The Boston city counselors voted unanimously today to approve a resolution to encourage hospital CEO’s to engage in good faith practices when negotiating with the SEIU:
“The time for this basic act of fairness has come,” said Councilor Michael Flaherty.
The city council resolution passed today calls on Boston hospital CEOs to sign “free and fair election agreements” pledging they will not intimidate hospital staff seeking to form unions or spend patient care dollars on campaigns to interfere with secret ballot union elections. The resolution also calls on the hospital chiefs to pledge they will not take caregivers away from the bedside or patient care duties to coerce their vote.
SEIU President Andy Stern:
There is not a politician in America who would be willing to live by the imbalanced, unfair rules workers confront under rules established by the NLRB 75 years ago, and ignored by the Bush appointees.
Management should not be able to use its excessive power and resources to intimidate worker’s choice, fire workers and make threats that can be made true. America’s election laws at work are closer to Haitian or Burmese practices than American ideals.
In anticipation of the vote, overly-excitable Beth Israel CEO Paul Levy called all his managers in over the weekend for emergency meetings on “the labor issue.” (I’m frankly a bit worried about him, I think he needed the rest he was getting on the Palm Beach social scene.)
Anyway, on Monday his senior staff began running so-called “town hall meetings” where healthcare workers were required to listen to anti-union presentations and not allowed to ask questions.
In the People’s Republic of China, I think they were referred to as “reeducation sessions.”
(h/t Toby W.)
Related posts:
- Jim Cooper, Avowed Supporter of Public Option, to Move to Stall Progress Toward Healthcare Reform
- Ted Kennedy’s Legacy, and the Nixon Healthcare Deal That Wasn’t
- Healthcare Reform: What Ever Happened to Give the People What They Want?
- My Healthcare Speech on the Hill
- Healthcare: Hagan, Bingaman Holding Up Public Plan in HELP Committee
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Fitz!
ouch – I think I might have gotten a zed.
Toby Wollin @ 2
Toby, or not Toby, that is the question.
Jane – I notified the “underlings”
bonkers @ 3
Been done to death, that one….
Eternal cross to bear and all that.
“on Monday his senior staff began running so-called “town hall meetings” where healthcare workers were required to listen to anti-union presentations and not allowed to ask questions.”
I think we are safe to say that this is a fair approximation of “the WalMart-ization of Healthcare”, eh?
Sigh.
Those “town hall meetings” sound like indoctrination sessions.
That is some welcome good news about the resolution.
Leave it to Levy to resort to the dirty tricks campaign.
Can’t ask questions?
Fuck you, I’m outta here, you aren’t going to force me to sit there for that shit.
Elliott @ 8
In the People’s Republic of China, I think they were referred to as “reeducation sessions.”
Bustednuckles @ 9
Except that people who do these sorts of things ALSO tend to take names and take attendance.
Anyone who leaves..well, their name gets “took” also.
Not cooperative. No sirreee….
Toby Wollin @ 10
Oh Toby I’m swiping that and changing my post. I wasn’t happy with the ending.
Toby Wollin @ 11
Take my picture while your at it.
I was raised in a union house, I’m in a union now and I don’t tolereate that shit.
Toby Wollin @ 10
that’s what I meant “reeducation sessions”
Elliott @ 14
Sharp objects under fingernails will follow.
you-all know the story of kathryn in ma asking an unwelcome question in one of those management “meets with the peasants” meetings?
imo, next time someone asks you if there are any heros nowadays – kathryn’s name should be on your list.
selise @ 16
no, I don’t know the story, can you recap it for us?
Elliott @ 17
well, she should really get to tell her own story…. ask her next time you see her here.
bottom line – she asked a brave and very uncomfortable question… and then found herself without a job. she eventually landed on her feet – but that took a hell of a lot of guts, i know very few people who would do what she did.
Jane Hamsher @ 12
Jane – I’m honored; I really am.
Twain @ 15
It Can Happen Here. Sinclair Lewis was right.
OT: Apparently Fred “Tommy” Thompson is having trouble keeping his staff up. It just keeps going down. Maybe Lush Limpballz can give him some “pointers.”
selise @ 18
Thanks for telling us, that sure does take a lot of guts. Glad she landed on her feet.
bonkers @ 21
“It’s hard to figure out, so I don’t try to,” Thompson said.
Don’t we already have a Preznit who can’t figure out hard stuff? Even Republics can’t want another one.
selise @ 18
IMHO, the bottom line on this junk is this: People who try to break organizing, etc. are involved in a “must control” situation.
