Denis Hughes, President	Ed Donnelly, Director
March 3, 2008	Issue Seven

President's MessageRecession Fighting Strategy

The Industrial Development Agency (IDA) reform movement is still being pressed.  One general priority for reform is our coalition position which calls for payment of prevailing wage on projects where Article VIII & Article IX of the Labor Law apply.

In addition to prevailing wage, our coalition is also seeking wage standards to be applied to the operating side of all IDA supported projects. The powers that be seemed wedded to a low/minimum wage standard for jobs created through these grants.

This Federation believes such a strategy is self-defeating, and does not go to the underlying policy goal of Industrial Development Agencies, which is job creation.  We believe that means “real job” creation at reasonable wages.

The goal would be to pump wages back into the host community as a means of economic development. Absent such a strategy, the better idea would be to stop funding projects that don’t create good jobs altogether, and concentrate on infrastructure development and first class education.

Call to ActionLABOR LOBBYISTS MEETING
Monday, March 3, 2008
1:00 p.m., State Fed Headquarters-Albany
Lunch will be served.
Bruce Gyory, Senior Advisor to the Governor has been invited.

Issue of the WeekWorkers’ Compensation Fraud Convictions

For years business interests demonized injured workers as fraudulent malingerers. This Federation has long been on record pointing out that workers’ compensation premium rates were fraudulently concocted, and considerably overpriced.

Not only were premium rates cooked, but some insurance carriers played dishonestly by booking bogus reinsurance deals which artificially enhanced the value of certain insurance stock, notably market darling AIG. Not only did the games that were played pump stock prices, but assessments were increased on more honest carriers to the benefit of cheaters like AIG, and their compliant reinsurance tools, General Re and Cologne Re. Incidentally, AIG and its subsidiaries insure Wal-Mart among other prominent companies.

Therefore, the companies insured by AIG which participate in this fraudulent scheme were beneficiaries of a multiple hundred millions of dollars assessment shift onto their competitors in New York, while the New York regulators continued to slavishly defend the practices of these cheating insurance conspirators.

Five executives of AIG and General Reinsurance (Warren Buffet owned) were just convicted of a $500 million loss reserve manipulation in the final quarter of  2000.
Convicted of conspiracy, securities fraud, false statements to the SEC and mail fraud, these five workers’ compensation felons face a combined 390 years in the Federal slammer and some $75 million dollars in fines.

The scandalous activities of this ilk has never been fully investigated in New York. Current attention seems to be focused on bailing out self-insured trusts which were designed to dodge assessment responsibility, and which never seemed to have been adequately funded in the laissez faire regulatory era which recently passed.

Keep An Eye OnTuesday, March 4th
IDA Lobby Day, gathering at 10:00 a.m. at the State Fed Headquarters Conference Room, 100 South Swan St., Albany NY.

Tuesday, March 4th
New York State AFL-CIO Nurses Issues Committee Meeting, 3:00 p.m., State Fed Headquarters.

Thursday, March 6th
New York State AFL-CIO Racing Task Force Meeting,  10:30 a.m., 52 Broadway, Room H, 19th Floor, New York City.

Thursday, March 6th
New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness and the Fiscal Policy Institute Forum on Executive Budget, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m., NYSUT Headquarters, 800 Troy-Schenectady Road, Latham, NY.

Friday, March 7th
New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness and the Fiscal Policy
Institute Forum on the Executive Budget, 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m., Rochester NYSUT Building at Union Place, 30 No Union St.