7 Issues To Watch In 2014
Imagination is the creative force that through necessity yields solutions to resolve the issues that face us.
1. Fast Track and the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiators may have missed their 2013 deadline to wrap up the deal, but "fast track" remains a serious threat.
Leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee, which have jurisdiction over trade deals, have agreed on speeding the TPP through Congress using "fast track" – also known as Trade Promotion Authority – which would limit lawmakers to an up-or-down vote on the TPP without any amendments.
Senator Max Baucus, D-Mont., Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah and Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., introduced a "fast track" bill on Thursday, January 9, 2014.
This is dangerous. Despite loud protests about the lack of transparency in the TPP negotiating process, the public and many members of Congress still don't even know what's in this massive trade deal covering 12 Pacific Rim countries. More than 600 corporate advisors can read and comment on the negotiating texts, while labor, environmental, public health, consumer and open Internet groups are left relying on leaks to glean important information about the agreement.
What we do know is terrifying: The TPP would give corporations new powers to attack important workers' rights, environmental and public health protections. It would offshore millions of American jobs and erode wages here at home. It would decrease access to life-saving medicines and flood the U.S. marketplace with unsafe food.
We can't let this bad deal rush through Congress unchecked. Remember: The TPP is FOREVER.
That’s why CWA has joined together with our coalition partners – Sierra Club, Citizens Trade Campaign, Public Citizen and others – to stop this attack on working conditions. None of us can win this fight alone. But together we can stand up and fight back.
2. Senate Rules Reform
After months of Republican empty promises and broken agreements and with hundreds of nominations still waiting for a vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and many Democrats decided that something had to give.
This past summer, 2 million members of Fix the Senate Now organizations mobilized to make sure the Senate confirmed a full-strength, five-member National Labor Relations Board, along with Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Gina McCarthy to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Republicans temporarily dropped their blockade to a slate of nominations and Democrats backed off their filibuster reform threats.
But recently -- as Senate minority again refused to move forward on qualified nominations to the D.C. Circuit Court -- activists from CWA, Alliance for Justice, Sierra Club, Common Cause, USAction, Daily Kos, NAACP, UAW, Citizen Action of New York, Working Families Party and others again mobilized to call and email to their lawmakers with this message: Enough is enough. It’s time to fix the Senate.
It worked. Democrats used parliamentary move to change the Senate rules so that the president's federal judicial nominees and executive-office appointments can be confirmed by a simple majority, rather than a 60-vote supermajority.
We're not stopping there. In 2014, we'll be continuing our fight to reform the filibuster.
“Senators who want to filibuster should have to talk, for hours, at the minimum, like Wendy Davis did in the Texas legislature,” said CWA President Larry Cohen. "Under the current rules, an individual senator can hold up the Senate’s business and deny filibuster cloture without even speaking on the Senate floor. That’s not what democracy looks like."
3. Living Wage
A growing movement of fast-food workers have walked off the job to demand a $15-an-hour wage, respect on the job and the right to join a union.
The protests began in November 2012 when 200 workers in more than 20 New York City restaurants staged a one-day strike. Since then, one-day walkouts have spread to 100 cities across the country.
A coalition of advocacy groups, faith communities and union organizers are raising awareness about employers like McDonald's that are raking in super-size profits, while their workers struggle to cover basic needs like food, rent, health care and transportation. In fact, a recent study found that 52 percent of fast-food workers rely on taxpayer-funded public assistance programs like food stamps and Medicaid.
Bank workers are also fighting for a living wage.
Did you know that almost one-third of all bank tellers receive some form of government assistance?
The future doesn't look bright either.
Bank of America is considering rolling out a plan to replace real-life bank tellers with video screens.
For more information, check out www.BetterBanks.org
Watch these movements gain even more momentum into 2014. The issue of income inequality isn't going away, as world leaders from Pope Francis to President Obama continue to address the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
4. Immigration Reform
In 2013, thousands upon thousands of people participated actions across the country to demand commonsense immigration reform with a path to citizenship.
