Tag Archives: CNA

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NYT and WSJ Cover SEIU’s Violence at Labor Notes

The New York Times and Wall St. Journal both cover the incredible events at Saturday’s Labor Notes conference in Michigan, where Andy Stern of SEIU International sent busload of male staffers to chase and harass RNs from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, in retaliation for CNA/NNOC defeating them in a controversial “company union” vote last month in Ohio.  Fortunately the targeted RNs were able to escape out a back door, but other conference-goers were not so lucky, with one woman sent to the hospital, and others punched, kicked, slapped, and shoved

This is obviously a dark day for the labor movement.  Andy Stern needs to learn that this kind of harassment of women is NEVER okay. And it is NEVER, EVER okay to orchestrate an action that is so stressful that members have a heart attack and die.

RNs will never forget this day, nor is it now likely that any RN in the country will want to organize with SEIU after this kind of display.

As a first step, Andy Stern needs to apologize to all involved, pay the hospital bills of the injured woman, and promise to never use violence again.  Instead, shamefully, SEIU is going back and forth between denying the violence and attempting to justify it.  You can watch first-person accounts from some of the RNs targeted for harassment.

You really need to go look at the picture, but The New York Times writes:

       “The A.F.L.-C.I.O. president, John J. Sweeney, denounced on Tuesday what he said was “a violent attack orchestrated” by the Service Employees International Union against members of other unions at a conference on Saturday in Michigan.

The service employees’ union sent busloads of members from Ohio to the labor conference in Dearborn to confront leaders and members of the California Nurses Association. The service employees say the nurses sabotaged a major service employees’ unionizing drive last month.

Others at the conference said the fighting began when service employee members and officials tried to barge into the conference in a hotel banquet hall. Chris Kutalik, editor of Labor Notes, a magazine sponsoring the conference, said a retired member of the United Automobile Workers was pushed, banged her head against a table and was taken to a hospital for a head wound.

“There is no justification, none, for the violent attack orchestrated by S.E.I.U.,” Mr. Sweeney said in a statement. “Violence in attacking freedom of speech must be strongly condemned.”

Today’s Wall St. Journal takes their own look, at SEIU’s attack (reg. req’d)

       “On Saturday, a scuffle broke out between members of the SEIU and participants in a labor solidarity conference in Detroit at which the executive director of the California Nurses Association was scheduled to speak. One attendee was sent to the hospital after cutting her head on a table, according to Chris Kutalik, editor of the magazine Labor Notes, which organized the conference.

Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the 66,000-member nurses’ association, decided not to appear at the conference because of tensions between the unions. “Our folks are extremely upset about what happened,” she said. “This is a nasty campaign.”

Mr. Sweeney condemned the confrontation. “There is no justification — none — for the violent attack orchestrated by SEIU,” he said in a statement. Mr. Sweeney called on leaders of both unions to meet to resolve their differences.”

Andy Stern attempted to destroy the labor movement n 2005 by splitting the AFL-CIO, he is undermining the progressive labor movement with series of corporate partnerships you can learn more about here, and now his actions threaten to hurt the reputation of every labor union.  Here’s why Andy needs to apologize and make restitution.

       “More significantly, such fighting could tarnish the image of unions, which have been trying to stem the decline in membership and attract more workers, say labor experts.”

Andy Stern must apologize and make things right.

Health Care

What’s Really at Stake with this CNA/SEIU Controversy

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By now you may feel like you’ve heard quite enough of the back-and-forth between SEIU and the CNA over union representation of nurses and healthcare workers in Ohio. You may have also heard that the dispute runs deep and wide and goes back years and across state lines into Nevada, California, Texas and several others, and that the encounters have become more extreme.

And perhaps you’re wondering-why should I care?

If this were just about CNA and SEIU, or even just about a dispute at an isolated hospital in one state, you could move on. The thing is, these struggles are not taking place in a vacuum-and what becomes of them has far-reaching impact that touches us all. At a time when the economy is bad and getting worse, and the number of workers represented by a union in this country is an anemic 12%, labor unions face a choice…and workers everywhere face the consequences.

Unions can fight for turf within the ever-shrinking pool of unionized workers, or we can get back on the offensive by reaching out to help more workers join unions to strengthen the hand of more working families.  

SEIU has been at the forefront of unions doing exactly this since 1996. And the results speak for themselves.  Since 1996, more than 1 million new members have united to join SEIU.  Today SEIU represents 1.9 million workers. These new members range from child care workers to city employees in nonunion right to work states like Texas and Arizona to, significantly, hospital workers.

