hours worked by medical residents.

"For academic medical centers, the impact is going to be profound," said Dr. Peter Herbert, the chief of staff for Yale-New Haven Hospital, a teaching affiliate of the Yale School of Medicine, who estimates that the cost for some hospitals could run into the millions of dollars.

The rules, which are being imposed by the group that accredits teaching hospitals, will limit the average resident’s workweek to 80 hours and restrict a resident's continuous duty to no more than 24 hours at a time.

Some hospitals consider residents an inexpensive source of labor. Having significantly cut back on nurses and other staff, hospitals rely heavily on these new doctors, who spend several years training at a hospital after earning their medical degrees.

In addition to caring for patients, particularly the poor and uninsured, these doctors often handle paperwork, transport patients and perform tasks once delegated to others [such as PAs, Physician Assistants].

The new rules, which are aimed at reducing the risk of dangerous errors by inexperienced doctors who are sleep deprived, will not take effect until next July 2003.

The cost of two to three physician assistants [PAs] can run as high as $200,000 a year, compared with $50,000 to pay a medical resident, Dr. Cohen said. "No one knows where that money is going to come from," he said.

In New York, the cost of adopting the law limiting residents' hours was estimated by the state at $220 million a year, some of which the hospitals recovered through higher reimbursements.

The New York law took effect in 1989, and a study done in the late 1990's suggested that many hospitals, particularly in New York City, were still asking residents to work much longer hours than the non-enforced law required. In recent years, however, enforcement of the law has been increased, and many hospitals have made more significant changes in their staffing.

New York hospitals are not likely to feel much impact from the new rules, said Kenneth Raske, the president of the Greater New York Hospital Association.

While some hospitals will hire senior nurses or physician assistants, others may rely more on other doctors and may curtail some of the areas where residents provide care, Mr. Bentley said.

But hiring nurses or physician assistants may not add significantly to costs, others say. "The financial impact won't be catastrophic," said Mark V. Pauly, a professor of health care at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

At the University of Chicago hospitals many residents work 36 or 38 hours at a time without any sleep [they can barely tie their shoelaces after 18 hour shifts without sleep, much less take someone’s temperature], to be able, presumably, to provide follow-up care and attend educational programs, said Dr. Holly Humphrey, who oversees the residents in internal medicine.

The 24-hour limit, even with a possible additional six hours for handing off patients or attending lectures, "is a big, big change," Dr. Humphrey said.

click here for PART TWO of GW Bush Will Eviscerate the Patient's Bill of Rights

click here for COCHLEAR IMPLANTS and PBS Fraud

click here to link to a similar Watchdog publication

+++

The Roslin Institute of Scotland will not stop with only Dolly the Lamb. You are up for grabs too in the next year or two!!!

click here for COCHLEAR IMPLANTS and PBS Fraud

click here for the book review of DEATH BY HMO, a true story

HISTORY of ERISA:

Health Administration Responsibility Project ERISA Outline: Congress has given HMOs and their Insurers and their Administrators substantial immunities from LIABILITY!

Minimum Wage has been $5.15 for over Five years! Teens allowed to work beneath the minimum at $4.25/hour!! Figures to Boast about from the DOL -- Uncle Sam Really Cares!!

Last year, about 2.2 million workers earned the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour or less, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Sen. Paul Sarbanes, the Maryland Democrat who chairs the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, called the lack of affordable housing a national crisis. "When housing is unaffordable, families are forced to double or triple up, crowding into places meant for far fewer people. They live in substandard housing, or they must forgo other necessities," he said in a statement. "Families should not have to choose between rent and food, or rent and medications."

Limits on Residents' Hours Worry Teaching Hospitals

June 14, 2002

By REED ABELSON , The New York Times

Many of the nation's teaching hospitals, already under financial pressure, are raising concerns about the effect of new rules that will limit the number of hours worked by medical residents.

"For academic medical centers, the impact is going to be profound," said Dr. Peter Herbert, the chief of staff for Yale-New Haven Hospital, a teaching affiliate of the Yale School of Medicine, who estimates that the cost for some hospitals could run into the millions of dollars.

The rules, which are being imposed by the group that accredits teaching hospitals, will limit the average resident’s workweek to 80 hours and restrict a resident's continuous duty to no more than 24 hours at a time.

Some hospitals consider residents an inexpensive source of labor. Having significantly cut back on nurses and other staff, hospitals rely heavily on these new doctors, who spend several years training at a hospital after earning their medical degrees.

In addition to caring for patients, particularly the poor and uninsured, these doctors often handle paperwork, transport patients and perform tasks once delegated to others [such as PAs, Physician Assistants].

The new rules, which are aimed at reducing the risk of dangerous errors by inexperienced doctors who are sleep deprived, will not take effect until next July 2003.

The cost of two to three physician assistants [PAs] can run as high as $200,000 a year, compared with $50,000 to pay a medical resident, Dr. Cohen said. "No one knows where that money is going to come from," he said.

In New York, the cost of adopting the law limiting residents' hours was estimated by the state at $220 million a year, some of which the hospitals recovered through higher reimbursements.

The New York law took effect in 1989, and a study done in the late 1990's suggested that many hospitals, particularly in New York City, were still asking residents to work much longer hours than the non-enforced law required. In recent years, however, enforcement of the law has been increased, and many hospitals have made more significant changes in their staffing.

