pro act

In this episode of "Main Street Matters," hosts Alfredo Ortiz and Elaine Parker interview Rafael Cuellar, the owner of ShopRite Supermarkets in Passaic City, New Jersey. They discuss the challenges faced by small businesses in the grocery store industry, including government regulations and taxation. Cuellar shares his success story of expanding his business through diversification and joining a grocery co-op. He also expresses concerns about proposed legislation that could impact the franchise industry. The hosts emphasize the importance of supporting small businesses and the American Small Business Prosperity Plan, which includes tax cuts, increased access to credit, and regulatory reform. The episode concludes with gratitude to Cuellar for sharing his insights.

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After devastating election losses occasioned by swampy-establishment Republican cowardice on the pro-life issue, extreme Democrats in Minnesota push forward the most radical abortion legislation ever conceived.  Under Minnesota Democrats' plan, there will be no restrictions on abortion up to the moment of birth. The bill would also legalize infanticide after botched abortions. All of this in the name of population control.

Plus, in our Behind the Headlines segment: Joe Biden distracts from China’s aggression with talk of aliens, and Ted Cruz says he will investigate government collusion with big tech to censor conservative viewpoints.

Want Doug to answer a question on the show? Email your question to: foundingprinciplesshow@gmail.com. Please include your first name, city, and state

=== ABOUT DOUG WARDLOW AND THE SHOW ===
Happily cancelling the radical Left with the pure force of truth and reason, America First conservative, constitutional lawyer, and MyPillow attorney Doug Wardlow delivers unique and incisive commentary on the most important happenings in politics, the law, and the culture. His mission: to chart a course back to America's founding principles and help keep America great! 

To Doug, this mission is second nature. Doug has spent his entire career fighting for Americans' constitutional rights, both inside and outside the courtroom. Currently the general counsel for MyPillow, Doug previously litigated cases for Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal ministry that fights for free speech and religious freedom all across the country. Doug also served as a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, where he earned a reputation as a principled conservative warrior, and he was the 2018 Republican nominee for Minnesota Attorney General.

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There are bills currently pending in Washington that can really affect you as both an investor and an employee.  Today, Shanna Tingom of Heritage Financial Strategies breaks them down to what you need to know.

The first is what's being called The SECURE Act 2.0.  You may remember that the original SECURE Act was passed by Congress in November 2019, shortly before the pandemic.  Among other changes, it raised the age on RMD's - required minimum distributions.

After dealing with COVID, the legislature has now gone back to addressing retirement accounts.  Shanna breaks down the different aspects of SECURE 2.0, including another RMD age jump, auto enrollment in workplace savings plans, more employer contributions to these plans, and employer contributions to match student loan payments.   

It's important to remember two things here.  1) The government is trying to make sure Americans do a better job saving for retirement.  2) The government needs more money in retirement accounts to that it can make more money in taxes.   For a detailed breakdown, you can read the following article:

Secure Act 2.0:  https://www.kiplinger.com/retirement/retirement-plans/602821/secure-act-2

The other piece of legislation Shanna addresses is what's known as the "Pro Act."  On its face, it's designed to make it easier for employees to unionize and protect themselves.  However, the result will be many 1099 employees becoming W2 employees.  This, in turn, will cost employers more and may drive up the prices of their services, in Shanna's opinion.  We walk through this potential new law, and offer this article for more info.

Pro Act:  https://www.uschamber.com/employment-law/unions/labors-litany-of-dangerous-ideas-the-pro-act-updated

Have questions about SECURE Act 2 or the Pro Act?  Or need to discuss anything related to your retirement or financial future?  Shanna Tingom and her team at Heritage Financial Strategies are here to help.  Find them here:

https://www.heritagefinancialaz.com/

Work has changed dramatically in the past 40 years. 

In the 1980s, President Reagan busted the air traffic controllers’ union, corporations began closing factories and offshoring American jobs to countries with cheap labor, and trickledown economics dictated tax cuts for the rich and the dregs for the rest of us. 

