Comments on: Has Obama Forgotten about Pauline Beck?

By: james

james — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:15:22 +0000

Obama has never forgotten he’s a D. The difference being his D stands for DOLLARS.

We’re back to the Democratic party of being responsive only to big donors with satchels full of dollars.

By: ubetchaiam

ubetchaiam — Fri, 22 May 2009 04:11:13 +0000

If you can’t recongnize ‘deal making’ when it stares hyou in the face I don’t know what to say. And yes,it IS “a tragedy put in motion by California’s idiot anti-tax legislature and its governor.” which is why I -and others- are supporting an initiative to do away with the ludicrous 60 per cent vote margin for budgets.

BUT the topic is the witholding of funds from CA because of Ahnold’s desire to cut caregiver/unionized wages; such did NOT have to be done !!

By: ubetchaiam

ubetchaiam — Fri, 22 May 2009 04:06:19 +0000

Here’s something he did ‘right’.

By: ChePasa

ChePasa — Fri, 22 May 2009 03:58:25 +0000

Thanks SeanP.

I was aware of the NUHW v SEIU fight but not many of the details, and your cites help a lot.

Ultimately it’s all about putting the greatest burden on those least able to cope. The frailest. The oldest. The sickest. The poorest. Then looking so amazed, “Who would ever have thought it would turn out badly? My stars!”

By: selise

selise — Fri, 22 May 2009 03:46:52 +0000

thank you!

By: SeanP

SeanP — Fri, 22 May 2009 03:39:31 +0000

DSA’s Talking Union blog is a good place to start: http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/. Do a search on SEIU on their site and you’ll find several interesting articles, most of them pretty even handed. Anything written by Steve Early about labor is worthwhile and informative. For more on the internal SEIU fights and SEIU’s fights with other unions (from an anti-SEIU perspective) you can check out http://perezstern.blogspot.com/ or http://adiosandy.blogspot.com/. They give a lot of details but can be vitriolic. Still worth reading if you want to follow the firings of stewards and the SEIU-NUHW fight hospital by hospital and bargaining unit by bargaining unit. NUHW’s web site is http://www.nuhw.org/. And of course SEIU’s own web site will give you their version.

By the way, NUHW won its first election in a hospital in California today; it was a small hospital - the vote was NUHW 158, SEIU 24. The home health care workers vote in Fresno should be interesting. SEIU is pulling out all the stops to beat NUHW and is shipping in a lot of out of state troops. No wonder they can’t concentrate on political work.

By: selise

selise — Fri, 22 May 2009 03:01:19 +0000

would you being willing to write a diary - or direct me to a link where i can learn more about the election you mention? thanks.

all i know is what i’ve heard on democracy now! re the puerto rican teacher’s union battles.

By: SeanP

SeanP — Fri, 22 May 2009 02:58:42 +0000

The majority of the legislature is not anti-tax. But we have a two-thirds requirement for passing a budget and the Republicans have used that requirement to hold the rest of the state hostage for years. The majority of the citizens don’t appear to be anti-tax either, according to a poll released today: http://www.calitics.com/diary/.....pid-things
But I do agree that the governor is an idiot. After all, he’s a Republican.

By: SeanP

SeanP — Fri, 22 May 2009 02:53:00 +0000

One of the reasons SEIU may not be too energetic is because it’s spending so much effort raiding other unions (UNITE HERE, Puerto Rican teachers, LA employees) and trying to stop its own dissidents (NUHW). Stern’s always conflated deal making with organizing. SEIU’s throwing its resources into preventing the Home Healthcareworkers from voting to go with NUHW. There’s a critical election in Fresno the beginning of June but you’d never know it if you relied on the progressive blogosphere.

By: selise

selise — Fri, 22 May 2009 02:43:48 +0000

thanks