New York hospitals are not likely to feel much impact from the new rules, said Kenneth Raske, the president of the Greater New York Hospital Association.

While some hospitals will hire senior nurses or physician assistants, others may rely more on other doctors and may curtail some of the areas where residents provide care, Mr. Bentley said.

But hiring nurses or physician assistants may not add significantly to costs, others say. "The financial impact won't be catastrophic," said Mark V. Pauly, a professor of health care at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

At the University of Chicago hospitals many residents work 36 or 38 hours at a time without any sleep [they can barely tie their shoelaces after 18 hour shifts without sleep, much less take someone’s temperature], to be able, presumably, to provide follow-up care and attend educational programs, said Dr. Holly Humphrey, who oversees the residents in internal medicine.

The 24-hour limit, even with a possible additional six hours for handing off patients or attending lectures, "is a big, big change," Dr. Humphrey said.

Maine at Front Line in Fight Over
the High Cost of Drugs

May 11, 2002

By ROBIN TONER

The anxiety, the sense of grievance and most of all the anger fill the meeting room at a residence for the elderly in Augusta, Me. It is another day on the barricades in Maine, where the political rebellion against the soaring cost of prescription drugs, now brewing around the country, may be at its peak.

Norman Quirion, a 70-year-old retired police officer, says it is just not right that he has to make "a drug run" to Canada, where prices are far lower, to afford the medicines he and his wife so badly need.

He chokes up when he talks about a neighbor's solution to the problem: one month, the husband gets his medications, the next month, the wife gets hers.

Dorothy Merrick, a 78-year-old retired social worker, says she fumes when she watches the drug companies' television commercials - "they're so elaborate, like Flo Ziegfeld" - and thinks about how much they add to the price of drugs.

Around the country, the cost of prescription drugs has become the issue that will not go away.

Spending on medications was up 17.1 percent last year, 18.8 percent the year before. This month, Congress will embark on what has become a pre-election ritual: trying to pass a law that provides relief to older Americans. The chances of actually succeeding this year are considered slim, but the pressure for action is so strong that lawmakers dare not ignore it.

Nowhere is the political debate over the drug industry more intense than in Maine, with its easy access to Canada, where prices are regulated and the cost differences are often achingly apparent. Support for expanding drug benefits, regulating prices and allowing imports from Canada runs across party lines here.

Groups periodically organize buying trips across the border. Organizers of one such trip said their last run saved 25 people $18,000.

Most significant, the state has approved two groundbreaking programs to lower drug prices for the elderly and the uninsured, measures fought hard by the industry.

Now, the state has a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate, Chellie Pingree, who is building her campaign on the issue.

"Gigi" Bush Eviscerates Patients' Rights

March 22, 2002

By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, March 21 - The Bush administration today proposed dropping a requirement at the heart of federal rules that protect the privacy of medical records. It said doctors and hospitals should not have to obtain consent from patients before using or disclosing medical information for the purpose of treatment or reimbursement.

The proposal, favored by the health care industry, was announced by Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, who said the process of obtaining consent could have "serious unintended consequences" and could impair access to quality health care.

The sweeping privacy rules were issued by President Bill Clinton in December 2000. When Mr. Bush allowed them to take effect last April, consumer advocates cheered, while much of the health care industry expressed dismay.

Today's proposal would repeal a provision widely viewed as the core of the Clinton rules: a requirement that doctors, hospitals and other health care providers obtain written consent from patients before using or disclosing medical information for treatment, the payment of claims or any of a long list of "health care operations," like setting insurance premiums and measuring the competence of doctors.

"HMOS Amputate Senior Citizens from HealthCare"

[excerpts from Robert Pear's article in THE NEW YORK TIMES]

"The federal policy of increasing payments to health maintenance organizations in the hope of persuading them to stay in the Medicare program has largely been a failure, federal investigators said today."

"[...] John D. Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, said: "Congress continues to pour money into the coffers of Medicare H.M.O.'s in hopes of providing better care to America's seniors. But the H.M.O.'s keep stranding hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries annually by either leaving the program or reducing benefits. It is foolish even to consider throwing more money at this failed system."

On Jan. 1, 536,000 elderly people are to be dropped from health maintenance organizations that are curtailing their participation in Medicare. Those actions are being taken after three years in which health plans dropped more than 1.6 million Medicare beneficiaries, 933,600 this year, 327,000 at the start of last year and 407,000 in 1999."

from today's Reuters, excerpts from article by Adam Entous

"The Senate voted in June to expand those rights [Patients' Bill of Rights] in state and federal court despite objections from Bush and business. Norwood and Dingell were poised to follow suit in the House -- that is, until Norwood reached his own Oval Office agreement.

Under the compromise he reached with Bush, which Republicans will offer as an amendment to the original Norwood-Dingell patients' bill of rights, patients would be able to file suit against HMOs and insurance companies in state court. But the proceedings would be governed by new federal standards which have yet to be spelled out. Bush had previously sought to limit all lawsuits to federal court.

The agreement would also set $1.5 million caps for both pain-and-suffering and punitive damages -- higher than the $500,000 caps Bush initially proposed, but far less the $5 million limits approved by the Senate and backed by Dingell and other House Democrats.

In a victory for business, Norwood and Bush would steer lawsuits against large U.S. employers that administer their own health plans to federal court rather than state court, where juries are more likely to return large verdicts in favor of plaintiffs. The agreement also bars class action lawsuits in both federal and state courts."

