You gotta give it up for Ben Affleck. The guy showed up yesterday for an event with no glitter and glam but a whole lot of people simply trying to better their lives -- the healthcare workers at Boston's teaching hospitals who are struggling to get the CEOs of these institutions just to agree to let them have a fair, supervised union election.
But the CEOs are cringing like a bunch of shrinking virgins whose date just tried to cop a cheap feel, as if they've never heard of such an inconceivable outrage. They have called the SEIU's list of requests for fair elections both "undemocratic" and "unnecessary" given the fact that the NLRB has rules regulating such things.
Dear me. Let's have a look at those outrageous demands:
"If it's already illegal, it shouldn't be so difficult to agree to it," said the SEIU's Dana Simon.
As we saw in the California and Nevada nurse's strikes, union busters like Larry Arnold and Brent Yessin are regularly contracted by hospitals to come in to harass and intimidate workers who support unionization (in an attempt to skirt the NLRB's regulations). Moreover, the NLRB is not immune from the politicization that has characterized so many government agencies under the Bush administration. They recently reached back to a case from 2000 -- the Carney Hospital and SEIU case -- to decide that the appropriate penalty for a hospital who illegally suspended a pro-union worker was basically to pay the employee for the time he was suspended and promise not to do it again.
Ouch. That'll leave a mark.
Paul Levy, chief executive at Beth Israel (and also a blogger) clutches his pearls and scolds the SEIU for having held up construction of a new facility in New Haven. "What kind of healthcare service union would stand in the way of a cancer center in New England? That strikes me as the kind of union we don't want," Levy said.
He didn't address the fact that the workers who are trying to unionize have neither the incomes nor the health insurance benefits to be treated in the hospitals they work in.
Given that one in six jobs in Boston is in the healthcare sector, Mayor Menino (who endorses the union's efforts) was also at the press conference. And the Boston City Councilor will be voting today as to whether they should recommend that hospital CEOs agree to hold fair, supervised elections.
Said Andy Stern:
Today is a historic day. Workers have stood up to ask for the basic right to choose a Union without interference from their employers, for being able to deliver quality care to all residents of Boston. We are so appreciative that Mayor Menino and the other public leaders have spoken out and asked the executives of the huge medical centers in Boston to recognize that quality care can only be delivered by workers who have been given the basic human right to vote for a union without fear of reprisal.
Most of all, it was an inspiring day of bravery of hundreds of workers who publicly said, we are not afraid because workers rights and patients rights are too important to stay silent.
This is an important fight. As Paul Krugman notes in his new book The Conscience of a Liberal, "middle-class societies don't emerge automatically as an economy matures, they have to be created through political action."
This is a prime example of that kind of political action.
Pretty exciting.
Jane Hamsher blogs at firedoglake.com
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"What are "patient care resources"? Um, resources, usually "money," that would and should be spent of taking care of "patients," not busting unions.
"Why shouldn't the parties be allowed to "disparage" each other, just as they already are doing?" Because it poisons the workplace, particularly if lies are employed. The union wants only facts to be used to argue the two sides. Now, it's true that facts have a well-known liberal bias... .
"Why shouldn't management be allowed to take a position on unionization?" Poorly worded; the rest of the sentence makes clear that the union doesn't want management trying to bend employees from their decisions.
"Why should the hospital pay employees to 'exchange and discuss information about unionization'? "Why should the hospital pay employees for time meeting with organizers?" The proposed agreement says nothing about hospital corporations paying employees for anything; it simply asks that the hospitals not interfere in the unionization process.
"Management agrees to schedule an election without delays? Why would management do this without a showing of requisite employee interest?" Well, obviously, if employees show no interest, there wouldn't be an election, would there? The union is only trying to get something like a more level playing field.
Yikes. The depths you wingnuts will go to to prevent people from making a decent living.
Same people:Professional atheletes. If sports palyers who get paid millions and have their own agents feel that they need a union what does that make the rest of Americans (nonunion)?
SUCKERS!!!
In this country where healthcare is dominated and ruined by corporate pimps; patient to staff ratios are outrageous! This is why nurses who value their self respect and licenses are refusing to work in hospitals! My daughter recently became a RN and tells me that the patient to nurse ratio at her place of employment is 10-12 when it should be 4-5! Is it any wonder nurses burn out??
Ben Affleck has earned my respect for being a decent human who cares about others!
