Dave Johnson sent over this really pretty amazing article in the Catholic News Agency after seeing my post on SEIU-UHW’s battle to unionize workers in the St. Joseph Health Care System.  Sure it is a few months old, but it is too good not to blog.  The article is titled innocently enough “Catholic health workers’ effort to unionize could crowd out Catholics”.  Crowd out Catholics they say?  How?

Well…it is all about the homos you see, as the lead tells us.

A complex labor dispute between a Californian Catholic healthcare company and its employees could end in an agreement with a union that promotes homosexual rights, the California Catholic Daily reports.

And what do they use to base this claim?

Well, they go right after Sal Roselli, the leader of SEIU-UHW.  No, not like SEIU International has gone after Sal, but because, gasp, he is gay!  Going way back to 1984.  Oh my goodness.

In 1984-85, Roselli was president of a Lesbian/Gay Democratic Club.  A grand marshal for the 2006 San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade, Roselli has introduced domestic partner compensation into the UHW member benefits.

This bit is my favorite.  They use an anonymous source to attack Sal and SEIU-UHW.

A political activist in Sacramento, who requested anonymity, told the California Catholic Daily that Roselli’s union is trying to become the exclusive bargaining agent for some St. Joseph employees.

“This is a very contentious union, and if they get what they want, there will be a full homosexualization of everything. Domestic partner benefits and the like will come from worker dues, and the full muscle of the union will be put behind the homosexual agenda,” the activist said.

Yes, that is exactly what SEIU-UHW does.  They are all about advancing the homosexual agenda and homosexualizing EVERYTHING.

But wait.  There is more.

The activist alleged that allowing UHW into St. Joseph’s, the Catholic health provider “would be agreeing, in effect, to fire any Catholic who does not agree to support the Culture of Death with his dues. The average nurse pays around $1,000 a year in dues for this, and that money goes to supporting candidates and propositions that support abortion and homosexuality. What kind of Catholic institution would agree to this for their employees?”

Woah, woah, woah.  How did we get to “Culture of Death” (note the capitalization) from homosexualizing everying?  Ah you see, SEIU-UHW endorses candidates and gives them money so that they can get elected and pass policies that help their members.  And yes, those politicians sometimes are pro-choice and vote for things like civil unions and even gasp….marriage equality.

But what the anonymous source conveniently fails to mention is that any union member by law is able to opt out from having their dues go to politics.  Remember the Prop. 75 fight?  That was over whether it should be opt in to political giving or the status quo of opting out.  So, a SEIU-UHW member who happens to be Catholic and anti-choice and anti-gay can continue being both things without having their dues go to politicians they disagree with.

So you see, all the author and the anonymous source are left with A) Sal Rosselli is gay. B) SEIU-UHW dues will go in a very small part to paying for domestic partner benefits for their staffers.

See, this is why the workers shouldn’t be allowed to have a union that can argue for fair pay and safe working environments for the staff and their patients.  I think they may have me convinced.  What about you?

Dissent magazine has a fascinating article by Marie Gottschalk on current efforts to achieve healthcare reform in the United States http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=1166. SEIU President Andy Stern and the business-friendly approach that failed here in California gets some well-deserved criticism:

“So far, Stern has garnered a disproportionate amount of media and popular attention. His business-friendly stance on health care reform, which stresses how the U.S. health care system is fundamentally hurting the country’s economic competitiveness, helps explain why. But his economic competitiveness argument is not convincing and could undermine efforts to forge a successful coalition or movement on behalf of affordable, high-quality care for all.”

The author argues that wooing business leaders in order to build momentum for healthcare reform is a backwards-thinking approach, and one that has failed before. For example, the labor movement tried to bring business leaders to the table in the early 1990s. The Clinton healthcare plan fell apart not only due to a lack of grassroots support, but also after multimillion-dollar attacks came from those same business leaders. The author also shows that healthcare costs are not hurting the U.S. business community’s ability to compete with overseas companies.