Some history on Congressman Charlie Norwood (R-GA):

Good ole Congressman Charlie! He has his hand at the nuclear till, like it's a honeypot! First, with the Savannah River Site (SRS), homesite of our thousands of tons of Cold War nuclear sludge and metal oxide salts, with a half-life radioactive toxicity of a billion years. And, he is one of the favored recipients of PAC dollars and contributions, from the Radiology Political Action Committee (RADPAC), a lobby PAC mobilized to ensure that mammograms are billed at over a hundred bucks, and that there are no restrictions on insider referrals, between radiologists and the lucrative labs they select as their "honey".

Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, South Carolina

Immediate actions are necessary to manage nuclear materials at the Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, South Carolina, until decisions on their ultimate disposition are made and implemented, in many ways contingent upon decisions executed by Congressman Charlie Norwood.

The actions evaluated in our EIS would stabilize SRS materials that represent environment, safety and health vulnerabilities in their current storage condition or which may represent a vulnerability within the next 10 years. These vulnerabilities are the result of the suspension of nuclear materials production and processing operations which accompanied the end of the Cold War.

The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, a predecessor agency of the Department of Energy (DOE), established the Savannah River Site in the early 1950's. The SRS occupies approximately 800 square kilometers (300 square miles) adjacent to the Savannah River, mostly in Aiken and Barnwell Counties of South Carolina, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of Augusta, Georgia, and about 32 kilometers (20 miles) south of Aiken, South Carolina. The SRS mission for the past 40 years has been the production of special radioactive isotopes to support national programs.

The primary mission was the production of strategic isotopes (plutonium-239 and tritium) used in the development and production of nuclear weapons for national defense. The Site produced other special isotopes (e.g., californium-252, plutonium-238, americium-241) to support research in nuclear medicine, space exploration, and commercial applications. To produce the isotopes, DOE fabricated selected materials into metal targets and irradiated them in the SRS nuclear reactors. After irradiation and cooling, the targets and reactor fuel were dissolved in acid and the special isotopes were chemically separated and converted to a solid form, either an oxide powder or a metal. The oxide or metal was fabricated into a usable form at the SRS or at other DOE sites. The final form of the material depended on the application (nuclear weapon component, encapsulated medical source, power source, etc.).

Due to the large scale chemical separation capabilities at the SRS, materials containing significant quantities of plutonium-239, uranium- 235, and other special isotopes were shipped to the Site for processing and recovery. The materials were in a wide variety of physical shapes and forms, including (1) small encapsulated plutonium sources returned after use by national laboratories and domestic universities; (2) cans or drums of scrap metals and oxides from weapons manufacturing operations at other DOE sites; (3) irradiated metal fuel rods, tubes, plates, or assemblies from experimental DOE reactors, university research reactors, and foreign research reactors; and (4) cans, bottles, or drums containing residues or samples used in laboratory experiments at other DOE sites.

Radiologists' PAC lobby

Re: the Radiology Political Action Committee (RADPAC):

Our mission, to generate funds to donate to campaign funds of legislators the administrative branch of RADPAC, RAA (radiology advocacy alliance) feels will support legislation that allows us to practice quality radiology. The ACR is a non-profit organization and cannot be directly involved with a Political action Committee (PAC). The Radiology Advocacy Committee is the administrative arm of RADPAC and radiologists can join this for $24. After joining RAA radiologists can contribute $100 to $1000 to RADPAC which will be used for political contributions.

BATTLES

Bill Thomas(R-CA) is leading a strong effort with backing from many medical groups to repeal the Stark II Bill that limits self-referral by physicians to facilities they have a financial interest in.

The ACR has strongly opposes this because it creates a conflict of interest for physicians.

New Federal legislation is pending that would allow nurse practitioners to order and interpret x-rays. The ACR is asking congress to look again at this law and its potential to decrease the quality of health care.

THIS POINTY EARED BADGER wins hands down our "Rodent of the Year" Award! True to his name, his pet program is called "BadgerCare", which amputates Medicaid benefits to those who are only partially employed, and really hurting because their lives are stretched to the limit with part-time, infrequent, no-benefits work ... please click here for more

SUE YOUR HMO. Now!!!

CLICK HERE for PART 1 of HMOs Are Out to Kill You!!

CLICK HERE for PART TWO [2] of HMOs Are Out to Kill You!!

CLICK HERE for PART 3 of HMOs Are Out to Kill You!!

Today, Mark McLellan, our cabinet level director of Medicare and Medicaid, appointed by GW Bush to the position, has now determined as the nation's top man overseeing FDA and Medicare, that nursing homes, many of them corrupt and fraudulent, and illegal immigrants, not legal immigrants, are entitled to easy access to immediate Medicare monies and support, whereas still, as has long been the case, the legal citizens here who are partially employed, part-time employed, unemployed, or homeless, and even the foster children who are sick, may not receive these SSI Medicare benefits ... can you say the word "lobby"??

Nationwide, Black American Security Guards being bumped out of their jobs by the droves and being substituted with illegal immigrants--Wash DC stands by fiddling, and the SEIU Union licks its chops cause now it might have some docile members to organize, after failing the rest of U.S. Labor for over 20 years! ... click here and be prepared to get MAD AS HELL AND YOUR NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!

