A major reason for the increasing controversy surrounding SEIU International has been their lack of commitment to genuine healthcare reform-and in fact their active attempts to undermine and sink patient-centered, single-payer reforms.  

Progressive elements in the labor movement (and their own union) have long been aware of this problem, as have healthcare and single-payer activists around the country.  

This story is now entering the wider public discussion as SEIU International embarks on new partnerships with corporate America and, all too often, Republican power brokers.  We’ll take a look, below, at their latest partnership, this one with the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Association of Realtors, to support a bill that hurts patients in the name of increasing insurance corporation profits-and, perhaps, winning employer sanction for SEIU organizing.

…for more background, please visit the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee’s new site, ServingEmployersInsteadofUs.

Jeffrey Young in the Hill newspaper this morning unveils the new partnership:

A bipartisan group of senators, with the support of small-business and labor union lobbyists, on Wednesday unveiled legislation they said would go a long way toward expanding healthcare coverage for the largest segment of the uninsured… the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) and the National Association of Realtors (NAR) to develop the legislation. …[to]  break a deadlock that has stalled past efforts to facilitate access to health benefits for small-business owners, their employees and the self-employed… in addition to the business groups, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has endorsed the bill.

What does  the bill do?

The legislation would combine annual tax credits up to $2,000 per worker for small-business owners and $3,600 for the self-employed with state- and federally based insurance pools designed to spread risk for insurers and reduce premiums for workers.

Please note that these tax changes to encourage more people to purchase private, for-profit insurance products are the basis of the healthcare proposals of both George Bush and John McCain.  These policies are widely disparaged by most healthcare reform activists because they further entrench the insurance industry in the delivery of care, will lead to greater profits for the insurance industry at the expense of patient care, and make it that much harder for our nation to ever achieve the guaranteed, single-payer healthcare reform we desperately need.

Here’s what right-wing Senator Mike Enzi had to say about the proposal:

 Asked about the Durbin-Snowe bill, a spokesman said Enzi “welcomes bipartisan efforts to bring market-based solutions to the health insurance crisis that is hurting millions of families.”

“Market-based” health care solution is a Republican talking point that basically means, “let’s do everything we can to help insurance corporations and stop single-payer healthcare.”

This kind of selling out of healthcare reform is the same pattern SEIU International has engaged in across the country, most recently when Andy Stern put his credibility on the line to help Arnold Schwarzenegger pass a bill, with the support of insurance companies, that would have included enormous public subsidies to insurance corporations and a mandate that all individuals purchase their products,no matter the cost or quality.  The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organzing Committe, along with most of the labor movement in California, healthcare activists and progressive Democrats, defeated that bill by holding it to one single “yes” vote in the state Senate.

Unfortunately these type  of partnerships with corporate CEO’s and Republicans have become standard business practice for SEIU in recent years, as it looks to get new members through organizing employers instead of workers.

A few other examples:

1. In New York, SEIU and the New York State Hospital Association have long worked together to ensure that the Republicans control the state Senate This is a key reason why New York has not had a single-payer bill passed…bad for patients, but good for SEIU’s hospital partners.

2. This post documents SEIU’s partnership with Pfizer to sell Lipitor.  This is ethically and medically dangerous, as wellas representative of the reason that Registered Nurses historically have not wanted to join the SEIU.  RNs are patient advocates, and you can’t advocate both for patients and Pfizer.  One of the other, not both.

3. The Nation documents Stern’s partnership with Lee Scott, the CEO of Wal-Mart, in a PR coup for the embattled company, looking to turn around its reputation for denying healthcare to its employees.  The author notes Stern crossed a UFCW picket line to appear on stage with Scott, despite UFCW’s heroic efforts to organize Wal-Mart workers.

Charlie Brown reported $225,000 in the first quarter of 2008, with over a million dollars raised throughout the campaign.  He’s had 12,000 donors thus far.

Russ Warner took in $100,000 in the first quarter and has $220,000 cash on hand.

But I was more interested in this story, which shows the CNA making an electoral play in two swing districts to help the Democrats reach a 2/3 majority.

This year the nurses union also is backing two Democrats vying for open seats which are being vacated by Republicans:

Up north, longtime San Ramon Valley School Board trustee Joan Buchanan seeks the East Bay’s open 15th Assembly District being vacated by termed-out Assemblyman Guy Houston. In January she reported a $166,000 war chest and most likely will face off against San Ramon Mayor Abram Wilson.

Down south, former Santa Barbara Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson wants to fill Ventura County’s open 19th District state Senate seat being surrendered by termed-out Tom McClintock, who’s heading north to run for an open congressional seat near Sacramento. Ex-Assemblyman Tony Strickland is the GOP’s anointed successor.