Unions do many things – they help make work places safer for employees – oh, yeah and by the way they are safer for management also.
Unions help keep morale and productivity high because workers can do their jobs in an atmosphere which is less fearful – and that pays off for management also (though they will not admit it).
These are things that work to employers’ benefit – as well as to workers’ benefit.
Management should love to work with unions – but the problem is that when there is a union, Management must share worker oversight.
Management does not like that. They like to be totally in control.
It’s a power thing. Really narrow and short-sighted on the vision, but that’s the thing, really.
I’m sorry. There’s simply no money left for health care.
AP – The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost as much as $2.4 trillion through the next decade, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. The White House brushed off the analysis as “speculation.”
When I consider the extream Corruption prevalent among all Orders of Men in this old rotten State, and the glorious publick Virtue so predominant in our rising Country, I cannot but apprehend more Mischief than Benefit from a closer Union. I fear they will drag us after them in all the plundering Wars, which their desperate Circumstances, Injustice, and Rapacity, may prompt them to undertake; and their wide-wasting Prodigality and Profusion is a Gulph that will swallow up every Aid we may distress ourselves to afford them. Here Numberless and needless Places, enormous Salaries, Pensions, Perquisites, Bribes, groundless Quarrels, foolish Expeditions, false Accounts or no Accounts, Contracts and Jobbs, devour all Revenue, and produce continual Necessity in the Midst of natural Plenty. I apprehend, therefore, that to unite us intimately will only be to corrupt and poison us also. – Ben Franklin 1775
The MSM is one constant reeducation session.
Just ask Ron Paul.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 25
It is sad that neither the Bush family nor the Cheney family will ever feel the consequences of what Bush and Cheney have done. In fact, both families have profited nicely.
Doesn’t Wal-Mart do the same thing with their employees by showing them anti-union videos during their work day?
KayInMaine @ 29
No doubt using Clockwork Orange style presentations.
Exactly, Badwater.
KO just ripped Faux a good one. Thank god for KO, Colbert and Stewart!!
KayInMaine @ 29
My point, exactly. They borrowed a page right out of WalMart’s Anti-union playbook.
Bustednuckles @ 13
Bustedknuckles, you’d love my father. He spent over 35 years working for the same paper mill until retirement and was (and still is of course) a die-hard union guy! When another paper mill in the state would strike, my father was always pleased knowing his dues were helping out his fellow members. There were thousands of union members when he was there (he retired in 1998). Now? Less than 300. Sickening.
Does this new computer make me look fat?
WOOT!
Brand New Computer!!
I am soooo likin’ this!
Katy,
My dad was in the Operating Engineers for 35 yrs.
He was on Capitol hill lobbying for them towards the end.
You are right, me and your dad would see eye to eye.
Bustednuckles @ 35
You’ve lost your f tho
laptop or desktop?
Mac or PC?
Racing stripes?
I didn’t log in.
Compaq PC.
Go fast solid black.
OT: Regents Chairman Says ORU $55M in Debt
Regents Chairman George Pearsons told The Associated Press that ongoing maintenance costs and low financial support from donors have put Oral Roberts University $55 million in debt. University spokesman Jeremy Burton said Wednesday evening the actual debt figure is actually $52.5 million.
I do not think the DLC and the Third Way is organized labor friendly.
OT-Here’s a compilation of Rep. Obey’s stance on Iraq’s Appropriations…
“‘It’s amazing to me that the President expects to be taken seriously when he says we cannot afford $20 billion in investments in education, health, law enforcement and science, but he doesn’t blink an eye at asking to borrow $200 billion for a policy in Iraq that leaves us six months from now exactly where we were six months ago,’ House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-WI), said in a statement Monday.” (CNN)
“…Chairman Obey said that he would not bring a supplemental to the floor for a vote if it perpetuated the status quo. It’s unlikely the administration’s request could be seen otherwise: The Army’s justification for its original version of the 2008 supplemental states, ‘The FY 2008 estimate assumes a level of effort consistent with the tempo of FY 2007 operations.’ Though the justification for the amended supplemental has not yet been released, the major change between requests was the addition of $46 billion, and no significant language for redeployment was included.”(Truthout)
“…hates this ‘misbegotten, stupid, ill-advised’ Iraq war. He won’t even consider President Bush’s latest war funding request until next year. And he wants to tax Americans to pay for it. The positions surprised many of his colleagues. But not House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Obey’s friend for decades. ‘I went to Nancy a week before we did it, and I told her: ‘Nancy, I’m gonna do two things. One of them you’re gonna like, and one of them you’re not,’ Obey said. He told her he wouldn’t take up Bush’s funding request for Iraq until next year. ‘And she said: ‘I like that. What won’t I like?’ She doesn’t like that war tax. ‘We don’t go forward lightly when we’re talking about a tax on all the American people,’ Pelosi said. No problem — Obey will introduce the tax proposal anyway on Tuesday.” (WaPoo)
Bustednuckles @ 38
and it has that new computer smell, too, I bet. ;)
Better.