Dance with the KILLER BEES ... Join the band with HCA-Frist-Family, Carlyle and Blackstone Groups --- It sure is fun! Senator Frist and his brother and family pulled off the largest ever 'super leveraged buyout' in history, just topping the 1989 Nabisco deal! HCA, a Frist$Frist$Frist cash cow, is the very very largest biggest chain of profit guzzling hospitals in the USA, thus of THE ENTIRE WORLD! Sen. Bill Frist denies any insider trading and that any of the many fingerprints are his! Click here for the devastating details....

click here to read about our own feeble CRUSHED DOWN MIDDLE CLASS here in the USA and how the CHINESE are doing better today than our own middle classes during the Eisenhower Era with the T-bills of our TREASURY killing us and making the CHINESE prosperous!

THE LINCOLN GROUP weapons PR hootenany, paid for by you and me sonny!

Read how the Beltway of Washington, DC, especially Fairfax weapons experts spending our NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND funds on death rays, are trying to take over SILICON VALLEY now that they own the Gulf Coast too!

NATSS TEMP AGENCY LOBBYIST [below]

click on this fly faced lobbyist to read the full story....

TEMP AGENCY and OUTSOURCING VIOLATIONS and ABUSES, 2000-2006 ... learn THE LAW and how to cover your ass from these predators!

HERE ARE TWO VERY INTERESTING CASES QUOTED BELOW:

USCIS Announces that the 20,000 additional H-1B slots created under the FY 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Act (December 8, 2004)

Will not be limited to individuals holding a master's or higher degree from a U.S. university, but instead will be applied to all qualified H-1B non-immigrants. This would permit new H-1B employees to commence work upon approval of the petition rather than wait until October 1, 2005 for FY 2006 H-1B slots.

USCIS Proposes Major Changes to Simplify H-2B Visa Procedures (Jan. 27, 2005)

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is proposing a new rule to significantly alter the H-2B program by: 1) establishing a one-step petition process for U.S. employers seeking H-2B temporary workers, 2) requiring electronic filing of the Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker (Form I-129) in most instances, 3) with limited exceptions, eliminating the need for U.S. employers to obtain a labor certification from the Department of Labor, and 4) establishing new management mechanisms allowing USCIS to maintain the integrity of the program. (Source: USCIS, January 27, 2005)

from the NEW YORK TIMES.....

"Union Intensifies Campaign against TEMPS Supplier, LABOR READY TEMPS"

[excerpted]

"[...] Terry O'Sullivan, the president of the AFL-CIO's Laborer's Union, said LABOR READY had sent temporary workers across picket lines in at least six strikes the last few years.

While union ranks have been stagnating, TEMPORARY WORK has been growing by leaps and bounds ... revenue from the TEMPORARY WORKER INDUSTRY is expected to reach $140 million this year ... with 90 percent of American companies now using temporary workers.

The union campaign has had a limited effect on LABOR READY.

[...] The company is now rebuilding its sales force. In July, the founder and chief executive, Glenn Welstad, was forced to resign after the board accused him of taking an unauthorized loan of $3.5 million to cover a margin call on his LABOR READY stock ... LABOR READY says it is the top provider of manual laborers for temporary tasks, but it remains a NICHE PLAYER with revenue only now approaching $ ONE BILLION DOLLARS.

[...] Union officials said their members were paid $15 an hour plus benefits.

[...] LABOR READY ... last year paid workers and average of $6.94 an hour ... but makes NO PROVISION for current health care and has NO PENSION FUND.

The AFL-CIO's goal, ... "is to UNIONIZE THE WORKERS OF THE TEMPORARY AGENCIES."

Hot off the NEW YORK TIMES presses!

from a story by DAVID LEONHARDT

OVER 30 MILLION "FREELANCERS" in the US Today!

[summary of the article]

"Self Employment Will Grow in the Coming Years"

WHY??

* Before WWII, America had many many more independent farmers

* All the widespread layoffs among white collar workers in the late 80s and early 90s

* More than 30 million Americans now call themselves "freelancers" [rather than temps], or "self-employed

MAIN DRAWBACK: HealthCare costs have grown faster and higher for self-employed than for the big companies. Other forms of NON-TRADITIONAL employment, like TEMPORARY HELP and telecommuting, are quickly gaining ground in our BOOM BOOM BOOM economy!

Cochlear Brain Implants and the PBS Media Fraud"

http://carpathian_bronze.tripod.com/cochlear.html

Friday November 11, 2005 2:37 AM

USA Wants to Have ALL ARMS & WEAPONS DEALS WITH CHINA for Themselves:

German drive to lift China arms ban fades, Hu visits

BERLIN, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Germany's new government will drop outgoing Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's push for an end to an EU arms embargo on China, a conservative foreign policy leader said as China's president began a three day visit.

Before Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived on Thursday, Christian Democrat Friedbert Pflueger told Reuters the new "grand coalition" government being formed would distance itself from the previous administration's position.

"The issue is not on the agenda," said Pflueger, a CDU foreign policy expert in parliament and close ally of designated chancellor Angela Merkel, who is trying to form a coalition with Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD).

"We want good relations and we're delighted by the Chinese president's visit to Germany. For the new government the arms embargo issue is not on the agenda. Any change would require close coordination with our EU and North Atlantic partners."

Hu is scheduled to hold separate meetings with Merkel and Schroeder on Friday before a news conference at 1230 GMT.