“We only need two more Democrats in the senate and six more in the assembly to have a two-thirds Democratic majority,” said CNA legislative director Donna Gerber, who spent six years as a Contra Costa County supervisor.

“When there are budget cuts those budget cuts pretty much happen in health care and education. So for sure we are supporting Hannah-Beth Jackson and Joan Buchanan. Those are two that we’re putting a lot of our energy into.”

If labor jumps in explicitly in these legislative races to aid in the drive for 2/3 then we’ll have a distinct financial advantage.  Remember that the CA Republican Party is essentially broke.  This is the best news I’ve heard all week and I know the rest of labor will follow suit.

4,000 brave women and men, RNs from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, are spending this week on the picket lines outside of Sutter Health Hospitals throughout Northern California, on a 10-day strike over patient care issues.  Let me tell you about it, and introduce you to some of the RNs, because this is an important strike for a re-energized American labor movement and a key moment for the nation’s battle for quality healthcare.

First up, of course, the nurses:

This is a long strike for any worker, but one that turns on the most basic issues of nursing and patient safety.  Sutter Health is, even by HMO standards, an outlier in their push to cut corners on patient care in order to bump up corporate profits.  You can’t argue with their success on either count.  In 2006, Sutter reported record profits of $587 million.  Much of those profits come from routinely understaffing their hospital units by denying meal and rest breaks to nurses.  As a practical matter, what this means is that if a nurse, in the midst of a 12-hour shift, decides to take her lunch hour…then her patients lose coverage.

Can you imagine that terrible ethical dilemma?  Grab a sandwich or make sure my sick patients are cared for?  Especially for nurses, who define their work as “patient advocacy?”

That’s why these nurses had to walk out and make a personal sacrifice for the good of their patients and their profession.

Sutter’s response?  To embark on a campaign of harassment, intimidation, and lies.  Read more about it here.  Sutter has threatened to fire strikers, cut off health benefits, has posted guards at nursing stations to glare at RNs, and has taken to regularly demonizing its own nurses in the press.

The good news?  Sutter foolishly picked a fight with a group of (mostly) women who are not easily intimidated…especially by some corporate hack who have shown they don’t care about patient care.

The better news?  This strike affirms the relevance of America’s labor movement to the key questions our country is undergoing.  This strike has been marked by deep public support and sympathy, with Sutter Health’s behavior roundly criticized by elected officials, the public, and the news media.  High-profile strikes like this that win over the public make it easier for other groups of workers to stand up for their own rights.  It’s worth noting that the recent increase in the numbers of unionized workers has largely come from the ranks of healthcare workers-and that CNA/NNOC is the nation’s fastest-growing union.

And the best news?  The nurses of Sutter Health are demonstrating the way forward in our country’s struggle for guaranteed healthcare.  A major reason our health system is so dysfunctional is that corporations like Sutter Health have rigged the system and treat patients as profit-makers, not as human beings.  If we can win patient safety advances at Sutter, we can win them across the country-especially if we inspire the nation’s nurses to continue taking their patient advocacy from the bedside to the statehouse and even to the streets.

If these nurses inspire you, why not call the CEO of Sutter, Pat Fry at 916 286 6752 and tell him it’s time to settle with the nurses!

…cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we fight to bring about guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model…

This is fantastic.

Senator John McCain does not plan to make any public statements during today’s brief visit to The Inn at Spanish Bay in Pebble Beach.

But union families, organized through the Monterey Bay Labor Council, intend to make some of their own.

A union demonstration against the senator’s economic policies will take place at noon at the Highway 1 entrance to Pebble Beach during McCain’s $2,300-per-person fundraising luncheon. The demonstration is part of the AFL-CIO’s recently launched $53 million “McCain Revealed” campaign, which focuses on McCain’s support of President George W. Bush’s economic policies, which the AFL-CIO claims have hurt working Americans.

McCain’s spent three days here in California, giving speeches that show he’s as out of touch with America’s domestic and foreign policy challenges as he is unsuccessful with a teleprompter.  Please come back, John, we’ll leave the light on for ya.  Between this labor muscle and a general distaste for Republicans, the more McSame wastes his time arguing for a third Bush term in California, the better.

UPDATE by Robert The Monterey County Democrats also held a rally to mark McSame’s visit to Pebble Beach, this one on the steps of Colton Hall in Monterey, where California’s first constitution was written and signed in 1849. It was billed as a “unity rally” to bring Hillary and Obama supporters together to train their fire on McSame, instead of on each other.

Vinz Koller, chairman of the Monterey County Democrats, gave an excellent speech noting McSame’s visit to Orange County yesterday, where he said the best action on foreclosures was no action, as well as his visit to the ultra-wealthy, private Spanish Bay resort to raise money; as well as his ongoing support for the ruinous Iraq War.

