Tag Archives: Labor

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blog Roundup, Budget, Environment, Health Care

September 4, 2007 Blog Roundup

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Today’s Blog Roundup is on the flip. Let me know what I missed.

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The One Two Thing[s] to Read
Today

The Dignity of Labor

Health Care

The Environment

Electoral, Term Limits,
Redistricting Iniative “Reforms”

CA-03 and CA-04

Everything Else

California

Help child care providers stand up for working families

(Great personal story. Health care is such a pervasive issue in this country because the system is so broken. – promoted by David Dayen)

The Senate is expected to vote on a bill in the next few days that could give family child care providers a stronger voice for affordable, quality child care.

I became a family child care provider more than seven years ago because I saw how hard it was for parents to get child care, and I wanted to make a difference in my community. I wanted parents to be able to work their way out of poverty and support their families, and I wanted their children to get a better start on life. But for every child I have cared for, there are many more who aren’t getting the care they need. It’s getting harder and harder for parents to find and afford quality child care, while good providers are closing their doors because they can’t afford to stay in the profession.

Like the 90,000 other providers in California, I have no access to affordable health insurance though my work. After paying for educational materials, nutritious food, and other expenses for my child care, what’s left for my own family amounts to less than minimum wage.

We are often left unpaid for weeks of care we’ve provided to kids on the state’s child care assistance program, because of errors in paperwork or parent eligibility that are out of our control. For many providers, a loss like that means cutting corners to make ends meet. Sometimes, it means closing their doors altogether.

Providers in California have been working together to form a union, to make child care better for kids, more reliable for parents, and a better career for providers. But because we care for children in our own homes, rather than a child care center, we’re left out of labor laws and our voice isn’t heard.

Our bill, AB 1164, would give us the freedom to form our union and negotiate with the state to improve our profession. Please help us win our union and protect child care by asking your senator to vote yes.

Providers know what it takes to deliver affordable, quality child care. With a voice, we can stand up for the services kids and families need.

Rasiene Reece-Carter

California

SEIU United Healthcare Workers West looking for an Online Campaigner

It’s yet another testament to the success of the progressive blogosphere that some of the most innovative labor unions in the country are now beginning to take blogging very seriously.  A case in point is SEIU United Healthcare Workers West (disclosure: my former employer), which recently invited bloggers Elliot Petty from the The Courage Campaign and Calitics’ Brian Leubitz to blog about the union’s recent bargaining convention, and which sponsored the Yearly Kos a few weeks ago.

Now UHW is making room for a full time online campaigner to help build the labor movement’s outreach to the netroots.  If you’re interested or know someone else who might be, the job description is beneath the fold:

Online Campaigner

Job description

SEIU United Healthcare Workers – West is seeking a versatile, experienced online campaigner to join our 12-person communications team to:

  * Develop and implement on-line organizing campaign strategy, tools and activities that leverage cutting edge online technologies to support offline organizing and mobilization.
  * Expand current internet and web capabilities to make us a leader in online activism.
  * Develop and implement program to encourage member online activism.

Our ideal candidate is a strong writer, has solid strategic thinking skills, is passionate about social justice, is willing to work hard and can balance competing demands and deadlines.  This candidate must be equally adept at creating persuasive and editorial messaging.

Job responsibilities

  * Maximize the integration of online and offline organizing activities to better achieve our goals
  * Launch campaign initiatives, evaluate success, and modify strategy to improve effectiveness
  * Research, write, edit and distribute compelling action alerts that are coherent with broader campaign messaging.
  * Coordinate extensively with campaign teams, webmaster, videographer and field staff.
  * Ability to monitor and analyze site traffic, leading to more targeted online outreach and maximum public visibility.
  * Monitor online conversations about key issues and identify opportunities for engagement
  * Stay on top of emerging online organizing tools
  * Assist in the development of a member blogger program

Qualification

  * A strong commitment to social justice and the goals and principles of the labor movement.
  * A BA/BS in a related field (such as journalism, communications, computer science or political science) and at least 2 years of experience in online communications and organizing
  * Demonstrated effectiveness using blogs, social networking, viral marketing, internet video distribution, email action alerts, online petitions and other online organizing tools.
  * Excellent writing, speaking, listening, organizational and relationship building skills
  * The ability to strategize and implement plans in the context of a campaign.
  * Self starter, strong work ethic, dynamic and ability to thrive in an unstructured environment
  * Ability to work with a team, drive projects to completion, and handle multiple projects and tight deadlines.
  * Demonstrated skills in managing quantitative data
  * Political and/or other campaign experience highly desirable
  * General computer literacy, proficiency in Microsoft Office, including Access.
  * Willingness to work long, irregular hours, sometimes including weekends and evenings.

