By Doug Cunningham

The U.S. House is about to take up a pensions bill that the United Auto Workers says will outlaw early retirement benefits in plant closing and will freeze the pension benefits of hundreds of thousands of workers in well-funded plans by changing accounting rules. Alan Reuther is Legislative Director for the UAW.

[Alan Reuther 1] : "These proposals we think are being pushed by people who want to get rid of defined benefit pensions plans. And that's why they're pushing these counterproductive ideas."

Reuther says these provisions harming worker pensions are not in the Senate version of the pension bill. And he believes the public can get rid of them in the House version.

By Doug Cunningham

The Sierra Club is in the fight against CAFTA and with the U.S. House expected to act soon on CAFTA Sierra Club chapters nationwide are actively lobbying against the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Brett Hulsey is with a Midwestern chapter of the Sierra Club. Hulsey believes a turning point is being reached on trade issues.

[Brett Hulsey ] : "Even Republicans are starting to realize that these trade agreements ship our jobs overseas, they lower our environmental standards and they threaten our health and safety."

Hulsey says that CAFTA could be used to attack U.S.

By Doug Cunningham

Labor and progressive groups are battling to stop CAFTA - the Central American Free Trade Agreement - in Congress. On this one labor has a fighting chance to stop CAFTA. Douglas Drake with the Steelworkers union District 2 in Wisconsin says working families on both sides of the border are hurt by these trade agreements because they're structured to enrich corporations at the expense of workers.

[Douglas Drake 1] : "Real wages in Mexico are less than they were at the time that NAFTA was instituted, so it has not achieved its goals of helping to increase and develop those economies to the point where they would start consuming more goods from the U.S. So both from the standpoint of workers here in the U.S. and workers in Mexico for instance these trade policies have not resulted in greater prosperity for working people in either case."

A group of legislators are seeking to hold large companies accountable for healthcare. Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York, alongside Senators Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Jon Corzine of New Jersey are announcing the Healthcare Accountability Act today in Washington, DC. The bill is intended to stop large corporations, such as Wal-Mart, from shifting the healthcare burden to taxpayers. Critics have accused the company of paying low wages and making the healthcare plan inaccessible to more than 600,000 workers nationally. In 11 out of 12 states surveyed, Wal-Mart has the highest number of employees on state Medicaid rolls. The new bill will require states to disclose the companies that lead with employees on health care assistance.