Newscast for Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Momentum grows for action on health care reform
President Obama has been stepping up pressure on health care reform, calling for an up or down vote on the bill, and some progressive groups and lawmakers who once opposed the legislation are now pushing for it too. FSRN's Karen Miller has more.

California prison workers go on strike over health care hikes
In Oakland, California, prison health care workers went on strike today to protest what they call unfair labor practices by their employer, Tennessee-based Prison Health Services, a for-profit corporation. Alameda county has a $77 million contract with Prison Health Services or PHS at two facilities, the Santa Rita Jail and Glenn Dyer Detention Center.

Workers are represented by SEIU International. They say PHS is raising healthcare copays and deductibles to an unaffordable rate.

Outside the Santa Rita Jail, about 140 workers gathered for the the day-long strike, including Dona Chatman, a licensed vocational nurse at the jail for nine years. She said the changes to healthcare benefits would affect her drastically.

"I'm a single mom myself, I have four children, and often times my children do get sick, they have asthma, so if I have to take them to the hospital and pay that type of money, it would definitely set me back. To take away my benefits, it would almost be like taking away our wages that we worked so hard for in our last contract."

Under the contract with Alameda country, PHS was also supposed to budget for an increase in wages - but that's now off the table, according to the SEIU. Chatman says wages have a direct impact on whether or not they can provide adequate care to prisoners.

"There was a point in time when we were extremely short staffed which was in our last contract, and it was because we faught to get that wage skill in and we were able to get worker in and have been able to keep them so that we haven't been short staffed but they're trying to take that away from us, which would take us to where we were before: very short staffed and our inmates not being properly taken care of."

Union officials also say PHS has started an intimidation campaign against workers, including issuing notice of a seven day lock-out following today's action. Chatman says despite the threat of a lock-out, they'll attempt to return to work Wednesday. Union officials are scheduled to resume negotiations with Prison Health Services on Thursday.

Renewed effort for climate change legislation focus of White House meeting
The President called a group of Senators to the White House for a discussion on energy and climate change. The bi-partisan meeting is an attempt to gather momentum to move forward on legislation. The House passed a climate change bill last year, but the issue has been stalled in the Senate. Like the House bill, the central component of the Senate climate change legislation is cap and trade. The plan puts pollution limits on dirty industries and allows those whose emissions fall below the limits to sell, or trade, their credits. The idea is to gradually implement stricter regulations over time, which would decrease pollution. Three senators in particular are being seen as essential to the meeting at the White House. That's Democrat John Kerry, Republican Lindsay Graham and Independent Joe Lieberman. They have been working behind the scenes on a new, bi-partisan climate change bill. FSRN’s Leigh Ann Caldwell caught up with Senator Graham in the halls of Congress.

Energy independence linked to national security risks
For several years, foreign policy experts and defense analysts have been linking global warming to future national security risks. This year, for the first time, The Department of Defense has acknowledged that climate change and oil dependency are threats to national security. US veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are also making the connection. They’ve launched a new campaign dubbed “Operation Free” which seeks to raise awareness about the effects of oil dependency and promote clean energy and green jobs. FSRN’s Martha Baskin reports from Seattle where the “Operation Free” tour recently stopped.

Brazil announces trade sanctions on US products, highlighting role of government subsidies
Brazil has announced trade sanctions against US products, saying that government subsidies to the American producers give them an unfair advantage in the global market. This follows a decision last year by the World Trade Organization which approved millions of dollars of penalties on US products for policies  the organization said violate trade regulations. And in 2008, the WTO said that the US wasn't doing enough to decrease aid to producers of one crop in particular: cotton. The rare move brings attention to a practice in the US that countries have long denounced: that's the government subsidies for large farms and agriculture businesses.

To discuss this latest move, we're joined by Deborah James, Director of International Programs at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.