About SEIU UHW

With 145,000 members, SEIU UHW is the largest and fastest growing hospital and healthcare union in the Western United States. We represent workers in every aspect of the industry, including hospitals, clinics, homecare and nursing homes. We are committed to building a progressive, democratic labor movement and to achieving high quality healthcare for all.

To apply, send résumé, cover letter and 2 writing samples to [email protected]  SEIU UHW is an affirmative action employer.  Women and people of color are strongly encouraged to apply.

Diaries & Misc.

The Do-Nothing American Eagle

American Eagle has the money, power and influence to ensure the workers at its contractor’s warehouse are treated fairly and justly.  Sure, they can sit back and take the easy road.  AE uses the excuse: we don’t own the warehouse anymore…our hands are tied…we can’t do anything about it.  That’s BS.

American Eagle’s do-nothing attitude is a slap in the face to workers around the world.  It surprises me coming from an otherwise socially responsible company but their unwillingness to stand by workers’ rights demonstrates that AE wants to be responsible only when it is convenient (read: when there’s $$ to be made). 

It’s August and we’re all in back-to-school mode.  Vacations are wrapping up and “normal” routines begin to reemerge.  Before heading to the mall in search of back-to-school clothes, I encourage you to join UNITE HERE’s Back-to-School Boycott of American Eagle Outfitters.  Union members and college students joined together in June to launch this international boycott with the hopes of getting American Eagle to stop ignoring workers’ rights.

As I alluded to, the executives at American Eagle are hypocrites.  They say they care about workers.  The company’s own Code of Conduct requires contractors to respect the right of employees to form a union, yet workers at the warehouse, contracted to ship AE’s clothing in Canada, faced harassment and intimidation when they tried to improve conditions. 

The workers at NLS wanted to organize because they hadn’t received raises in 2-3 years, lacked a fair process to move into permanent employment and dealt with daily disrespect from managers.  When word got out, NLS management took out all the stops by hiring a US-based labor relations firm to stifle efforts to organize. 

It is obvious American Eagle executives don’t want to stand up for workers’ rights.  They continue to make excuses saying they don’t have any influence over NLS management. Come on now, we aren’t naïve. This is a multi-billion dollar company we’re working with here people.  Moreover, American Eagle owned and operated the warehouse until early 2006 and AE is currently NLS’s largest client. 

Bottom line: AE hasn’t taken any steps to enforce its Code of Conduct for Vendors and Contractors that specifically protects freedom of association.  I hope you’ll join us as we prepare a student week of action September 10 – 16.  Don’t worry – even if you’re not a student, we can still use your help.  Here’s what you can do:

• Sign the American Eagle Back-to-School Boycott Pledge – Use the power of the purse strings to hold American Eagle accountable.  They say they can’t do anything but they know they can. American Vulture.org

• Student Week of Action – Encourage your campus organizations to join in the week of action.  Become a Campus Boycott Leader and participate in back-to-school boycott activities at your local American Eagle store.

• Volunteer – Distribute “American Vulture” materials around a college campus near you.

• Spread the Word – Send the boycott pledge to your friends, colleagues and neighbors; post the news on your listserves and blog it. Utilize our Myspaceand Facebook profiles. 

• Enter “Defeathering the Eagle” Contest – We’re looking for the best ads that mock American Eagle’s marketing and image. Details here.

Participating Colleges and Universities. Is your school on the list? 