By contrast, CNA, harking back to old-school craft unionism, has pursued an elitist agenda that not only excludes hospital workers who aren’t registered nurses, it prevents registered nurses who want to join a union other than CNA from doing so simply because it’s not the CNA.

Six days before union elections at nine hospitals in Ohio-one with unprecedented ground rules that resulted from three-plus years of hard work by hospital workers, their community allies, and SEIU to hammer out fair election guidelines with the state’s largest health care system-CNA dropped into the state. CAN organizers ran a fiercely anti-union campaign encouraging workers to “vote no.” Their tactics so poisoned the environment that the elections were cancelled. I won’t go into detail here-it’s all detailed in this timeline: http://www.shameoncna.com/incl…

By disrupting this process, CNA sent an unmistakable message to the hospital industry: if a hospital agrees to a fair organizing process, it will be subjected to outlandish accusations of “company unionism” and “backroom deals.”

The CNA’s actions in Ohio represent a major setback in the labor movement’s efforts to raise the standard of employer conduct in organizing campaigns. And it’s not the first time CAN has used such divisive tactics to poach members from an existing union or otherwise divide workers who are in the process of forming a union. It’s happening in California, Nevada, Texas, and elsewhere.

But why might it matter to you? It should if you (you being a working person, a progressive, a consumer in the American economy, or all 3) because this approach undermines the future of the labor movement. At this time of historic inequality and utter insecurity in the American economy, workers need more than ever the strength in community that comes from being organized at work.

In the healthcare sector alone, there are nine million workers out there who don’t have a union. As boomers age, our healthcare needs grow, and the industry’s identity crisis drags on, healthcare workers united in unions have a crucial role to play.

The same is true for the other industries that employ hundreds of millions of American workers-88% of whom don’t have a voice on the job.

But our ability as workers, progressives, and consumers to sit at the big kids’ table depends on our ability to grow and our ability to work together. On a national scale, we’re living the reality of what happens when a smaller and smaller percentage of workers stand together: corporations get to have a bigger and bigger say in the way things work and who gets what.

But at SEIU, we’re living the reality of what happens when workers-with tremendous courage and at great odds-stand together for the interests of all working people: lives, neighborhoods, cities, and whole industries are transformed for the better.

Experience has taught us the hard lesson that circling the wagons simply doesn’t work. And our progressive sensibilities-our concern for the common good-confirm it.

This struggle matters because it’s not just about CNA or SEIU, or Rose Ann DeMoro or Andy Stern. It’s about the future direction and vitality of the American labor movement-a movement that has the ability to blaze a path to an economy and a society that works for everyone-not just the lucky 12%…or 11…or 10…or 9%…

–posted by Nadia, SEIU staff

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Who is the California Nurses Association (CNA)?

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Lately there have been lots of stories in the press and the blogs about the California Nurse’s Association (CNA). The stories tell about how this “militant,” nurse-only union has been breaking up other union’s organizing efforts and marching into unionized hospitals in Houston, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas to convince the nurses that they should decertify and join with CNA instead.

It’s a sad and confusing story. One union fighting over another union’s members? But it’s also a critical story to understand so that we can put an end to it and start building the kind of worker-friendly union movement that we all really need in America right now.

In an effort to move beyond the rhetoric that is flying around the blogosphere, I wanted to pass along this testimonial written by Susan Horne, RN. Susan is a nurse at Mt. Airy Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio who was on the ER ward when CNA organizers stormed the place with anti-union, anti-SEIU flyers days before the entire hospital staff was scheduled to vote to join with SEIU and establish the first-ever union there. This Ohio CNA incident–also well documented in the news–happened about a month ago. Here is Susan Horne’s account.

CNA Doesn’t Speak for Us; Stay Out of Our Hospitals

After more than three years of struggle to stand up for ourselves and have a chance to form a union at Mercy Mt. Airy hospital in Cincinnati, my colleagues and I were robbed. Days before a vote for union representation with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a group of aggressive out-of-state organizers with the California Nurses Association (CNA) swarmed our ER hallways making the environment so toxic that we had to call the vote off.

Some of us were already planning the negotiations around retirement, staffing, and overtime when the CNA organizers showed up and started harassing us. They called the work phone numbers of the nurses on the floor. They blanketed the place with union-busting flyers and even tried bribing our staff with pizza just to urge us to vote against SEIU. It was disgusting.