Man this thing is fast.
Good evening all.
I live in a right-to-get-fired state and am amazed at how many of my colleagues and neighbors are anti-union. We no longer have labor news in our newspapers or on TV and there’s almost no education in school about the history of unions in this country and what they did to build the American middle class.
Right to work.
Spit.
Sharp objects under fingernails will follow.
a chicken in every Pol Pot
punaise @ 46
sad but true
Elliott @ 42
lol :-) I pick up my new car tomorrow, and I specifically told them not to use any of that fancy air freshener so the new car smell will stay intact!
Congrats on the new computer, Bustedknuckles! Always fun to have a new one. ;-)
I’ll never forget the time my family and I were in one truck and my uncle, aunt, and cousins were in their truck (my uncle also worked for the same paper mill my father did) on the way to the family camp in Northern Maine when we came to the town of Jay where International Paper was. They were striking and there were “scab” signs all over the front lawns in the town. We got to the railroad tracks, which was near the mill of course, and there were a few hundred strikers. Well, some of them decided to jump on our trucks. My uncle and father got out and said, “We’re on your side!” and told them they too were union. Lots of high fives after that…
We also got to proceed forward too. ;-)
Union means “family”. It’s no wonder the reich wingers of our country hate the illegal immigrants, while at the same time despise the American worker who is making a good wage to raise his or her family on! Makes my blood boil…
Explain to me. What has my party (Dems) done for labor recently?
Oklahoma kiddo @ 50
Et Tu? Stab ‘em in the back!
Has either political party come out against NAFTA, CAFTA, or the WTO?
OT just for Jane Clyvesdale Dressed as Poodle!
Sounds like the Delphi Method being used… Parent groups around the country are being silenced at school board meetings using the same method…
Caregivers? How many of you would like to change bed pans for a living?
Oklahoma kiddo @ 52
Illegal immigration has been the only thing talked about for months now. Hillary did talk about NAFTA in one of her campaign speeches (she said she didn’t like the idea of it) and the topic of both NAFTA & CAFTA has been talked about on the floor of the House. Not sure if on the floor of the Senate, because I like watching the House most days…lots of high energy in there!
CTuttle @ 51
Why do you think I will only vote for Clinton in the general. I’ve had enough DLC bullcrap.
Joe Klein’s conscience @ 57
Ditto, I will not pull her lever in the Primary…
KayInMaine @ 56
Passage of NAFTA was one of President Bill Clinton’s primary objectives.
Wow! A lot of pomp and circumstance in Boston, tonite…! 8-)
OK – I’ll dive right in here – what can we do to help strengthen and encourage the unions in this country?
Oklahoma kiddo @ 59
Yep, and it didn’t work out too good. How come the republicans didn’t overturn it when they had the chance over the last six years? Hillary (I’m not voting for her….Kucinich/Dodd fan here) said she would do something about NAFTA if she becomes president.
Toby Wollin @ 61
Teach their history.
CTuttle @ 60
… does it involve tea or is it oil this time ?!! *g*
Toby Wollin @ 61
Buy American?
I did not grow up in a union household but my father was all “Buy American”
Petrocelli @ 64
A wiseacre, eh??? ;-)
Elliott @ 65
We don’t make anything. I always look at the tags and it’s from some other country.
TexBetsy @ 63
I’ll play devil’s advocate here.
1) Is there anything to stop it? Like, is there something “on the books” in terms of states’ curriculum where it is prohibited to teach it?
2) How do we do that? If states buy their history books centrally (I think Texas does, right?), how do we get materials into history teachers’ hands? (Could be Cornell Univ. School of Labor Relations has some things, but I’m not sure)
3) And, like with sex ed, how do we keep parent groups from rising up and complaining to BOEs?
I’d love to see it taught in schools, but unions have been so demonized by employers that I can envision school districts just refusing…
We have a bit over twelve months to reject Clintonism.