It the 1990s, banking deregulation paved the way for the Wall Street crash of 2008 by eliminating financial protections enacted after the Great Depression. 

During the Great Recession, which dragged on for years, almost 9 million Americans lost their jobs. Unemployment hit its peak at 10% in 2009. Although, many governors tout robust recoveries from the 2008 Wall Street crash, the jobs Americans have today are dramatically different from jobs in the 1970s – before union busting, offshoring, and tax cuts for the rich became commonplace. Before politicians cared more about fundraising and getting elected, than about the people they claim to serve. 

In an episode of his podcast “Marketplace,” NPR’s Kai Ryssdal said, in 2018,  “Today is a much different picture. Unemployment is near its lowest level in 50 years. On paper, the American labor force has more than recovered, but when you dig a little deeper, the imprint of the financial crisis is visible in the types of work people now do and how they get paid for it.”

Entry level pay for college graduates increased only 6% in six decades (1960-2018), although housing, healthcare and college debt have increased exponentially. 

Most of the jobs created in the decade after the 2008 Wall Street Crash were alternative work, according to NPR, temporary, on-call, contract, or freelance work. In a decade, the work/life norm in the United States shifted from fulltime work with decent wages, benefits and maybe even a union card to just-in-time labor and juggling multiple jobs and daycare in the gig economy. 

In this pre-COVID time period, one in three US adults reported doing some type of nonstandard, “gig economy” work to make ends meet. In 2018, participation in the labor force was 63%, a record low. Pre-COVID, the gig economy was pervasive in Tucson. So many people worked as ride-share drivers and/or delivered packages in their personal cars. I often wondered how many of them had careers and fulltime work before the crash. 

When COVID hit in 2020, there was another wave of job losses and more dramatic changes to work life. 

In March 2021, the Economic  Policy Institute reported that although the US economy had been adding jobs, particularly as the vaccinations rolled out, the US was still down 9.5 million jobs compared to pre-pandemic levels one year earlier. At this rate, they estimated it would take two years to get back to February 2020 employment levels. This prediction was made before the Delta variant caused another wave of the pandemic in 2021. When factoring in the number of jobs that weren’t created during the COVID economic slowdown, EPI says more than 25 million American workers were “directly harmed by the COVID labor market.” 

As I said in one of my 2020 pandemic videos, many jobs and industries may become obsolete or may be changed forever. The continuation of pandemic era consumer hesitancy toward large crowds, big indoor events, air travel and in-person shopping could stall economic recovery into the future. The steady stream of misinformation about vaccines and masks has given the COVID19 Delta Variant the freedom to infect and kill thousands of people unnecessarily.

In my opinion, now more than ever, people need the protections that unions provide. 

In honor of Labor day, my guests today are Trish Muir, who is Chair of the Pima Area Labor Federation and a member of the Teamsters union, and Ryan Kelly, who is the PALF field director and a member of the National Writers’ Union, which is also my union. 

"Besides, if an extra $300 a week enables some to make ends meet without that stinking $7/hr job at the Dollar Store. Is that so bad? "

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TRANSCRIPT:

United Action To Keep Workers Down 

Just six percent of private sector workers belong to a union, but that doesn’t mean we’re short of union style action on our economy. 

For weeks now, employers and their lobbies have been unified in their lament that a scarcity of workers is the result of overly generous federal unemployment benefits. People would rather stay home, and get rich off the public purse, they say, and the stories run everywhere, with the help of the Chamber of Commerce. 

As a result, Republican Governors in state after state are cutting off the federal aid. They’d rather turn away free money, than relieve pressure on the poor.  Employers and their lobbies act as one all the time to keep workers desperate. 

Take the last few months, after a millions-strong majority voted a new administration into office in part on a pledge to raise wages, the opposition was so strong that a hike wasn’t even tried. United opposition’s kept the federal minimum wage stuck at $7.25 since 2009, and wages for tipped, teenage and disabled workers even lower. 