I suppose I would understand if the union-busting came from management or even if it had come from union dissenters within our own staff. But for an outside group that doesn’t know anything about our struggle, it just doesn’t make sense.

CNA hasn’t been here for the past three years while we’ve been organizing for our rights. We talked with our colleagues, spoke in churches, and met with community leaders and priests who could help us hospital workers take a stand and set up a union for all Mt Airy staff.  We were excited about joining with SEIU and uniting all the hospital workers (not just registered nurses) for a chance to improve patient care, hospital efficiency, and the overall quality of life for caregivers and our patients. If the union vote succeeded, it wasn’t just going to be the nurses or the maintenance workers divided into their own union factions. In our experiences, it’s only when all the hospital staff has equal protections and rights that we can deliver high quality care as a unified team.

Even if CNA has a different strategy for organizing, they had no right to storm our facilities and intervene in our affairs. Those out-of-state organizers don’t know anything about my life, about my struggle or about the progress that we’ve been making here. They just came out of nowhere-for no clear reason-to take away our chance for a voice.

I can’t begin to express my disappointment and my confusion over such a cruel and misplaced attack, and I hope and pray that we will get another chance to vote for union representation.

In the meantime, my conscience will not allow me to remain on the sidelines while I stand witness to injustice. And that’s why I’m speaking out. I speak for my closest colleagues when I say to CNA and their team of bullies, shame on you. Shame on you for pretending to speak for us and pretending to represent our needs. And shame on you for tarnishing our honest hard work with your petty political games.

                       – Susan Horne, RN

For more information on CNA’s actions, you can check out www.ShameonCNA.com. I also hope to post another account later today from an Ohio nurse who has been in California trying to speak with CNA Excecutive Offers and staff about what their union did to her and her colleagues in Ohio. Since coming to California and having first hand experience of similar CNA tactics in LA County hospitals, Sue is demoralized and wants to share her thoughts. Stay tuned.

 – Ali Jost, SEIU Staff

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New Low in SEIU International’s Campaign of Harassment

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This is a new low.  

Two of our female board members received harassing visits at their homes yesterday by some of the (male) SEIU staffers who have come to California in recent days.

I am posting the release below where the nurses explain what happened.

RN Leaders of California Nurses Association/NNOC Demand Andy Stern Immediately Cease SEIU’s Harassment and Stalking of Nurses at Home and on Patient Care Floors

Service Union Staffers Went to Homes Thursday of CNA Leaders

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Association today condemned the Service Employees International Union for targeting CNA/NNOC leaders and members with threats and intimidation, stalking them at home and in patient care units at hospitals.

In a statement today, CNA/NNOC-the nation’s largest RN union– demanded SEIU International President Andrew  Stern “immediately renounce the actions of SEIU staff and cease and desist these despicable attacks against anyone who speaks out against his pro-corporate agenda.”

“SEIU’s behavior, sending swarms of staff to threaten women in their homes, is especially disgraceful, and another illustration of their contempt for a predominantly female profession that they treat as chattel in so much of their activity, including trying to force RNs into his union,” said CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro.

Roving bands of SEIU staff, four or five at a time, arrived on the doorsteps of at least two CNA/NNOC female Board members in Southern California Thursday, with video cameras to film their abusive exploits.

Debbie Cuaresma, RN, was confronted by five SEIU staffers chanting they were “from another union and another state,” who harassed her and her daughter. Margie Keenan, RN saw four SEIU staff members arrive at her door, yelling epithets and screaming at her.  Both called the police; the SEIU staff ran off before the police arrived.

Subsequently, Keenan learned that SEIU staff had first showed up in her nursing unit at Long Beach Memorial Hospital searching for her, and asking a co-worker where to find her.

‘I will not be intimidated by bullies.’

“I was home alone. Four people were staring at me through the window.  When they saw me they started screaming and trying to scare me. I called the police and they ran off,” said Keenan.

“I am a leader of  CNA/NNOC. I am proud of my organization, and I will always stand by it in our common goal of fighting for my patients and my colleagues. I will not be intimidated by bullies hired by (SEIU President) Andy Stern.”

Cuaresma also expressed outrage, saying “I am appalled that five bullies would come to my house with cameras and hurl abuse at my daughter. I believe this to be nothing less than a violation of my family’s privacy.”