More pictures over the flip.

Vinz Koller reframing the 2008 election as Democrats vs. more-of-the-same

AD-27 candidate Emily Reilly

A beautiful day. I love this town.

An Open Letter to CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro

This week, nearly 8,000 nurses and other healthcare workers in Ohio saw their dreams of forming a union derailed after the California Nurses Association (CNA) flooded the state with hostile organizers and bombarded workers with wildly false and misleading leaflets and phone calls urging them to vote against the union.

For three years the workers joined with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) members, leaders and staff to form their union. They sent letters to Catholic Healthcare Partners (CHP) officials, mobilized community support, campaigned for fair organizing rules, and signed petitions saying they wanted to unite in SEIU. The effort resulted in ground rules agreed to by both the workers and CHP that were designed to put the interests of workers first-not the union or employer.  They called for quick elections without delays, equal access to information from both sides, and guidelines to ensure honest discourse.  

Because of the union-busting onslaught by CNA, the ethical, fair and democratic elections scheduled for today and Friday at nine (CHP) hospitals in Ohio have been suspended.

The following is an open letter from those of us nurses who were denied the chance to unite this week for better jobs and healthcare to Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association:

March 12, 2008

Dear Rose Ann DeMoro,

It’s hard for us to imagine how someone who calls herself a labor leader could purposely do what you have done to us and our families. You don’t know any of us. You have never been to our homes or met our children. You have never visited us on our shifts, or walked in our shoes. You don’t know a thing a bout the struggle that brought us to the verge of our dream to have a union. And yet without talking to a single one of us you send your bullying staff to come in and spread terrible lies for no other reason than to destroy what we worked so hard to build.

For three years we have worked with SEIU members, leaders and staff to form our union. We sent letters to hospital officials and mobilized community support for fair organizing rules. SEIU has supported and encouraged us through some very hard times, and helped us stand up for ourselves. We are caregivers-registered nurses and respiratory therapists, dietary and housekeeping staff, lab techs and other employees. SEIU helped us understand how we could do more by speaking with one voice and standing together for our families and our patients. SEIU respected our intelligence and our ability to make our own decisions.

You say you stand for democracy. But then you come in with a goal of destroying our campaign without ever asking us what we think about SEIU and our agreement for fair election ground rules-ground rules we now understand you have made use of many times in California.

You say you stand for justice. But then you deny us our opportunity for a fair vote free of misleading propaganda and scare tactics.

Our efforts to unite for better jobs and health care were not a secret. At any time during those three years you could have come and presented your union, compared yourself to SEIU, and asked us to make a choice. But you didn’t. So it is obvious to us that your sole intention was to destroy what we have built. What kind of organization sets out to destroy the efforts of the very people you claim to stand for, and then tries to pretend it’s a moral cause?

Here in Ohio, union organizers and representatives don’t behave the way yours do. They show respect for hard-working people. We have read all the words about how you try to justify this, but when compared to the needs of our families and the needs of our patients, they show a complete disregard for basic fairness and decency. You have brought harm to thousands of workers and families in Ohio, and you should be ashamed of what you have done.

Click here for a full list of letter signatories.  For more backround on the story you can read today’s articles in the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times.  

• According to Dan Walters, all his serious economist friends are telling him there’s no recession yet, theoreticaly speaking.  He might want to read his own paper, about how the Employment Development Department can’t keep up with the demand for unemployment benefits and everyone calling in is getting a busy signal.  Tip to those who apparently aren’t feeling a recession: use the EDD website.

• In a reversal to the Bush Administration, a judge has ruled that George Bush cannot exempt the Navy from environmental laws regarding the use of sonar within 12 miles of the California coast.  Not that Bush followed the ruling of the judiciary the first time, but…

• There are still high hopes for an end to the WGA strike, and meetings in Los Angeles and New York have been scheduled for the weekend (ostensibly to present the contract), but caution lies ahead, as more foreign imports and reality television are likely to wind up on schedules, and less pilots are likely to be shot.  Of course, this was my point all along, and why I underscored the need to grow the union for the benefit of everyone involved and give everything on television the opportunity to unionize.  But jurisdiction for reality and animation was dropped in the most recent round of talks, and there will be consequences to that.

• Our friends at the SEIU are going to start a $75 million dollar, year-long, national campaign in support of universal health care.  I have to think that this is a positive by-product of the coalition built in California around the ultimately unsuccessful effort on health care reform.  If so, then there was nothing unsuccessful about it.  It’s very exciting to see a full media and ground effort to draw the policy distinctions on health care between the parties, and to advocate for a system that makes sense for working families.

Use this as a repository for everything but the election.