One example: European and Japanese firms bear higher indirect costs, because of higher corporate taxes. Those extra costs generally exceed what even the most generous American businesses spend on coverage for their employees. Another example: corporate spending on healthcare, as a percentage of after-tax corporate profits, declined steadily in the U.S. between 1986 and 2004 (except for the three years from 1998 to 2001).

Gottschalk’s bottom line: “The economic competitiveness framework obscures the fact that employers and insurers have been remarkably successful at shifting health care costs onto employees, their families, and other individuals through higher co-pays, higher deductibles, restrictions on coverage, and other measures,” and the focus needs to be placed squarely on the damaging economic consequences for individuals and households who are bearing the greatest burden of rising healthcare costs, not on employers.

The reality is that only by building a bottom-up movement will we win healthcare reform—and only after we make it clear that change is important because it’s the right thing to do for everyone. Arguing that we need reform in order to protect corporate profits is the wrong way to go. It is the right of every person in this country to have access to quality, affordable healthcare. This moral rationale for reform must maintain center stage, linked to an economic rationale focused on reducing costs for working families, and delivering higher-quality healthcare more efficiently—by providing better integrated, more appropriate services, and reducing insurance company administrative overhead, marketing costs, and profit.

My union, United Healthcare Workers-West, fights for real healthcare reform based on these principles and our personal experiences with this perverted system. We oppose phony reform, like what Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed for California last year. Badly misreading the situation here in the state, Andy Stern supported a reform package that yielded far too much ground to Schwarzenegger’s proposals. That plan proved unacceptable to the rest of the labor movement and the State Senate, and would have been rejected by voters had it gone to the ballot.

Today’s New York Times posted a misleading article that uses the relationship between SEIU President Andy Stern and Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott as evidence of a “slowing down” of the Wal-Mart campaigns.

While we cannot speak for Wal-Mart Watch, everyone should know WakeUpWalMart.com has NO intention of letting Wal-Mart off the hook.  None. Zero. Zilch.

This Times reporter may buy Wal-Mart’s PR stunts and others may think Wal-Mart is worth sitting down with, but we know Wal-Mart only responds to one thing: pressure from consumers and public officials.

Because of that, we’re going FULL-speed ahead with a 2008 plan that is about to kick into high gear.

We will soon begin very extensive television and field campaigns in six markets throughout the country. The campaigns represent the most intensive consumer education programs WakeUpWalMart.com has EVER done.  For the first time in our HISTORY, we’ll use poll-tested messages, months of hard-hitting TV and radio ads, as well as mail and phones, to share the truth about Wal-Mart.

It’s unfortunate that the Times chose to ignore what we have done together this year, and focus so much on Stern and Wal-Mart Watch instead.   By any measure, it’s been a good year. Here’s just a sampling of what we’ve done:

— Our work to force Wal-Mart to respect military moms: http://youtube.com/watch?v=yaVoPoGE7Qo

— Our work to expose Wal-Mart’s effort to help China, not America: http://youtube.com/watch?v=3lyhEMBGN-

— Our petition to get Wal-Mart workers to ask the company do the right thing: http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/feature/debbie_shank/

— Our web video “Live Better”: http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/v…

— And our email list which has grown by over 100,000 individuals ust this year.

Wal-Mart is foolish if they think they can make a few window-dressing changes and then call it a day. They are also silly if they think one New York Times story is going to change anything.  

It’s going to be a very busy six months.  I hope everyone is ready.

The WakeUpWalMart Team

Manuel Perez is at once scholarly, passionate, and gracious.  He knows public policy from both the planning and outcome perspectives, so give him a topic, and he’ll give you a progressive and practical answer, with footnotes.



Manuel Perez wasn’t going to be at the Rancho Mirage Library for the candidate forum Friday night.   He was scheduled to be the honoree at an event for a coalition of fellow nonprofits, and they had already rescheduled the event around his campaign once.  But we finally convinced him that a candidate has no choice but to be there, and he was brilliant.  The interaction among the 80th candidates showed a clear frontrunner, the focus of both Rick Gonzales and Greg Pettis’s attention.  Manuel pivoted on both challenges, and his scope of understanding about education, healthcare, jobs and the environment was finally on display in the proper context.  

