A trio of Massachusetts lawmakers on Sunday urged Tenet Healthcare, the parent company of St. Vincent Hospital, to make staffing and safety concessions for the hundreds of nurses planning to strike starting Monday. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey and Rep. Jim McGovern argued that Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare has “still not made appropriate and necessary movement on the issue of staffing.” The hospital’s 800 nurses are preparing to start an open-ended strike Monday morning after two meetings last week failed to produce an agreement on bolstering staff.“We urge Tenet to listen to and act on the concerns of St. Vincent nurses,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement Sunday. “This is a patient safety issue, but it’s also about our values. We respect our nurses, we deeply appreciate everything they have done for our community during this challenging year, and we stand unequivocally with them in their fight for patient safety and fairness. We remain ready and willing to help in any wa… Continue Reading
Five senators are calling on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to provide more information on the company’s recent deployment of “surveillance cameras” in vehicles used by contracted delivery drivers.In a letter Wednesday, Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut asked for more clarity on Amazon’s use of footage collected by the cameras and the scope of their use, with a deadline for Bezos to respond by March 24.The letter was in response to reporting by CNBC in February, which revealed that Amazon recently began rolling out cameras from Netradyne in vehicles at a handful of contracted delivery partners across the U.S. The cameras, which Amazon said record drivers “100% of the time,” have four lenses that capture the road, the driver, and both sides of the vehicle. The cameras are equipped with software that’s capable of flagging a series of safety infractions, including failure t… Continue Reading
Massachusetts Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey are calling on President Biden to include recurring direct payments and automatic unemployment insurance extensions tied to economic conditions in his Build Back Better plan.The payments to Americans would come in addition to the $1,400 stimulus checks included in the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package passed by the House Saturday which could be taken up by the Senate as soon as mid-week.The pair have joined with seven other Senate Democrats and Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, in proposing the additional payments, writing in a joint letter spearheaded by Oregon Senator Ron Wyden that the crisis spurred by the coronavirus pandemic is “far from over.”...Read the full article here.… Continue Reading
In a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban
Affairs Committee hearing today, United States Senator Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.) made the case for the need to tackle climate change by investing in
our nation's clean energy infrastructure, including the replacement of buses
powered by diesel with electric buses. If these public transit options were
instead powered by clean and renewable electricity, then they would produce and
emit far fewer pollutants that are disproportionately harming disadvant… Continue Reading
In a Senate Finance Committee hearing
today, United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) made the case for
lowering the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 55 while questioning Ms.
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, President Biden's nominee to serve as the Administrator
of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Senator Warren believes in
lowering the age to 55 would expand coverage for millions
and has the potential to lower
premiums for the Medicare program. In responding to Senator … Continue Reading
United States Senator Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.) and Representative Sean Casten (D-Ill.) today introduced the Climate
Risk Disclosure Act of 2021 which would reduce the chances of
environmental and financial catastrophe by requiring public companies to
disclose more information about their exposure to climate-related risks. By
increasing market transparency, this bill will empower investors to
appropriately assess climate-related risks and accelerate the market transition
from fossil fuel… Continue Reading
We all want the same things in life: health, security and promising futures
for our families. The Covid-19 pandemic has made it clear how caregivers --
including child care, home care and nursing home workers -- are essential to
achieving this vision. But families struggle to afford care, while care jobs
remain undervalued, understaffed,
underprotected and underpaid. It's time for Congress and President Joe
Biden to make real change.… Continue Reading
Two weeks after he incited an insurrection against the Congress and the Constitution he swore an oath to defend, former President Donald Trump retained full authority to use the most deadly weapons ever created. As disturbing as it may be, this authority is a central feature of our nation’s nuclear decision-making structure — and it is long past time for reform. There is no question that we must place firm limits on presidential nuclear powers, first by enacting a formal policy not to use nuclear weapons first and then by making any decision to use nuclear weapons subject to the approval of Congress.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plea to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Jan. 8 to somehow find “available precautions” to prevent Trump from using his sole authority (the president does not need approval or concurrence from anyone else prior to ordering a nuclear launch, and the military is required to follow that order) to launch was remarkable and shocking, but it was not a firs… Continue Reading
The people elected two leaders — President Biden and Vice President Harris — who committed to boosting our economy by cancelling billions of dollars in student loan debt. That commitment affects more older Americans than you might think.… Continue Reading