“Union membership is about collective democracy. Nurses decide they need a union and then choose the union of their choice,” Cuaresma said. “We will continue to give voice on behalf of our patients and we will never be intimidated in our struggle to defend our ratios and  our hard-won benefits. Stern should rethink his strategy – he will not intimidate me or the CNA.”  

Thursday’s attacks on CNA/NNOC Board members are the latest escalation by the Service Employees Union which has in internal conversations bragged about its intent to “destroy” CNA/NNOC for challenging SEIU’s practices which the RNs say compromise patient safety, erode RN standards and professional practice, and undermine workplace and union democracy.

Also on Thursday, CNA/NNOC obtained a letter from an  SEIU staffer who resigned in disgust with the behavior of SEIU International and quoted a top SEIU official bragging of plans “targeting ten to fifteen C.N.A. bargaining units.”

SEIU’s corporate partnerships compromise patient safety

Perhaps the most egregious behavior of SEIU International, says CNA/NNOC are its deals with corporate hospitals and nursing homes, sacrificing patient safety for agreements to help it recruit more SEIU members.

For example, SEIU has signed pacts with nursing home operators in California and Washington state agreeing to lobby for the nursing home chains. Under the 2003 California deal, SEIU agreed to oppose legislation requiring nursing homes to provide enough staff  to keep patients safe and healthy, and to not report health care violations to state regulators except when required by law.

Five years later, according to a report cited in the Los Angeles Times this week, despite increased state funding for nursing homes, the direct result of SEIU lobbying, nursing homes are spending less in California on direct patient care, and reports of patient mistreatment have shot up 38%.

Similarly, in partnership with hospital corporations, SEIU lobbied in California against the RN-to-patient minimum ratio law, and worked to erode the law after it was enacted.

In New York, SEIU joined with the Greater New York Hospital Association in supporting the closure of more than a dozen hospitals and nursing homes, proudly issuing a joint statement that “We are surely the only hospital association and health-care workers union in the history of the United States to support a process that could lead to the downsizing of our own industry.”

Treating RNs as chattel

SEIU International is also seeking to retaliate against CNA/NNOC for opposing its top down deal with Catholic Healthcare Partners in Ohio. The employer picked SEIU as its chosen union to represent RNs and other employees without a single signed union card, and CHP and SEIU agreed to prevent employees from discussing the rigged election that resulted from the deal.

SEIU and the employer called off the election after the deal was exposed when it became apparent there was little or no support from the employees.

“What nearly occurred in Ohio was a marriage arranged by a paternalistic employer worried about losing control of its workers and a paternalistic union that agreed to take over the workers’ management in the employer’s interest. It was a business arrangement by men in which women are objects of trade rather than trading parties,” DeMoro said

.

For more information about  SEIU’s efforts on behalf of employers, see www.ServingEmployersInsteadofUs.org .  

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More trouble brewing with CNA

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There’s more trouble brewing with CNA.

 

I know I’ve come off as kind of shrill at times, so I want to step back and explain a little bit about the context of the CNA/SEIU conflict and why the implications should matter to everyone.

These intra-Labor fights are not taking place in a vacuum — first off the economy is bad and getting worse, for everyone. That means workers are more stressed than they have been in many years. Secondly, its no secret that the labor movement is facing a long-term downturn of its own.  Today 12.1% of the US workforce is represented by a union, compared to about 35% in the 1950s.

Broadly speaking, labor leaders have taken two approaches to dealing with the assault on organizing of the Reagan/Bush/Bush years – some have opted to fight for turf within the ever-shrinking pool of organized workers and others have tried to get back on the offensive by growing the labor movement overall.

SEIU has been at the forefront of the latter group since 1996. And the results speak for themselves.  Since 1996, we have grown by more than 1 million new members.  Today we bargain on behalf of 1.9 million workers. 

 

But our success has ironically made us something of a target for some who are more interested in expanding their own relative strength without concern for growing the over all movement.  That’s what’s happening with CNA.

SEIU works for years go to in and organize places like Ohio. SEIU waged a hard-fought multi-year campaign there. We sent letters, met with hospital CEOs and board members, united with community groups, knocked on doors, etc.  It was neither easy nor secret. SEIU leaders, staff and members worked for three+ years with the nurses, respiratory

therapists, janitors and other hospital workers, as well as in the community, to get to the point where we could hammer out fair election guidelines that would give the hospital workers the chance to form their union.

Six days before the election, CNA flew organizers in for the first time and did everything they could to poison the well.

