1. Effort to Protect Retiree Prescription Drug Coverage Rejected: During Senate consideration of the Medicare prescription drug benefit, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) offered an amendment to protect individuals who have prescription drug coverage under an employer sponsored retiree health plan. Under the plan, which passed the Senate and the House on June 26, retiree's employer contributions do not count toward their catastrophic drug coverage limit (when the government will pick up the rest of the prescription drug bill). IAFF General President Harold Schaitberger had earlier this week sent a letter to all members of the Senate, signed by himself and 34 other labor leaders, urging them to adopt the Rockefeller Amendment. Under this new plan, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 39% of employers will reduce or eliminate their prescription drug coverage, including local governments, who extend drug coverage to many retired firefighters. Since the bill's definition only allows "true out of pocket" costs to count towards the catastrophic limit, many businesses will see no reason to continue to offer health benefits to their retirees. This, in turn, will cause more retirees to rely solely on Medicare for the health benefit needs, so the one out of every three retirees who has some form of employer sponsored health coverage will further burden the Medicare system. Although Senator Rockefeller's amendment was defeated, the IAFF will continue to press Congress to remedy this issue in the Conference Committee to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the bill.
2. Department of Labor Attacks Rules On Overtime: Minimum
wage standards and the rules for overtime work are set by the
Fair Labor Standards Act. More than 80 million workers now must
be paid in cash or comp time if they work overtime, and many of
them depend on this pay to make ends meet. The Bush
Administration has proposed regulations to cut the number of people
eligible to earn overtime pay. Millions of salaried workers who earn
anywhere from $22,101 to $65,000 would find that their positions would
be re-classified as "executive", meaning they would be exempt from
overtime pay. Workers with specialized training or higher education who have supervisory roles would also be re-classified as exempt from overtime; these workers would then get the larger share of overtime work, cutting it from those workers who have not been affected by these regulations. These proposed regulations would hurt firefighters, since the majority tend to work overtime. Under these rules, firefighters who earn an hourly wage could become ineligible for overtime pay. The IAFF is working with the Department of Labor to try and ensure that firefighters are not affected by these rules.
3. PSOB Heart Attack Legislation Gets First Hearing in the House: The ouse Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security held a hearing on the IAFF's PSOB heart attack legislation. While this bill passed the Senate earlier this year, it has taken intense lobbying by the IAFF
and other organizations representing public safety employees to get a
hearing in the House.
4. First Homeland Security Appropriations Bill Passes House: The budget for the new Homeland Security Department passed the House on Tuesday night. Out of the $29.4 billion, $4.4 billion is to go to law enforcement, firefighters, and emergency responders. The FIRE Act was boosted by $10 million to bring the total to $760 million in funding. To read more on the Homeland Security Budget, go to www.iaff.org.
5. New Unemployment Numbers: The economy continues its downward trend: new numbers released this week by the Department of Labor show that the US average for job loss is 6.1%--47 states have higher unemployment now than they did three years ago. |