California
UC Berkeley
UC Santa Cruz
Santa Clara University

Florida 
University of Miami

Missouri
Washington University

New York 
Vassar College
Columbia University

Ontario 
Fanshawe College
Queens University
Carleton University
York University
Ryerson University
University of Toronto

Quebec
McGill University
Montreal University

Texas
University of Texas, San Antonio
Texas Christian University

Washington, DC 
Georgetown University

California

Labor, Youth, Diversity & Bloggers: A discussion with Sal Rosselli

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In the days immediately following the great Merv Griffin’s death, I bring to you a Quick Jeopardy-style “answer.” Nursing homes, hospitals and other healthcare facilities.

The “Question”? What are places that I would be a lot more comfortable if they were unionized. You know, I’m not all that into my healthcare facilities trolling for the worker who will work for 25 cents less than the next guy.  But that’s what your typical healthcare facility will do, because, profit is king, right?  And so, that is what brought me to the SEIU-UHW 2008-2010 Bargaining Convention in Oakland on Saturday.

The convention was a learning experience for me, but let’s get to that over the flip.

When I walked in to the Ballroom of the Oakland Marriott, I was inundated with purple. It was all over the place. Sure, I wasn’t surprised or anything, but, still, in the morning it’s very awakening. I talked with the CommDir of UHW, and then settled in to listen to the morning plenary session. (They use big words, I had to double check with dictionary.com that I was using the word properly.) I enjoyed the videos (I’m hoping that some of those make their way to the internets so I can post them), and the speeches. I was somewhat taken off guard when they pointed out the bloggers and well, heaped lots of (perhaps undue) praise upon us.

One thing before I move on to talk about a conversation that Elliott Petty (of Courage Campaign) and I had with Sal Rosselli. Sal, the president of UHW, looks an awful lot like Ron Silver. Here, see for yourself…which one is which?

Ok, well, I guess the fact that Mr. Rosselli is wearing a UHW shirt kinda gives it away.  Especially considering the fact that Ron Silver is now a Bush-supporting wingnut. But I digress. We sat down with Mr. Rosselli, and I must say, that he was a man who was reaching out to new constituencies, with the blogosphere being the latest example.

I first asked him about some intra-labor issues, mostly about the split with the AFL-CIO.  One thing that he cited as some inefficiencies between labor. This is of course, always in the news, with organizing being incredibly important (and difficult) these days. Need an example, look to West Covina or any number of similar stories. 

When Sal came to the presidency of UHW, he moved to clean up the union and focus on its core competencies. He moved union workers from a cement plant and other random places off to unions that were more appropriate, and he spoke to unions that had healthcare workers.  You see, he understands the importance of working to unite labor in one industry under one union. It increases the bargaining power, and, apparently it scares Sutter enough to have a whole webpage attacking him. And even they recognize the importance of having a dominance in one industry. Enough in fact to feature this quote on their attack page.

“It’s important for labor unions to take on a particular industry and organize it market-wide. For us to change the downslide in the percentage of workers we represent, we have to think differently. Corporate campaigns make sense.” –Sal Rosselli, President, United Healthcare Workers West; Sacramento Business Journal; June 4, 2004

But Sal Rosselli, like many people who work in the labor movement, has his share of big ideas. The UHW is a leader in getting promising young talent through the labor system.  They have a remarkable retention rate and great programs to help younger UHW staff work their way up. They have a ton of staff under the age of thirty, and they are constantly recruiting young people.  They have a strong staff development program as well as programs to help with development of rank and file members of the union. Are you interested in moving up at the hospital? Well, the union has a coordinator who can help you with that.

Developing young staff is only one way of fostering connections with younger workers. When I asked him this question, he didn’t even hesitate one second before saying, “well, that’s why I’m talking to you.” To be sure, the blogoshpere is no panacea for the labor movement. We have severe demographic problems in terms of people that read and write blogs. We are overly white. Now, many of us are trying to work on these issues (obligatory plug for Calitics en espanol here), but we can help each other here. How great would it be if unions encouraged their members to get email accounts and use them. Encouraged them to read blogs, write blogs, and to become more involved on and off-line. Blogs are a good gateway, and the coming-together of the blogosphere and the labor movement will surely benefit both parties.