It’s all detailed in a timeline here: http://www.shameoncna.com/incl… and there are a lot of articles and editorials from Ohio that spell out what happened as well.

So at the end of the day, at a time when only 12.1% of workers in this country have union representation and there are 100,000 nurses in California who have no union, the  California Nurses Association flew into Ohio to stop 8,000+ Ohio nurses and other healthcare workers from winning the right to form their union.  I’ve met some of these workers.  I am happy to put anyone who wants to listen in touch with them.  What the CNA did in Ohio was wrong.

And it’s happening again.  It’s happening in LA, it’s happening in Nevada, and it’s happening in Texas.

This isn’t a CNA v. SEIU thing – it’s more like CNA against every other union that would help nurses organize, including AFSCME, their fellow member in the AFL-CIO:

http://www.chron.com/disp/stor…

CNA dropped a leaflet on hospitals in LA Wednesday that said:

“Unhappy with the Service Employees Union?

Want to switch to the California Nurses Association?

CNA has been contacted by many county RNs unhappy with SEIU

representation, asking if they can switch to representation by CNA.

The answer is YES!”  

(I am trying to get this online, but email me at media [at] seiu.org  if you want the PDF).

More than 100,000 California nurses don’t have a union at all, but instead of helping those nurses to form a union, CNA is spending a fortune in its members’ dues money on efforts both inside and outside of CA to try to poach nurses who are already represented by unions.

Why they’re doing this is clear — it’s easier and less expensive to poach members from other unions than it is to organize non-union workers.

 

We think CNA’s approach reflects a cynicism rooted in a lack of faith in the future of the labor movement.

Here at SEIU, we’ve seen what happens when you take the union message to unorganized workers — the labor movement grows and with it so does the power of workers. At a time when the whole economy is reeling from years of Bush-era greed and manipulation for the benefit of the very wealthy few, Americans need the strength in community that comes from being organized at work like we haven’t in a long long time.

 

And that’s why this fight matters.  It’s not just some pissing match between labor bosses about who has more dues-paying members; we are involved in a bigger debate about whether or not the American workers can come together and form a community that sticks together and fights for better circumstances for all.

-Michelle Ringuette

http://www.shameoncna.org

DISCLOSURE: I work at SEIU. With 1.9 million members, SEIU is the fastest-growing union in North America. SEIU is the nation’s largest health care union, including hospitals, nursing homes, and home care.  SEIU members are winning better wages, health care, and more secure jobs for our communities, while uniting their strength with their counterparts around the world to help ensure that workers, not just corporations and CEOs, benefit from today’s global economy.

Health Care

SEIU RNs Welcome NNOC/CNA

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SEIU RNs throughout California and the nation have seen the light and had enough. They have been signing up by the thousands to join their RN colleagues in the CNA/NNOC.

Last December, RNs at Saint Mary’s in Reno voted overwhelmingly for CNA/NNOC representation, rejecting SEIU’s last minute attempt to derail the election. RNs at the St. Rose Dominican Hospitals in Las Vegas are voting in May to switch from SEIU to CNA.

Check out this video about how SEIU really operates as Las Vegas RNs and service employees speak from their hearts. (SEIU members appearing in this video are not actors and were not paid or coaxed.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

This is not at all surprising.  RNs and RN issues have received even less support from SEIU since the SEIU reorganization last year. Imagine this: LA County is SEIU’s largest RN unit in the nation, but only one LA County RN was chosen to be a delegate to the SEIU convention! even though many LA County RNs ran for delegate positions!

SEIU claims to represent 1.9 million members, of which actual RN membership is less than 2%. CNA/NNOC/AFL-CIO is the largest professional RN union in the country, with over 80,000 RN members in all 50 states. Our Board of Directors and convention are 100% RNs, directly elected by our all-RN membership.

The heart of the matter lies in the fact that SEIU International has created a harmful company union structure where the “union” partners with management to the detriment of their members. This is especially dangerous and harmful when they represent health care workers who work in unsafe conditions and with contract clauses that cause nurses to go against their ethical and legal obligations to be the patient’s advocate.