Elliott @ 65
Now, just finding goods that are made in this country would be a good project – my husband wanted an American-made suit and he had two choices. We’re lucky that one of them has a factory about 3 hours away from us in Rochester, NY.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 69
I think it’s more like until the Dem. nomination.
Toby Wollin @ 68
What if the big unions put out FREE pamphlets, games, readings etc for Labor Day and got them all into the schools just as the big companies get their products (and names) into the schools on free materials.
TexBetsy @ 72
I actually think the AFL-CIO does put out materials and dvds and so on; all the teachers have to do, I think, is request them.
TexBetsy @ 72
In Georgia they would be hung from the highest yard arm.
KO had the Poodle horse on!
Toby Wollin @ 70
See, if everyone had been buying American all this time…
of course aren’t the requirements set by Congress for what can be said to be “American Made” these days pretty dodgy.
And what of foreign policy? On the one hand we have Clinton/Lieberman Mideast views. On the other we have Giuliani.
Norman Podhoretz believes that America needs to go to war soon with Iran. As far as he knows, Rudy Giuliani thinks the same thing.
In July, Mr. Giuliani named Mr. Podhoretz a senior adviser on a foreign policy team subsequently stockpiled with more neoconservatives, including Middle East historian Daniel Pipes and Paul Wolfowitz acolyte Michael Rubin.
To Mr. Podhoretz’s obvious admiration, the Giuliani campaign seems to have become something of a lifeboat for neoconservatives shipwrecked after the Bush administration’s failures in Iraq.
In addition, while his foreign policy ideas may be in bad odor with voters, they most certainly seem to remain the prevailing sentiment in the White House, with President Bush talking about “WWIII” in relation to Iran and Vice President Dick Cheney this week promising “serious consequences” if Tehran does not abandon its nuclear program.
In late spring, he met with President Bush at the Waldorf Astoria to share his views about what to do with Iran. As Karl Rove took notes, Mr. Podhoretz stressed that anything short of military action to prevent Iran from getting nuclear capabilities would fail, and that American needs to strike to prevent another Holocaust. Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove, Mr. Podhoretz recalled, laughed when he indirectly referred to the futility of the current American policy of pressuring Iran with sanctions and diplomatic isolation.
TexBetsy @ 72
Children can also learn outside the classroom, through books, movies, plays, art…
and games
Elliott @ 76
You mean like the Ford Escort I had with the Mazda engine? Or the 4 bolt main 350 GM Mr Goodwrench crate engine I put in my 66 Chevy truck that was Hecho en Mexico?
raven @ 75
“please pick up after your poney”
Elliott @ 65
Which raises the question, which is the true “American made” car? Is it the Toyota made in Georgetown, KY or San Antonio, TX or the Honda made in Marysville, OH? Or is it the Ford made in Hermosillo, Mexico?
Since I doubt the Ford plant in Hermosillo is unionized and I know that there is a move to unionize the Toyota (at least in Georgetown), I think I’d have to call the toyota the American made.
Welcome to the global economy.
raven @ 79
something like that! *s*
Elliott @ 78
Yea, they can dance around the Maypole on Mayday!
raven @ 79
Ah, rare and worthy exception.
Elliott @ 76
I believe it is 51% of the components have to be American to be called “American made.” Or that’s what they told us when I worked for the DLA.
Didn’t Wally world once promote the ‘Buy American’ spiel?
Pit bulls kill miniature horse given to child with cancer
from HoustonChronicle
The 31-inch tall horse, Anniversary, was donated by the foundation to 3-year-old Christian Vasquez in late August.
Elliott @ 76
Yes and that is why we all have to do our homework in terms of buying products. In terms of that suit, my husband was willing to sacrifice the whole “was the fabric made in the US” issue for “was the suit actually created and sewn together in the US” issue.
He did not have any control over whether or not there are any woolen mills left in the US which make men’s suiting fabrics; he did have control over buying the suit from a place that was employing US citizens, in good working conditions, actually creating his suit. The fact that it’s made in the same state is sort of an extra, but it was important to him, so he did it. We all buy stuff without thinking – we are so used to seeing the word “imported” on the tags that we have forgotten what that means.
newtonusr @ 84
Yea, I’m still kickin myself in the ass for buying that Ford!
raven @ 79
and
dakine01 @ 81
Oh he did suffer this the last time he bought a car!