Schroeder, who will soon be an ordinary member of parliament for the SPD, was a keen advocate of lifting the EU arms embargo on China -- imposed in the aftermath of Beijing's crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

A regular visitor to China, Schroeder helped open doors for German industry with six trips in seven years in office, helping make China Germany's biggest trading partner in Asia.

However, Schroeder's push to lift the EU arms embargo on China had caused tension in his centre-left coalition, with Greens and SPD deputies wary.

The German government's commissioner Tom Koenigs, a member of the Greens party, also spoke out against lifting the weapons embargo, saying there had been no improvement in human rights.

"It would be the wrong signal if the embargo were relaxed or lifted, even if that would not actually make much of a difference," Koenigs told German radio on Thursday.

About 500 demonstrators marched through Berlin on Thursday to protest Chinese policy on Tibet, Taiwan and human rights.

"We do not feel it is right that the Chinese president should be received and lauded," said Dechen Pemba, 27, whose parents fled Tibet. "It's ridiculous that trade issues are taking precedent over oppression and torture."

She was part of a group of Tibetan activists in front of Berlin's landmark Brandenburg Gate. They carried banners reading "Freedom for Tibet" and "Hu Jintao -- courted by Germany: Responsible for martial law and genocide in Tibet".

RELIC

The EU had planned to end the embargo in June, but pressure from Washington and China's hardline policy towards Taiwan dashed prospects of such a move in the foreseeable future.

Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac had argued the ban was a relic from the Cold War.

But critics argue China has not done enough on human rights to justify ending the embargo. The U.S. Congress had also threatened to retaliate by freezing European countries out of military technology sharing if the ban were lifted.

Pflueger, a leading candidate to take a deputy-minister post in the new grand coalition government, told Reuters China would have to make progress on human rights and improve relations with Taiwan before the embargo could be lifted.

"An improvement in human rights and a relaxation of tensions in the Taiwan question are the vital pre-conditions," he said.

Hu was in Britain on Wednesday and was scheduled to spend three days in Germany, holding meetings with leaders and signing business deals, before travelling to Spain and South Korea.

German engineering conglomerate Siemens said on Thursday it would sign a contract to supply 60 high-speed trains to China.

(Additional reporting by Sarah Marsh)

TEMP AGENCY SLAVERY IN OUR FACES

TEMP SLAVES BY THE TENS OF MILLIONS PREPARE TO GO SUPERNOVA AND IMPLODE THE MEGA-MONOPOLY TEMP LOBBY IN WASH. DC!!!

"ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN & Stagnation"

by Louis Uchitelle

[Excerpted from a recent New York Times feature story]

"[...] "We are in an economic slowdown," said Mickey Levy, chief economist at Bank of America. "Employers are clearly holding back on hiring and adding hours much more slowly for those on their payrolls."

... [in] August, 91,000 jobs disappeared ... the federal payroll ... has shrunk by 320,000.

[...] Private-sector employment has registered a similar decline.

[...] The Federal Reserve has argued that the nation is in danger of an inflationary spiral[.]

[...] The average hourly pay of production workers --- constituting roughly 80 percent [of all people employed] ... has risen a mild 3.6 percent.

[...] Manufacturers [typically big users of oil and gas] reduced their payrolls by 66,000 people, after cutting 117,000 jobs in August.

[...] The strong dollar and weak euro dollar have hurt exports ... and [U.S.] companies have therefore cut production and laid off workers[.]

[...] Temporary agencies led in job creation ... but the growth ... had to do with abnormal seasonal variations[.]

[...] Retailers ... have failed to expand payrolls ... a stagnation that some experts attribute to ... rising interest rates.

"They see that if they are going to have to spend more on gas and heating fuel, they are going to spend less on other things [...]," said Richard Curtin, chief of the University of Michigan's consumer surveys.

NOVEMBER 2000

The number of TEMP JOBS in the U.S.A rose 577% from 1982 to 1998: Overall Employment grew by a whopping 47% !!

[excerpted from a recent WASHINGTON POST article written by Frank Swoboda]

"[...] the Nation's employers increasingly rely on temporary staff to trim costs and gain flexibility. Temps, contractors and consultants who are not attached to a company's core work force make up as much as 25 percent of the nation's employment base by some estimates, or nearly 35 million workers.

The number of temporary jobs in the United States rose 577% from 1982 to 1998, according to the General Accounting Office, while overall employment grew 47 percent. MANPOWER Inc., a temp agency, is now the NATION'S LARGEST EMPLOYER.

[...] contingent workers ... have often been "relegated to second-class status and rights " because of their inability to join unions.

[...] Some unions already were planning ... to boost its organizing in hospitals that often hire temporary nurses on a long-term basis.

[...] Challenges to the widespread use of temporary workers have also landed in court in recent years. In one of the more celebrated cases, thousands of current and former independent contractors and temporary workers sued MICROSOFT CORP., essentially claiming that they deserved the same rights as permanent employees. They won in a US Appeals Court, but the U.S. SUPREME Court DECLINED to review the case.

[...] David Larson, who has worked on and off as a Microsoft temp for six years, said he is not sure the younger temp workers realize how important unionizing could be but he hopes they soon will. "The younger you are, the less you thing about things like retirement," said Larson, 44. "Once [the younger temps] start thinking about this, they'll think, "Gee, I'm coming up short here."

from recent AP Wire releases!!

Untold hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants given residence/work visas by our INS, charges the U.S. Justice Department today. CLICK HERE NOW for complete story!

from the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"[...] 5,400 jobs have been cut since December 1999 at US companies that sell goods and services over the INTERNET.