The unfortunate outcomes harm patients as well as caregivers as detailed in a recent SF Weekly article.  The article is a must read from start to finish, but I have to quote here the alarming part about the tragic death of Mary Hochman, a night nurse and SEIU member who worked at Beverley La Cumbre, a Santa Barbara nursing home:

(Read the full story here http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-0…

According to news accounts, Hochman walked onto a beach and shot herself in the heart after a months-long dispute with her employer. Her problems began when she tried to report that a nurse’s aide had hit an 81-year-old man with dementia. According to Contra Costa Times reporter Carolyn McMillan, Hochman said in a sworn affidavit that she was told to cover up the information. Cover it up!

“If a nurse cannot protect her patients, I do not want to be a nurse,” Hochman wrote in her suicide note. “This has taken all hope away from me.”

Hochman’s note, along with a journal detailing instances where she was told to cover up incidents of abuse and neglect, helped spur a federal raid on the nursing home. A subsequent investigation revealed patients suffering beatings and maggot-infested bedsores, culminating in a $2 million settlement against Beverly relating to preventable deaths. The investigation also spawned a dozen civil suits, according to press reports.

SEIU had lobbied to ensure that a bill before the California legislature didn’t include provisions supported by patients’ rights groups that would have set standards guaranteeing high-quality care. The union added hundreds of nursing home workers to its ranks. But the labor contracts that resulted included a scandalous, horrifying detail: The union was discouraged from informing regulators, or the press, in cases of bad patient care.

CNA/NNOC is proud of our record in fighting for RNs and safe patient care; from winning the first-in-the nation RN-to-patient ratios, to fighting Governor Schwarzenegger’s attacks on our ratios as well as his attacks on the Board of Registered Nurses, to building a national nurse’s movement, to fighting for the highest standards nationally for RNs and patients.

Building a national nurses movement isn’t always going to be easy, but it will all be worth it when we change the face of health care in this country.

Visit our website www.calnurses.org  for more information.

Please also visit www.ServingEmployersInsteadofUs.org  to hear how SEIU is serving employers rather than their nurses and other members.

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Breaking News: CNA and SEIU to merge

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SEIU International, still steaming from the disruption of their organization drive in Ohio, has decided to invite the California Nurses Association to join SEIU.  CNA leader Rose Ann DeMoro seems ready to accept the offer.

“For years, nurses have been really interested in the color purple. Our shade of red is nice, but purple is really the wave of the future. We couldn’t possibly compete with that, so we are thrilled to join Andy Stern and SEIU.

“Some might say that we have had problems in the past, but that was all just for show. Together, our forces will combine to become more powerful than ever.”

Andy Stern will head the new SEIU-CNA local with Ms. DeMoro too take over in DC for the international union. The deal was believed to be brokered by Sal Rosselli, president of SEIU-UHW, over a game of Poker.

“When Ms. DeMoro defeated me, I knew that she would be a wonderful asset to SEIU management. Andy is always complaining that the Kaiser bosses are trying to cheat him during contract negotiations, and it became immediately clear that CNA’s regular poker classes could become a model on how to teach negotiation tactics.”

The three leaders will be holding a joint press conference in Black Rock City, NV to commemorate the event, and to bury any and all disagreements between the leaders.

“Any disagreement is just old news,” Stern said. “The future is exceedingly bright for CNA-SEIU. I’m sure Rose Ann will be a terrific boss for both Sal and myself.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger

CNA back to Dogging Arnold

The California Nurses Association has been fighting Arnold Schwarzenegger for as long as anybody else.  And they haven’t quit just because he’s changed his colors (to green!) for the election.

Yesterday, CNA members protested in San Francisco, at a $1,000 per plate fundraiser at the Fairmount Hotel, and in Los Angeles at the State’s Women’s Conference.  Apparently, he blessed the event with ten of his very precious moments.  From BeyondChron:

Approximately 30 activists from the California Nurses Association gathered in front of the Fairmont Hotel yesterday to protest a $25,000-a-plate fundraiser that Arnold Schwarzenegger was holding inside for his re-election campaign. Waving signs in support of Proposition 89 (the Clean Money Initiative that will provide public financing for California campaigns), the protesters vowed to challenge Arnold every step of the way as he shatters all campaign fundraising records. Over the next two weeks, the Nurses will target Schwarzenegger at ten sites throughout California (most in the Los Angeles area) as part of their “Hounding Arnold” tour.
{snip}
The Nurses hope to bring Arnold’s Extreme Make-Over to a grinding halt. “The month of October is the chance for [Schwarzenegger’s Democratic opponent] Phil Angelides to change the narrative, and he can do it,” said Shum Preston of the Nurses’ Association. “While Arnold has made some feints towards the center, it hasn’t altered his fundamental character – which is an insatiable fundraiser. Our goal is to create a tsunami of public opinion against Schwarzenegger.”