Manuel had solid support from the community: Dale, Lynda, and Mary representing schools, two directors from the Verde Group who came down to canvass, Amalia Deaztlan, Eduardo Garcia, Mayor of Coachella, Steve Hernandez, Coachella City Councilman, Carlos Campos, City Attorney of Coachella, a teaching buddy from the school system.  Some of us went out for food with Manuel after, and we talked about the growing recognition of the new Coachella progressives among more established Democrats.  “What they are learning, what they always underestimated before, is how hard we will work,” Steve said.  Having prepared walk lists with JC Sanchez of SEIU-UHW (also of Coachella) in a previous campaign until 3am, I know exactly what he’s talking about.  Manuel Perez and his colleagues are this region’s Mr. Smiths Going to Washington, or in this case, Sacramento.  They’re prepared and determined to improve the cities, the state, and this country, and they don’t take anything for granted.

My notes from the latest candidate forum, (they were all on tight time limits, so this is a choppy paraphrase):

In response to “How will you commit to working in a bipartisan way:”

Perez-  It is our responsibility to represent you, we’re your voice, we’re your tool- Our responsibility is to vote on behalf of you, not just our party.

negotiation, compromise, experience.  Not easy, must be learned

Need to be able to work with both sides of the aisle

Not always been in agreement in school board

Passed $250 million bond measure, brought all people together from all sides – Have that experience

Policy must come from ground up

It is our responsibility to represent you

OUT OF THE PARK

I wanted an 80th AD Democratic primary debate sponsored by a local news channel, and we never got one.  But Friday night we had a candidate forum at the Rancho Mirage Public Library, and the contrast I’ve been waiting for was apparent.  Not just the 80th but the local Republican candidates for the 37thSD and 64thAD took questions about the budget, bipartisanship, etc.  Having the broader context was great, because the Republican responses make it so obvious why we have to win this seat.  With the exception of Brian Nestande, R for the 64th (though naturally I’m for Paul Rasso), their attitudes on policy are barbaric.  They have learned little from the past years.

From The Desert Sun

The bipartisan group of candidates competing in Tuesday’s primary election for the 37th state Senate district, plus the 80th and 64th Assembly districts took their best shots during a tense candidates forum at the Rancho Mirage Public Library, sponsored by the All Valley Legislative Coalition and the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership.

… Manuel Perez, on balancing the state budget, said it would take a “triad” of actions:

Streamline the government, reform the tax code to close special loopholes on luxury items and corporations, and create jobs locally through a new “green-collar” economy.

All of the Democrats did themselves proud, but Manuel excelled.  He can think on his feet, and he has powerful experience and intelligence to draw upon.  As usual, he was the only candidate to honor all of them as capable of winning the seat and serving the district.



“How do I get the union support you do?” from Rick and “How can you say you’re for accountability when your school district is failing according to NCLB?” from Greg (according to the paper.  Well, Manuel didn’t say what I would have about the union support, namely that all candidates asked for it, but Manuel got it because he’s already a valued partner of labor, education and healthcare unions.  He was much too modest.  As for Greg’s tired refrain parroting Bush on NCLB standards, Manuel was ready.  Paraphrase: “I welcome the accountability,” he said, “but the standards aren’t matched with funding, California doesn’t handle the implementation as well as other states, and NCLB ignores the larger picture.  Our students’ test scores are consistently rising, our teachers are doing a brilliant job, and I initiated the construction of $250 million in new schools to meet the needs of our students.”  

One of Coachella Unified’s students knocked on my door just about an hour ago.  It was Ruben Perez, canvassing for his dad, as are hundreds of volunteers and union activists today.  The Perez family has much to be proud of.

The California 80th Assembly District has the affluence of Palm Springs and La Quinta, where the well-off winter, and the Grapes of Wrath poverty of Duroville.