[...] the cuts came from 59 companies, almost a third of which have gone OUT OF BUSINESS ... just this month 1,263 jobs have been ELIMINATED at 17 Internet businesses.

[...] Amazon.com ... laid off 150 workers in January. Other companies that have laid off workers ... AltaVista ... and a healthcare company founded by ... Everett Koop."

Watch out for

RANDSTADT (Dutch-American), Office Specialists, Accustaff, and Olsten --- they are particularly offensive temp agencies

from "The Economist", a London magazine

TEMP SLAVERY revvs up to HIGH GEAR in the new EU!!

[excerpted from ECONOMIST]

"[...] most of the net jobs created between 1994 and 1998 in the EURO area were of either a PART-TIME or TEMPORARY nature. Such "flexible" jobs, many of them in Internet-led services, could account for two-fifths of ALL EMPLOYMENT.

[...] TEMPORARY WORK often suits EMPLOYERS, who can hire and fire readily, more than it does their employees, for whom it offers little security.

[...] unburdened by regulation [regarding part-timers], British employers have less need to seek cheaper ways to create new jobs ... in other words, unburdened by regulation, British employers have less need to seek cheaper ways to create new jobs ... in France, the employers are negotiating with the unions to CUT unemployment benefits to those who refuse job offers. IG Metall, Germany's biggest union, is considering ways of loosening the system of industry-wide agreements, which remains one of the country's ... "hard landings"."

HARD TIMES ARE GONNA FALL

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

OLSTEN TEMP SERVICES DRAINED OFF MILLIONS

from the New York Times

[excerpts]

by Milt Freudenheim

"Olsten to Pay $61 Million in MEDICARE Billing Case"

" The OLSTEN Corporation, a big provider of HOME HEALTH CARE and TEMPORARY Office Workers, said yesterday that it would pay $61 million, including $10 million in fines and penalties, to settle Federal investigations into MEDICARE billing practices.

[...] By agreeing to the GUILTY PLEA, OSLTEN based in Melville, NY, may be preparing to divest itself of Kimberly to keep the MEDICARE business of the parent company.

[...] Retaining the right to serve patients under Medicare and Medicaid, the Government health programs, is essential for hospital and home health care companies."

++++

UNISYS UNISYS !!!

click here for class action lawsuit against UNISYS for SEC fraud

UNISYS also in a class action suit brought by angry engineers who were laid off by the hundreds and hundreds a few years ago for reaching the age of 35!!!

UNISYS defended in court by Epstein Becker & Green

+---------------->>>>>>>>>>>

In Rodolico v. Unisys Corp., CV 95-3653 (ADS), the employer was sued over the layoff of 232 unionized engineers. The plaintiffs allege that there was age discrimination in the selection of engineers to be laid off. The collective bargaining agreement between Unisys and its engineers was negotiated by the company and Local 444 of the Engineers Union. The bargaining agreement created a seniority system within Unisys, and called for a distribution of layoffs between three tiers of seniority, with one senior engineer being laid off for every two middle-level engineers and every three junior engineers.

"PENSION FUND AGENCY [PBGC] IS BEING SCRUTINIZED"

from the Sunday New York Times

by David Cay Johnston

"Costs and Safeguards Are at Issue After Lawsuit and Internal Audit"

[excerpted from the original]

"A quarter-century ago, Congress created the PENSION BENEFIT GUARANTY CORP. to make sure that the 42 million workers with traditional pensions would get paid even if the EMPLOYER went BANKRUPT. The legislation was hailed at the time as second only to SOCIAL SECURITY in its significance to working Americans.

How well that agency operates is now being questioned in a series of audits by the Agency's Inspector General, which are to be made public this week, and by a lawsuit charging that one of the pension agency's contractors [OFFICE SPECIALISTS Temporary Employment agency] DEFRAUDED it.

[...] Two Republican Senators ... said that hearings would be held by SEPTEMBER to investigate how well the Agency is run and why ... half of the 472,000 people covered by failed pension plans [due to their employers having conveniently filed bankruptcy] ... have not been told how much they are due [.].

[...] The audits, the lawsuit and the hearings come as Congressional Republicans are gearing up for a battle to pass major changes in the

Employee Retirement Income Security Act [ERISA]

that have long been sought by major corporations and business owners.

[...] the Pension Agency, which received five awards from Vice President Al Gore for improving efficiency and customer service, had reduced the backlog of people waiting to hear how much they are due [.].

[...] One employee of the Agency, who calls himself Jim Dough, to avoid any RETRIBUTION, has filed a LAWSUIT on behalf of the Agency against one of its biggest Contractors,

OFFICE SPECIALISTS, of Peabody, Mass.

[...] The Dough lawsuit, unsealed on March 18 by a Federal District Court judge in Baltimore, says that a senior Pension Agency official, Bennie L. Hagans Jr., steered business to OFFICE SPECIALISTS, which received a number of contracts WITHOUT competitive bidding, and ordered PAYMENTS [to the temp agency] to be EXPEDITED.

The suit also asserts that Mr. Hagans improperly intervened when Myrna Cooks, the Office Specialists' liaison to the Pension Agency, quit to form her own company and was sued by Office Specialists for violating her employment contract. Mr. Hagans, the lawsuit asserts, "threatened Office Specialists" with a loss of business from the pension agency unless it dropped its suit against Mrs. Cooks and let her assume an Office Specialists' contract valued at $13.5 million. Office Specialists then settled with Mrs. Cooks, whose business, operated out of her home, was awarded the contract.