I don’t need to give Sal’s whole biography here, you can read that at the SEIU site here. But I strongly encourage a quick glance over there, as he’s got a really interesting story. (And hey, he’s a past president of the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Dem Club, a club in which I am quite active.) He has a remarkable history as an organizer and labor leader, but at this point, I think I give him the most credit for seeing trends, spotting movements. He wasn’t the first to spot the blogosphere, or this new medium, but he’s working his darndest to see how he can leverage the new medium for the future of the movement.

And, that, my friends, is a darned good first step.

California

SEIU-UHW in Oakland

Sal Roselli at SEIU-UHW Bargaining ConventionI’m on my cell, so this will be a short post. And I point you to the Courage Campaign blog for more detailed coverage. But what I want to say right now is that this is clearly an organization that is growing and beginning to understand how important the bridges between labor and bloggers really are. I’ll post more when I get a chance.

UPDATE: I’m back at home now, so I wanted to post this picture of SEIU-UHW president Sal Roselli. Elliott Petty of Courage Campaign and I had a few minutes to sit down with him. He had some really great ideas on how to connect labor with new constituencies and the internet. I’ll get a much broader post on this up on Monday.

California

Bring it on? Oh, it’s Already Been Brought: 2 Tribes Donate a Million against Casinos

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Two Indian tribes, the United Auburn and Pala tribes, are each donating $500K to the union backed initiative to put the compacts on the ballot.  The money is just about as sure an indicator as possible that we will see the tribal compacts on the ballot next year.  From the Bee:

Attorney Howard Dickstein said the United Auburn Indian Community and the Pala Band of Mission Indians will contribute $500,000 each to a campaign committee — California Indian Tribes for Fair Play — that will support the signature gathering.

United Auburn operates the Thunder Valley casino near Sacramento — one of the state’s most successful gambling facilities. Pala runs the Pala Casino Spa & Resort in northern San Diego County, a competitor to the tribes seeking casino expansions.
***
Representatives for a hotel and casino workers union — UNITE HERE — and the Hollywood Park and Bay Meadows horse racing tracks announced a petition drive July 27 to force a statewide vote on gambling compacts for the tribes. The agreements would allow the wealthy tribes to add up to 3,000 to 5,500 new slot machines each — potentially dwarfing the largest casinos in Las Vegas.(SacBee 8/10/07)

You see, I understand that the labor movement has been the key catalyst to the development of a strong middle class in the 20th century, and I know they must be vibrant in the 21st if we are to retain any of those gains. And sure, I know that initiatives also make strange bedfellows, so we get this bizarre Krew. Sure, fine. Whatever. However, I would like to see one thing from UNITE-HERE, which is actually one of my favorite unions. I’d like to see them make a hard push to organize some of the tribal casinos that are out there already. Sure, I know the laws are stacked against what is right, but we need to make those efforts, even if they do not succeed.

As Andy Stern is so often saying, organizing is the key to success. That’s true of this initiative in February as well.

Health Care

Healthcare Action This Saturday: Courage LIVEBLOG

The largest hospital and healthcare workers union in the western US will begin a massive, coordinated campaign to improve the rights of healthcare workers across the country to stand up for better patient care and higher standards.  Courage Campaign’s Elliott Petty will be at the strategy session in Oakland, covering the event LIVE on CourageCampaign.org.

The 140,000-member SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West is sending a delegation to California which will begin work on the historic bargaining campaign.

Join me after the jump for the full text of a SEIU-UHW press release.

SEIU-UHW For Immediate Release:

WORKERS PREPARE FOR LARGEST COORDINATED HEALTHCARE BARGAINING CAMPAIGN IN HISTORY.

Event Bringing Together Caregivers from Several States to be Covered by Blogger

OAKLAND – A delegation of 700 healthcare workers from six states will gather in Oakland on Saturday to plan for a coordinated bargaining campaign in 2008, when contracts at more than 200 hospitals and nursing homes will expire, creating an opportunity for caregivers to achieve unprecedented victories for working people across the United States.

The convention in California, to be hosted by SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West, represents the first time that healthcare workers will coordinate their bargaining campaigns on such a massive scale. Caregivers from California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Minnesota and Connecticut will participate in the event.

