Tidbits - July 18, 2013 - Happy Birthday Nelson Mandela

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Reader Comments - March on Washington; Even McDonald's Thinks Its Workers Need $15; NLRB, Chris Hedges and the Pequod; Labor & Obamacare; Greens and Fracking; Saving Underwater Homes at the Local Level; Low-Wage Workers; R.I.P. - Fred Hicks (Louisville); Henri Alleg - Journalist who revealed French torture in Algeria; Announcements: Pastor's Message to Cuba; Celebrate Nelson Mandela's Life - Berkeley - July 21; Confronting the Climate Crisis - San Francisco - Aug 2

labor

Labor Braces for Impact of Obamacare

Don McIntosh Talking Union
The Affordable Care Act may create serious problems for workers covered by negotiated health insurance plans.

labor

Grocery Unions At Stop & Shop Take Obamacare’s Leap of Faith

Bruce Vail In These Times
Some 40,000 workers at more than 250 New England supermarkets approved new collective bargaining agreements this month in an uneasy embrace by their union of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, also known as Obamacare.

Bipartisan Push to Scrap Medical Device Tax Is a Cautionary Tale

George Zornick The Nation
As the medical device tax saga shows, cutting loopholes is really hard to do in practice. They were likely put there to benefit specific industries, which can often be quite powerful and influence even stalwart liberal Senators who claim to want new revenue sources. Many progressives thus fear that the loopholes most likely to be closed are the ones that benefit people without lobbyists—middle-class wage earners and homeowners, students, and the very poor.

Obamacare's Other Benefit

Nelson Lichtenstein Los Angeles Times
More than medical care, it can open the door to the democratic empowerment of millions of poor Americans.

labor

Union Health Plans Will Suffer under Obamacare

James McGee Labor Notes
What should have been a model for health care reform faces an uncertain future. Because the Affordable Care Act (ACA) tilts the playing field to disadvantage multiemployer plans, this decades-old gain of the labor movement may be irreparably damaged.
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