WE SALUTE the efforts of BARRIE PETERSON, Director of the Bergen County Employment Action Project, the UNION-backed non-profit organization that is coordinating the New Jersey efforts to develop and promote a CODE FOR TEMP AGENCIES, and commend anyone who can implement a federally mandated CODE OF CONDUCT for all USA temp agencies.

Congrats also to Charles Taylor of the South Carolina Alliance, who is working as hard as Barrie Peterson, and the People of San Jose, California, who are also making sure the

AMERICAN STAFFING ASSOCIATION,

, a $60 billion a year lobby group in DC, receives plenty of NEGATIVE ATTENTION!!

We have nothing but CONTEMPT for radio station WNYC, an NPR corporate controlled mouthpiece for WALL STREET values. Feb. 4th, 2000, they let EDWARD LANGE, of the American Staffing Association, mouth off ZILLIONS of lies, without correcting him, or allowing CALL-IN listeners much time at all to say more than "Hi. I'm Frank from Brooklyn," or cutting off a veteran who was complaining on-air about the 22% to 49% profit his temp agency made off his graphics work, billing the client as much as they paid him (i.e. a TEMP earning $12/hr. will see his client billed $24/hr. by the temp agency, in general practice).

Paid Corporate Stooges EXCAVATING Your Personal & Confidential VIRTUAL ON-LINE Unprotected RECORDS!

PRIVACY VIOLATIONS FOR PROFIT;

CHASE MANHATTAN BANK

January 26, 2000

Chase Manhattan Bank cut a deal with an unnamed Denver Internet company to share their CREDIT CARD FILES and HOME MORTGAGE clients files on more than 18 million of their customers for a 24% COMMISSION on all sales made to these 18 million VIOLATED credit card holders and home mortgage customers by the undisclosed Denver internet company.

Pharmaceutical records are also being shared across the nation at an alarming rate. U.S. Citizens have vitually NO LEGAL RECOURSE to sustain even a modicum of privacy pertaining to their confidential electronic files since Congress REPEALED last year a depression-era law (GLASS STEAGALL ACT) that had restricted banks from entering the securities and insurance industries. This REPEAL made it a free-for-all for jointly owned corporations to share data on their customers, OPENING UP THE DOOR for virtual ACCESS on nearly any U.S. citizen and their confidential portfolios.

All EUROPEAN nation's to date have IRON-CLAD legal restrictions against such BLATANT CORPORATE INTRUSION.

U.S. Federal Government officials have completely stepped back from protecting U.S. citizens. There is currently only a FEEBLE PATCHWORK of Privacy Laws in any way protecting Americans from total loss of privacy over their personal and confidential records.

Jim Finn, spokesman for Chase Manhattan, says that this kind of snafu "... does make it easier for customers to understand their rights ... [and] gives the customer, in the end, more CHOICE."

from the "Chain Store Age"

trade magazine

TOYS 'R' US --- FINED $200,000

by Dept. of Labor for CHILD LABOR VIOLATIONS

[excerpted from an article written by Washington DC correspondent Ken Rankin]

"WASHINGTON OUTLOOK, 2000"

[...] In what may be the first in a new wave of such actions, the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division accused TOYS R US of a series of federal child-labor violations involving more than 300 fourteen and fifteen year old store employees in New England. (To resolve the complaint, the chain [TOYS R US] agreed to pay a $200,000 fine and to assign color-coded name badges to help store managers identify them more easily.).

[...] An even more heated controversy figures to flare up over the next few months involving the taxation of electronic commerce. Although Congress imposed a three-year moratorium on state or local taxes of Internet sales transactions, the blue-ribbon commission created to recommend a "level-playing-field" solution to this problem now appears to be hopelessly deadlocked.

[...] There will also be opportunities for the industry to support legislative corrections in laws that have proved troublesome for retailers in the past. During the coming year, for example, Congress will be debating a newly introduced LEGAL EMPLOYMENT AUTHENTICATION PROGRAM (LEAP) ACT, designed to make it easier for retailers and other employers to verify the immigration status of newly hired workers."

"THE NEW YORK TIMES"

"TOYS 'R' US HIRES F.A.O. CHIEF, HOPING TO COAX BACK CUSTOMERS"

by Dana Canedy

"[...] the appointment of John Eyler, FAOs chairman and chief executive, comes at a critical time for Toys "R" Us. The company, which has been operating without a permanent chief executive since August [SEE STORY ABOVE from "Chain Store Age"], had a dismal Christmas despite Pokemon madness."

CONGRESS'S MINIMUM WAGE PLAN

[excerpted from USA TODAY, by Owen Ullmann]

"[...] The Senate minimum-wage increase was passed as an amendment to a bankruptcy-reform bill that would make it harder for people to walk away from credit-card debts. That measures's fate is uncertain.

An increase would benefit 4.4 million workers who earn the current minimum wage of $5.15 an hour and another 7 million making SLIGHTLY more, who also would get a raise.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., assailed the GOP proposal as "a TURKEY with three right wings." He complained that it would stretch out the wage increase, eliminate overtime pay for millions of workers and give "juicy tax breaks" to the WEALTHY."