“This meeting represents an unprecedented opportunity for healthcare workers from around the country to work together for improved standards such as the right to stand up for our patients and residents,” said Sal Rosselli, president of SEIU UHW. “Healthcare workers do the same work everywhere in the country, and it only makes sense that we come together to work toward our common goal.”

Healthcare workers at several SEIU local unions plan to coordinate their bargaining campaigns next year, in order to maximize their ability to improve quality care for their patients, raise industry standards and win a voice on the job. More than 150,000 caregivers will benefit from this coordination by achieving the ability to advocate for improved patient care through their union.

Adding a unique twist to the proceedings will be the presence of netroots blogger Elliott Petty of the progressive online California group Courage Campaign, who plans to post live updates to his site, http://couragecampai… as the meeting progresses through the day. He will also post at MyDD and Open Left, two major national political blogs.

“I am delighted to have the opportunity to observe, participate, and interact with UHW’s members at this meeting,” Petty said. “The best way to build bridges between labor and the online communities is to engage in actions with each other. Progressives win when we are united, which this effort will help us to be.”

Petty’s participation is an outgrowth of UHW’s involvement with the YearlyKos convention earlier this month, in which UHW leaders met with numerous members of the progressive blogosphere to discuss ways that their online activism can dovetail with the grassroots worker and political organizing of labor unions. The union plans to hold a retreat for progressive bloggers in the fall.

“Our values of member democracy, openness, and dialogue and debate are mirrored by those of the netroots community,” Rosselli said. “We look forward to continuing to work with online activists who share our goals and values.”

Rosselli and several healthcare workers will be available for interview throughout the week and on Saturday.

The 140,000-member SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West is the largest hospital and healthcare union in the western United States and represents every type of healthcare worker, including nurses, professional, technical and service classifications. Our mission is to achieve high-quality healthcare for all.

Uncategorized

Labor, Racetracks Join Effort To Stop Tribal Gaming Compacts

As the race in California’s 37th District showed (to a certain extent), wealthy Indian tribes are no match in the electoral arena for the boots on the ground and organization provided by labor.  With this in mind, the February Presidential primary just got a whole lot more interesting:

A coalition of labor and horse racing interests announced Friday that it will ask voters to pull the plug on a huge tribal gambling expansion negotiated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The owner of two racetracks and the hotel workers’ union will team up on a campaign that could put four new initiatives on the February ballot and cost tens of millions of dollars. Some tribes with casinos that are not part of the expansion said they might join the effort.

The tracks and union seek to undo legislation Schwarzenegger signed into law July 10 to allow four tribes in Riverside and San Diego counties to more than double or triple the number of slot machines in their casinos.

A few points:

• Unite Here has a lot of organizational muscle and will have enough money to get out the message of how these rich tribes will be expanding their gaming operations at the expense of workers.  The Bay Meadows racetrack concern is on board because they believe this expansion will hurt their gambling business.

• This will be an EXPENSIVE referendum if it gets on the ballot.  Labor and the richer tribes can raise gobs of cash.  This will suck up all of the oxygen on initiatives as much as the alternative energy proposition did last year.  This will impact…

• The term limits initiative, which will suddenly have less of an impression on voters.  Considering that it’s written as a limiting rather than a relaxation, that may bode well for it.  But the ballot could be extremely crowded.

People are gathering signatures for 17 other measures, and backers of 11 others are waiting for the approval to begin signature-gathering to try to get their measures on a ballot next year. Those potential initiatives include measures to ban gay marriage, overhaul the state’s tax structure, ban cruelty to farm animals and curb government employee pensions.

My calculus is that the more that’s on the ballot, the less people want to support them.  And the long ballots of the past couple years have been exercises in futility.  The direct democracy bug everyone caught with the recall in 2003 has turned into a flu.

Stay tuned…

Blog Roundup, Budget, Environment, Prisons

July 23, 2007 Blog Roundup

Today’s Blog Roundup is on the flip. More budget stuff, some prison stuff, some interesting local stuff, some just stuff stuff.

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As always, let me know if I missed something.

Budgets are Moral
Documents

Prisons

Environment

Local

All the Rest