WIN Week In Review February 29-March 2, 2008

By Doug Cunningham

Canada’s CTV News says a senior economic advisor to Barack Obama’s campaign phoned the Canadian ambassador to the U.S. and told him that Obama’s anti-NAFTA statements are just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously. CTV says Austan Goolsbee, a free trader economist at the University of Chicago, made the call. Rick Sloan of the International Association of Machinists says it’s outrageous.

[Sloan]: “I think this story has such powerful resonance that if it’s out people are going to stop and say wait a second. Now, he tells us one thing, but before he tells us that he signals the Canadian government that it’s only just campaign rhetoric? That’s unconscionable.”

The Obama campaign denies that it’s saying one thing in public on NAFTA and secretly communicating the opposite to Canada’s government. But CTV News stands by its story, citing sources at the highest level of the Canadian government.

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The UAW strike at American Axle is shutting down GM plants. Truck plants in Pontiac & Flint, Michigan, Fort Wayne, Indiana and Oshawa, Ontario are being idled due to parts shortages. The UAW strike was triggered by an attack on wages and benefits. The unfair labor practices strike came after American Axle refused to provide the UAW with detailed financial information. The company wants wages cut in half and wants to wipe out pensions and health benefits for future retirees.

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At least 48 million working Americans lack high enough incomes to realize the American dream of solid middle class lives. That’s according to a new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The report says one in five U.S. workers earn wages below a minimum middle-class standard.

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The United States is approaching a crisis point when it comes to public health workers. Jesse Russell reports:

A new report from the Association Schools of Public Health has some startling statistics about the future of the U.S. public health workforce: By the year 2020, the country will need an estimated 250,000 more public health workers. Over the ten years between 1980 and the year 2000, the workforce lost 50,000 workers, leaving fewer resources to deal with a growing population. According to the report, by the year 2012, 23 percent of the current workforce will be eligible to retire; that amounts to nearly 110,000 workers. In order to keep up, schools of public health will need to train three times as many students over 12 years as they are currently.

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The California Labor Federation and ACORN are backing a bill that would guarantee paid sick leave to all workers in the state. Jeremy Smith is a legislative advocate for the federation.

[Smith]: "This has already been passed in San Francisco, so we know that it can work, that it does work and that our studies have shown that this is supported by a great many people in California."

Six million California workers have no paid sick days. At the federal level, The Healthy Families Act also seeks guaranteed paid sick days for all workers in the U.S.