[...] Jesse P. Schaudies, General Counsel for RANDSTAD North America, a subsidiary of the DUTCH company that owns OFFICE SPECIALISTS, said "we have no basis for believing there was anything improper" in its dealing with the Pension Agency."

Editor's Note: Randstad also owns now ACCUSTAFF, so watch your BIG BROTHER's Ass ... cause Office Specialists, Accustaff, and hordes of other temp megaliths are all under ONE Monolith now!!!

from THE NEW YORK TIMES

What is an "identity politics chauvinist"?

‘Speak Truth to Power’ Poetry Series, AISLING

from the LONDON FINANCIAL TIMES, on the U.S. Economy & FIRING of TEMPS:

"Temp Agency Slavery Soon to be as Conspicuous as Dutch West Indies Slave Shipping"

OVER 30 MILLION "FREELANCERS" in the US Today!

"Self Employment Will Grow in the Coming Years"

"ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN & Stagnation"

from recent AP Wire releases!!

RANDSTADT (Dutch-American), Office Specialists, Accustaff, and Olsten --- they are particularly offensive temp agencies

from "The Economist", a London magazine TEMP SLAVERY revvs up to HIGH GEAR in the new EU!! [excerpted from ECONOMIST]

OLSTEN TEMP SERVICES DRAINED OFF MILLIONS

from the New York Times [excerpts] by Milt Freudenheim

"PENSION FUND AGENCY [PBGC] IS BEING SCRUTINIZED" from the Sunday New York Times by David Cay Johnston

"Costs and Safeguards Are at Issue After Lawsuit and Internal Audit"

Employee Retirement Income Security Act [ERISA]

OFFICE SPECIALISTS, of Peabody, Mass.

"Olsten to Pay $61 Million in MEDICARE Billing Case"

UNISYS UNISYS !!! click here for class action lawsuit against UNISYS for SEC fraud UNISYS also in a class action suit brought by angry engineers who were laid off by the hundreds and hundreds a few years ago for reaching the age of 35!!! UNISYS defended in court by Epstein Becker & Green

PRIVACY VIOLATIONS FOR PROFIT; CHASE MANHATTAN BANK

from the "Chain Store Age" trade magazine TOYS 'R' US --- FINED $200,000 by Dept. of Labor for CHILD LABOR VIOLATIONS

"WASHINGTON OUTLOOK, 2000"

"TOYS 'R' US HIRES F.A.O. CHIEF, HOPING TO COAX BACK CUSTOMERS"

During the latter half of the 1990s the unemployment rate in the United States reached a 30 year high,

How to smash Global Crossing, a cover for corrupt Pentagon military brass who play the market with YOUR tax dollars!!

H1-B Visas -- June 19, 2003

U.S. Unemployment Rate Reaches 20%

HMO-HMA and Medicare Out of pocket costs may soar By Julie Appleby, USA TODAY

Saul Friedman , NEWSDAY The Return of HMOs: A Cynical Celebration

"House & Senate Make MEDICAID into a Kind of Lucky Lotto -- Many Lose, Very Few Win in an Undervalued Voucher System"

RECORD 42 MILLION IN USA --- NO MEDICAL COVERAGE !!

Classic Result of Medical and Hospital Gouging

$8M Brain Tumor Verdict Overturned

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Surgeons Are Warned About Organ-Tissue Transplant Ultra Lethal Fungi

"A cabal of silent corporate Democrats vote against HMO patients’ interests"

HISTORY of ERISA:

Limits on Residents' Hours Worry Teaching Hospitals June 14, 2002 By REED ABELSON , The New York Times

Maine at Front Line in Fight Over the High Cost of Drugs

"Gigi" Bush Eviscerates Patients' Rights

"HMOS Amputate Senior Citizens from HealthCare"

from today's Reuters, excerpts from article by Adam Entous

Radiologists' PAC lobby Re: the Radiology Political Action Committee (RADPAC):

from "The Economist", a London magazine

TEMP SLAVERY revvs up to HIGH GEAR in the new EU!!

[excerpted from ECONOMIST]

from the New York Times

[excerpts]

by Milt Freudenheim

"PENSION FUND AGENCY [PBGC] IS BEING SCRUTINIZED"

from the Sunday New York Times

by David Cay Johnston

UNISYS UNISYS !!!

click here for class action lawsuit against UNISYS for SEC fraud

UNISYS also in a class action suit brought by angry engineers who were laid off by the hundreds and hundreds a few years ago for reaching the age of 35!!!

UNISYS defended in court by Epstein Becker & Green

PRIVACY VIOLATIONS FOR PROFIT;
CHASE MANHATTAN BANK

from the "Chain Store Age"
trade magazine
TOYS 'R' US --- FINED $200,000
by Dept. of Labor for CHILD LABOR VIOLATIONS

How to smash Global Crossing,
a cover for corrupt Pentagon
military brass who play the market
with YOUR tax dollars!!

HMO-HMA and Medicare Out of pocket costs may soar

By Julie Appleby, USA TODAY

"House & Senate Make MEDICAID into a Kind
of Lucky Lotto -- Many Lose, Very Few Win
in an Undervalued Voucher System"

Limits on Residents' Hours Worry Teaching Hospitals

June 14, 2002

By REED ABELSON , The New York Times

Maine at Front Line in Fight Over
the High Cost of Drugs

Radiologists' PAC lobby

Re: the Radiology Political Action Committee (RADPAC):