Now the Biden administration’s facing united resistance in Congress to passage of the American Jobs Plan. There may be bosses who back better bridges and airports for their products, but they’re not about to invest billions in childcare or elder supports for their workers. And if you think the anti-affordable child care lobby’s strong, you haven’t met the mob opposing universal health care, even after a deadly pandemic. 

Are workers staying home because they can? It’s possible. But three separate studies of the Care Act (which was twice as generous) say the impact on employment was negligible. 

Far more likely, it’s that lack of child care, and public transport, and affordable healthcare and continuing fear of Covid that are keeping people home when humanly possible. That, more than laziness, certainly seems to explain why tens of thousands of women have exited the workforce. 

Besides, if an extra $300 a week enables some to make ends meet without that stinking $7/hr job at the Dollar Store. Is that so bad? 

Even with the bonus, which is due to end in a few more months, workers aren’t getting rich. But their employers are, as long as they keep wages down and benefits skimpy. One for all, and all for one - for them, it works.  Just don’t let anyone pass that pro-union PRO Act. 

You can watch the Laura Flanders Show on a public television station near you, or on YouTube or listen on radio. Catch it this week, for a conversation among labor reporters of labor's pregnant-with-possibility moment. Find out more at lauraflanders.org

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“The opportunities for labor right now are virtually limitless,” says Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest labor federation. With Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama igniting the fight to unionize and the introduction of the PRO Act in Congress, widespread discontent with the economy has rendered this moment pregnant with new possibilities for workers. New Republic contributor Sarah Jaffe, author of Work Won’t Love You Back, and Teen Vogue columnist Kim Kelly join Maximillian Alvarez, editor-in-chief of The Real News Network, to discuss how the labor struggle affects everyone — from coal miners, to gig workers, to domestic caregivers. Work won’t love you back, but could we love ourselves, and each other, enough to bring better ways of working into the world?  Music in the Middle:  “Fall Like Rain” by Alixa García and BraveWater, and produced by David Williamson, courtesy of the artist and Sound Garuda.  Alixa describes the song as ’an anthem of inspiration for these hard times’.

We are coming to the finish line of our May Day to Memorial Day fund drive to raise $25,000. While mainstream media or money media keeps you in a bubble, we’re committed to popping that bubble by continuing to bring you radical, intersectional media! Can we depend on you to chip in? Go to LauraFlanders.org/donate and join our team by making a donation today. Thanks

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Paris Marx is joined by Kim Kelly to discuss what it was like on the ground in Bessemer as workers tried to form a union at Amazon, the mood after the results came in, and where the organizing effort against Amazon goes from here.

Kim Kelly is a freelance labor reporter who has written for Teen Vogue, The Baffler, Vox, and many others. She is also writing a book for One Signal Publishers called “Fight Like Hell” that will come out in 2022. Follow Kim on Twitter as @GrimKim.

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Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Kim wrote about the workers and organizers behind the Bessemer campaign, and how faith was an important motivating factor. She also reported on it for More Perfect Union.
• Alex Press outlined the history of civil rights unionism in the US South.
• Caroline O’Donovan explained how Amazon workers are organizing beyond Bessemer, and why some don’t plan to seek NLRB recognition.
• Luis Feliz Leon wrote about the growing international movement to challenge Amazon.
• The Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union challenged the result of the Bessemer union vote over Amazon’s union busting tactics.
• The New York Times spoke to some workers who voted “no” for the union.
• Amazon promotes its $15 minimum wage, but it actually pushes down wages in the warehousing sector.
• The PRO Act is a major change to US labor legislation that would make it easier to unionize.

In the fourth episode, we discuss the latest on the confirmation of DOL Secretary Walsh and key nominations, and updates on the rollback of Trump-issued regulations and the issuance of new regulations governing the workplace. 

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