Together, we helped organize a historic rally in April, which brought out more than 100,000 supporters to the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. Activists fasted; held lobby days, fly-ins and vigils; and called and emailed their lawmakers.
In June, the Senate finally passed S.744 by a bipartisan vote of 68-32. But when the House left for its August recess without taking action on immigration reform, the coalition prepared for home district mobilizations targeting 41 Republicans during the summer recess. Following an act of peaceful civil disobedience, Capitol Hill police arrested 41 immigration reform leaders, and thousands of people signed petitions demanding that House Speaker John Boehner move to a vote on immigration reform.
At last, House Democrats introduced H.R. 15, a comprehensive immigration bill modeled after S.744. But Boehner adjourned without taking any action on immigration reform.
At the end of the 2013 legislative session, activists flooded the halls of Congress to deliver this message: Congress failed America but we will be back in 2014 – an election year.
5. Cell Phones on Planes
We've all been there. Sitting next to someone who insists on yapping on the phone loudly, every 5 minutes or both. On a plane, there are limited options to remove yourself from that situation.
Sadly, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently announced that it is reconsidering the decades-long ban on the in-flight use of cell phones.
Fortunately, folks like the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA are generating support to fight the measure, not only citing the nuisance of in-flight calls, but because cell phones pose a threat to flight attendants who need to maintain order at all times.
"We're trained to de-escalate. Why would you put something in the environment that can escalate?" said AFA-CWA President Veda Shook. "On an airplane, there's no such thing as a quiet car. It's a confined metal tube thousands of feet in the air. It would be no different from having a smoking section on a small plane."
6. Big Money in Politics
It's time to get big money out of politics.
Thanks to the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling, Super PAC spending has exploded. Outside spending totaled $1 billion during the 2012 election cycle. Now, in the run up to the 2014 midterms, Super PACs and politically active nonprofits have already burned through more than three times their expenses at the same point in the last election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Now, in McCutcheon v. FEC, the high court is being asked to strike down one of the remaining campaign finance laws on the books. Alabama businessman Shaun McCutcheon wants to give more money directly to more candidates, so he has sued to abolish the longstanding cap on the total amount of money an individual can give to all PACs, parties and candidates, or “aggregate contribution limits.” Today, individuals are barred by law from giving no more than $123,000 in a two-year election cycle. If McCutcheon gets his way next year, one donor will be able to give as much as $3.5 million in direct contributions.
Enough is enough. Candidates are already spending more time with their donors at the expense of average Americans. How do we expect our elected officials to know the real issues and problems of working people, if they're spending all their time with the top 1 percent? The answer is they can't. Big money's influence will grow, as the political voices of workers get drowned out.
One bright spot is legislation put forth Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., whose "Grassroots Democracy Act" puts forth a comprehensive plan that would curb this out-of-control spending.
In short, it will provide tax credits for citizen contributions, it will create a mechanism to match funds on grassroots donations for candidates who forgo PAC funding, and give supplemental support to grassroots candidates in races with excessive spending by Super PACs and special interests.
In 2014, the people will be fighting for fair elections and public financing. They'll be pushing for a constitutional amendment that makes it clear corporations are not people and the DISCLOSE Act to bring more transparency into politics.
7. Voting Rights
A far right coalition, led by Gov. Pat McCrory, turned North Carolina into ground zero for the attack on voting rights in 2013.
In one fell swoop, McCrory signed legislation to cut unemployment benefits, restrict abortion access, abolish teacher tenure, join other states with Republican governors to reject Medicaid extension as part of the Affordable Care Act and finally, usher in strict voter ID requirements.
"Moral Mondays" emerged as a result of these measures as thousands of activists joined ordinary people to protest at the North Carolina state Capitol building. They vow to continue their fight in 2014.
The Supreme Court also had a hand in the attack on voter rights when it gutted the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
"The court declared on a 5-4 vote that jurisdictions with long histories of racial discrimination in voting laws (mostly in the South) no longer had to get pre-approval from federal officials before changing their voting rules."
Just in time for the 2014 midterm elections.
Become a Community Contributor.