I have to confess I used to think you were just another movie star, now I think you are an amazing human being.
Sending my love to you and your family.
Gemma
He has NO MEDICAL TRAINING but hammers the nurses constantly about increasing floor revenues, brings in costly machinery that clogs the hallways, demands its use to bump up the charges while eliminating nurses aids and 'excessive nurses' on the floor.
They treat 23 people each per shift-running their tails off just getting to meds, bandage changes and calls from patients.
STILL it is not enough. They are routinely threatened with replacement by Filipino nurses are willing to work as hard for less money.
They are already importing nurses who speak NO ENGLISH--isn't that genius? Ask for something from a nurse who can't respond to you--that is the PLAN. Can't help if you don't understand the request and look at the money saved with imported cheap staff. Yippee for corporate revenue. And care for human suffering? Ah, screw it.
We need universal health care that cuts out the corporatists (insurance and others) completely. Let them find some other way to make money!
It's the REPUBS that are to blame, NOT the vast majority of Dems.
Let's talk about this. When I graduated from nursing school 15 years ago I started work as a new grad making 16 dollors an hour and minimum wage was a little over 4 dollors an hour, which was what you made at McDonalds. I was making around 4 times minimum wage. Today I make 23 dollors an hour and McDonalds pays over 10 dollors an hour.
Another point....when you you look at the average salary of a nurse, it is very misleading. Most studies determine nurse's income by looking at their income tax returns. Many nurses make extra money by working nights and or weekends in addition, the majority of nurses work overtime. We all know teachers are underpaid and here in Louisiana they start out at 42,000.00 a year. If a nurse worked only weekdays, took off all hollidays and the summer, we would make less than a teacher.
Another point...average nurse incomes often include the salaries of masters degree specialist like nurse anesthetists who make over a hundred thousand a year.
I served a hitch in the USMC and worked offshore on a drilling rig for 3 years. Those are two hard and demanding jobs but not nearly as hard and stressfull as working in a busy ICU. (wartime could be worse)
The USA is badly in need of educated-in-America nurses, but the hospitals apparently do very well depending on staffing agencies who recruit from foreign lands.
Fear of unions? Because someone's gonna lose some money.
I wish these medical workers all the best.
During the heyday of union strength in the U.S., you often had one group of workers fighting against one local business trying to get rights. Nowadays you've still got local workers, but the businesses have national or international ties, and may just shut down and move elsewhere to avoid the union.
What we really need is a worker's rights law passed at a national level which guarantees certain rights to all working people in this country. That would include a living wage of no less than $12/hour for any worker over the age of 18; job seniority and security; a prohibition against any business writing off any management compensation in excess of $250,000; mandatory funding of pensions and healthcare, with the monthly contributions removed from the employer's control and put into a separate secure trust account; mandatory vacations, holidays, and sick leave; and significant penalties for any business that tries to shut down and move out of the country.
These are the kinds of laws we need the Democrats to get passed. The piecemeal crumbs that have been thrown at working people by this Congress, along with vague promises, are not cutting it.
Whoever becomes president in 2008, and I have a horrible feeling it will be Hillary the Nafta Queen, it will be imperative for working people to stand up and demand national laws for their protection and benefit.
I'd like to see the continuing unaddressed excessive control of "top management." I'd start with CEO/top exec pay capped at a multiple of the average employee pay.
This would stop management games that actually injure the business/employees in order to maximize their private gain. It would add an incentive to pay employees well. It would encourage top management to think about their companies rather than their own pay-offs.
All kinds of reasons to stop this abuse. Mind you, it will never happen.
Its not about the money -they want compliant workers who won't hold them to the standards they're legally bound by.Having a union is about people learning their rights to challenge authority.
For focusing this article on union nursing.
I say that because my little sister has been a nurse, in Missouri, for 30 years.
When Kim first got her nursing degree in Missouri she worked at a hospital in Kansas City.
She soon found out that she could make a lot more money in private care. She went into Alzheimers Care working 12 hour shifts, six days a week. That nearly destroyed her.
At no time did she have a union backing her.
Now that she is older, she has decided to work in the Doctor's Office, in our hometown, which doesn't have union representation.
She tells me that pharmaceudical companies constantly buy lunch for her whole staff, doctors included, and have it delivered to the Clinic. What do you want Italian or Mexican?
As for the doctors who supposedly run the clinic they have their retirements sourced out to another country.
Troubled