Protecting Consumers

The UAW will continue its long tradition of involvement on consumer issues. We believe workers need protections as consumers in the marketplace, just like they need protection in the workplace.

Predatory Lending

As the mortgage crisis grew in 2007, attention to predatory lending practices became increasingly important. Predatory mortgage lending practices have already drained wealth from millions of American families. These abusive practices also have contributed to a record number of foreclosures, causing a massive loss in homeownership that is setting millions of hard-working families back, and causing economic hardship in hundreds of communities across the country. About 15-20 percent of all subprime borrowers end up losing their homes to foreclosure.

The Center for Responsible Lending estimates that predatory mortgage lending costs Americans more than $9.1 billion each year. Most abusive lending takes place in the subprime market, targeting people with weak or blemished credit records. A typical predatory mortgage is a refinance of an existing loan that is packed with excessive or unnecessary fees and provides no tangible benefit to the borrower. Unfortunately, many of these loans are perfectly legal, and too often they are targeted at some of our most vulnerable citizens – the poor, the elderly and minorities.

The UAW believes the legal structure governing home lending should ensure profits only to those in the industry who participate in affordable and sustainable home loans that promote homeownership and the accumulation of home equity. We will continue working with civil rights organizations and consumer advocates to support public policies that will provide meaningful protection against predatory mortgage lending practices. We need strong, specific standards for approving loans that will be affordable to borrowers for the life of the loan. These standards should apply to all lenders. Subprime loans should have the same consumer protections that are routinely provided for prime mortgages.

Action

Privacy

The UAW believes workers and consumers should have certain privacy rights to protect them against workplace surveillance and access by others to our health care and financial records. We are working with the Privacy Coalition, a nonpartisan group of consumer, civil liberties, education, family, library, labor and technology organizations, to push for reforms to make sure workers and consumers do not have their personal data collected, tracked and used for commercial and other purposes. Specifically, this coalition supports legislation to implement the following privacy principles:

• The right to notice, consent, security, access, correction, use limitations and redress when information is improperly used.

• Independent enforcement and oversight.

• Promotion of genuine privacy enhancing technologies that limit the collection of personal information.

• Legal restrictions on surveillance technologies such as those used for locational tracking, video surveillance, electronic profiling and workplace monitoring.

Action

Drug Safety

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the federal agency charged with new drug approval and surveillance for serious side effects. In recent years concerns have continued to mount over the underfunding and understaffing of the FDA’s safety department, as well as other problems. As a result, we continue to see individuals being injured or dying each year from the use of prescription drugs.

Unfortunately, drug manufacturers have exerted undue influence over FDA actions. For example, concerns recently were raised over the increased risk of heart attacks among patients taking a popular diabetes drug. In the end, the FDA advisory committee allowed the drug to stay on the market with stricter heart risk warnings. However, the chair of the advisory committee did not receive a conflict-of-interest waiver despite having recently earned a speaking fee from the drug’s manufacturer. To prevent these types of problems from occurring, the UAW believes Congress needs to approve legislation to ensure that NO scientists with industry ties are allowed to serve on FDA advisory committees.

Congress also should take a number of steps to require better surveillance in the identification of serious side effects for new drugs. This includes requiring drug manufacturers to have a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy for monitoring every new drug approved by the FDA during its first few years on the market. It also includes requiring mandatory registration of all clinical trials, so patients, doctors and researchers can have access to and analyze all the data companies have about their drugs.

In addition, to increase protections for patients, Congress should require better warning labels on new drugs. And it should require a waiting period before direct-to-consumer advertising can begin. These two requirements would add a level of safety that is currently lacking.

During 2007 the House and Senate passed FDA legislation that included some drug safety reforms. But additional reforms are still needed. During the coming year, the UAW and our coalition partners will continue to push Congress to make improvements in our drug safety programs. We also will urge Congress to ensure there is adequate funding and staffing for these programs.

Action