Anyone who actually works for a living should vote for a candidate other than Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 91
Yes.
And anyone who doesn’t work for a living.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 91
If she is the nominee, I’ll probably vote fore her even though I live in GA. As angry as I am at the dems, there is not another party that I can support.
Raven, Do you think that Jane is busy making horse outfits for the poodles?
When is the last time HRC had a real job?
KO just qouted Guliania, “New York was a city of pornography and I licked it”! Ewwwwwwwww.
There isn’t a car built hardly anymore that doesn’t have parts from around the world in it.
Japan
France,
Mexico
South Korea
Canada
Brazil
That is just a partial list of what I can remember that went into a brand new Ford when I still worked for them.
raven @ 96
Uh. Mah. Gawd.
JPL @ 94
I wonder. My little bodhi won this weekends doggie costume contest with a cool baseball outfit my bride made! (talk about OT)!
raven @ 96
I was thinking about dinner but I believe I’ll pass. Ewwwwww is correct.
Oh I’ll vote for Hillary Clinton if she’s the nominee of my party. But I admonish you Senator, don’t push the envelope too far.
Bustednuckles @ 97
The “made in ‘merica ship has done sailed”.
Twain @ 100
I am only the piano player.
Jane Hamsher @ 98
Heh, Howza’bout the Yankee Flipper, that Redcoat…
The authoritarianism of this administration was predicated by 25 years of corporations gone wild, unleashed by Reagan.Note the same desire for a total lack of accountability on display.
To bring Republicans to heel will require bringing corporations to heel.
The necessity of this is second only to restoring the Constitution.
Progressives ‘job one’ is to determine who is best suited to accomplish that mission. All other considerations are a distraction.
Lead off HR Sox
In the union biz we refer to these propaganda meetings as captive audience meetings. Strictly to intimidate, scare, threaten employees so they won’t form a union.
Congrats to SEIU. Huge win for them and for the employes obviously.
Not bad start, but I did think of something made in the USA, major league bats.
Just imagine for a brief moment that you woke up in the morning and the front pages were filled with this news. “Public financing of elections becomes law.” How different would life eventually be for our children and us?
JPL @ 108
trouble?
war?
rap music?
busted, raven and others-
I toss this out there for discussion, re: the “where cars are made thing”. And, it is kinda an aside to our current situation- it’s history.
but, irrc, way back when, not-American cars first were embraced in the US bec. for their superior gas-mileage/ fuel economy- something that Detroit automakers were paying NO attention to.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 52
this party did. :)
(protest weekend was a combined imf/wb and congress protest)
Malkin for WPITW
Valley Girl @ 111
Crucial point!
Oklahoma kiddo @ 95
When she worked for the Rose law firm in Little Rock.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 95
~1992..Hillary was the “bread winner” in the family until Bill became President. IIRC the most he earned as Gov was $35k.
Ladies and Gents – Jane has put another dish out on the buffet upstairs.
Jane upstairs on Rudy with a h/t to raven!
JPL @ 108
And official major league ball MUD!
Bustednuckles @ 36
TexBetsy @ 44
Let me remind us all, less we forget, that the early American union movement was quite violent. My Great Grandfather was IWW. Far as I’m concerned, the bastard bosses deserve what they get. Only thing is, when you’re gonna sandbag the bosses, you need the cooperation of the town. Nothing like CUSTOMERS who won’t cross a picket line.
The first job I had was electronics assembly. The swing-shift people wanted to organize – they asked in the UAW. The company didn’t fuss about it much that I noticed, but the union didn’t have much to offer us – we were actually paid pretty close to what the bigger companies were paying, the hours were okay, the conditions were decent, the bosses were nice people. It did go to an election; I heard the final vote was something like 180-20 against. (Hell, we almost all turned in cards, simply because it was the easiest way to deal with it.)
dakine01 @ 85
And do 51% of the component have to be American made so that IT gets to called US made?
Gosh! Pretty soon you could have an American made vehicle that is about 1% US manufactured…and that part made in Saipan!
JPL @ 93
My view is that the Republicans have to be made as irrelevant as the Whigs or Mugwumps….meanwhile electing as many progressives as is possible. THEN we start to remake the Democratic Party. There are 70-80% of Democrats that are actually acceptable…get rid of the “Quislings” and the oarty will start to work for the people once again.
Oh…and get rid of corporate contributions to campaigns…THEY AREN’T PERSONS, Constitutionally. They have no more right to contribute in Congressional campaigns than other non-citizens.