Arguably, these “hounding Arnold” could be more successful in driving votes from Arnold to Phil than the Alliance ad campaign or CDP’s ads.  dday’s GovernorPhil post expounds on the importance of these events:

But in my view, the ads are not what brought down Schwarzenegger in the special election last year. It was the tenacity of the various union organizations, who were at every public event, in Arnold’s face at every moment, not allowing him a moment in the limelight without them right there with him. They started in January and they didn’t give up. Arnold cracked under the pressure and said “the special interests don’t like me because I kick their butts,” picking a fight with the regular people who help Californians every day, police, firefighters, nurses, teachers. This was the key to victory last year.

I’ll try to cover as many of these events as possible in the upcoming six weeks.

California

Clean Money Day: Working to Take Back Our Government

On Clean Money Day, people from all over the nation will be talking about what we can do to take back the government from the big money interests that have overrun the system.  But in California, we can do even more.  That’s because the California Nurses Association (CNA) has gotten their Clean Money Initiative qualified for the November 2006 ballot.

The Clean Money Initiative has tremendous potential to get us on th right track towards an election system in which we can be take pride.  It provides public financing to campaigns through a small increase in the corporate tax.  While it does have a slight skew towards the two current major parties, it is the best solution that is currently on the table.  Passing this initiative along with Sen. Lowenthal’s redistricting amendment would go a long way towards providing a more workable California government.

Now, don’t take that to mean that I don’t have a full list of other things that need taking care of, but these two proposals are a great place to start.

On the flip, there’s a statement from the California Nurses Association that appears on the California Progress Report as well. Also, check out the Clean Money Day website for more information on screenings of Robert Greenwald’s new film The Big Buy, which chronicles Tom Delay’s theft of the Congress.  The CNA is sponsoring two screenings tonight, one in Oakland and one in Glendale. 

I wouldn’t ordinarily copy a whole press release, but I think the CNA deserves a little space for this accomplishment.

It’s Official – California to Vote on Clean Elections – Initiative Provides Public Financing, Contribution Limits for All

A public financing initiative based on systems already in place in Arizona, Maine, Connecticut, Portland, Or. and Albuquerque, N.M. has qualified the November, 2006 ballot in California.

This initiative is intended to enable elected leaders to focus on the wishes and needs of all its citizens rather than their campaign contributors, and to ensure that elections are about the candidates’ ideas and not about the amount of money they raise.

The California Clean Money and Fair Elections Act establishes a system of public financing for candidates who reject private money and sets tougher limits on contributions from corporations, unions and private individuals. It also closes some current campaign finance loopholes and strives to reduce the influence of professional lobbyists.  It contains strong enforcement provisions as well.

It qualified for the ballot with the signatures of 620,000 Californians in a petition drive sponsored by the California Nurses Association.

Although the initiative has only qualified today, it already has the support of the non-partisan Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, the California Clean Money Campaign, and Public Campaign.

Bipartisan clean elections laws now in place in the other states and cities have increased voter participation, made elections more competitive, inspired greater diversity of candidates, and reduced the influence of professional lobbyists.

Major provisions of the initiative include:

  * Public funding for candidates who agree not to take private money for their campaigns. To qualify for the funds, candidates must meet certain eligibility requirements including collecting a set number of $5 contributions.  Initial grants and matching funds allow “clean” candidates to compete equally with privately funded candidates.
  * Contribution limits that apply across the board to corporations, unions, and individuals: no more than $500 per election cycle to individual legislative candidates, $1,000 for statewide offices, and $1,000 to so-called independent expenditure committees.
  * Aggregate total limits of $15,000 per year per donor to all candidates and committees that seek to influence the election of candidates.
  * A ban on contributions to candidates by lobbyists and state contractors.
  * Limits on contributions to ballot measures. Corporate treasuries will only be able to spend $10,000. Additional contributions from corporations on initiatives may be made, as they are from unions, through political action committees.
  * Extensive public disclosure requirements.
  * Strong enforcement provisions, including removing those who cheat the system from office.
  * Funding will not come from individual taxpayers or the state’s general fund. It will come through an increase in the corporate tax of 20 cents for every $100 of profit or 0.2%. This would restore the corporate tax rate to a figure lower than it was  from 1980 to 1996. (CleanMoneyElections.org 6/26/06)