Manuel Perez:  “For too long, the 80th Assembly District has been ignored and neglected by politicians.  Growing up the son of farm workers, I know the struggles of working families.  I will fight locally and in Sacramento to bring new opportunities and prosperity to all our communities.”

Manuel Perez focuses on parents as well as students as a School Board Trustee, recruiting them to work with him to reverse the schools to jails pipeline in our poverty burdened communities.  But it’s not enough to educate, we need jobs in California, and specifically a green tech business plan from Palm Springs to Calexico.  Check the plan on the flip.

NOTE:  I originally gave Indian Wells to the 80th when posting this, and I’ve sinced remembered that it’s in the 64th.  I’ve edited the first sentence of this post (above the flip) to correct it.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

The Manuel Perez Plan for New Jobs and a Stronger Local Economy



As our next Assembly Member, Manuel Perez will be a leader in creating new jobs and stimulating our local economy.

*Bring new green technology businesses to the Valley creating green collar jobs by tapping into the alternative energy resources within the district.

*Create higher education opportunities, workforce development and job training sites.

*Build partnerships between tribal governments, resorts, golf courses, hotels and the tourist industry with local schools and community colleges to create internships, apprenticeships and job training opportunities.

*Strongly support family farmers and farm workers to ensure prosperous yields.

*Promote small business economic development, encourage the California entrepreneurial spirit, and expand and promote of “enterprise zones.”

The IEs are here at last, like Santa in the summer.  Running a grassroots campaign with a base of working people, some of whom live in the poorest parts of California, means the campaign’s funds are always tight.  The majority of the staff work for little or nothing.  But oh, how sweet it is when the unions start to do their thing.  Our website has an excellent photo gallery.  Behold, I receive in the mail my candidate teaching my kids.

The latest endorsements are United Auto Workers Region 5, the California Faculty Association, the San Diego/Imperial County Labor Council, and the Border Patrol.  Education, healthcare, labor, UAW, and now law enforcement. Nice.  

Crossposted at dKos



I’ve received four positive Perez mailers from Opportunity PAC, “a coalition of Educators, Health Care Givers, Faculty Members and Other School Employees,” and two negative ones on Pettis.  It can’t be any fun for a Democrat to find Opportunity PAC mailing oppo lit on him, but it’s odd to have a Democrat denounce unions as “Sacramento special interest groups” as the Pettis campaign’s latest email blast did.  Things do heat up in the final stretch.

Manuel’s schedule is insane, as this district stretches from east of Palm Springs to Arizona, from Desert Hot Springs to the border of Mexico.  Last Thursday he was in a candidate’s forum hosted by the Palm Springs Hospitality Association, and had the opportunity to address gay marriage (he’s for it), our education crisis, and his initiatives with vocational training – a boon both for local business and students.  He’s been walking precincts in every corner, including his main rival’s:

From (California’s) Capitol Morning Report, May 15th:

Manuel Perez for AD 80 campaign — About 20% of our walkers last Saturday canvassed Cathedral City, a presumed stronghold of Greg Pettis’, and it was simply amazing the amount of support out there for Manuel Perez. Dale Wissman was one of the volunteers and he walked a middle-class, mixed neighborhood of Latino, Anglo, and gay households. All the households were either openly in support of Perez before Dale knocked on their door, or were leaning Perez’s direction before they answered the door.  ….

Today at the Democrats of the Desert meeting, our speaker was Carissa Carrera of the Coachella Valley Teachers Association.  She noted the CVTA’s endorsement of Manuel Perez, “a good person” as well as a strong leader in education.  Here’s something we all found shocking:  Sacramento looks at the test scores of third graders when sizing up the prison budget needs for the future.  California would be the 8th largest country, were we a country, and we rank near the bottom of the nation in school funding.  We spend 7K per pupil, and 25-30K per prisoner.  

I am looking forward to a 2/3 majority with Manuel Perez in our Assembly.   Manuel, with others, secured $250 million for new school construction in Coachella.  This is what we need now.