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Issue #8
Date June 9, 2009
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An Unususal Celebration of Nurses' Week
by Eileen Prendiville - USA
In mid May, nurses from six different nursing unions gathered in Washington, DC to celebrate Nurse’s Week. A march and rally in front of the Capitol was followed by visits to Congress to promote legislation that would enhance our practice and to push for single payer healthcare.
Senator Barbara Boxer from California introduced the National Nurse Retention and Nursing Shortage Act, which includes nurse-to-patient ratios. Other proposed legislation includes a bill to prevent mandatory overtime, a bill that would prevent nurses from being inappropriately reclassified as supervisors, a safe patient handling and whistle-blower protection bill, and the Employee Free Choice Act.
It was interesting to walk the halls of Congress – we nurses in our red scrubs and years of experience caring for patients – rubbing shoulders with the many lobbyists (mostly white males) in their expensive suits – many from the insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital industry – who were there to ensure that Congress doesn’t enact any kind of single payer plan (such as HR 676) that might threaten their profits.
On the previous day, the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birthday, waves of single payer advocates, including nurses and physicians, were arrested at Senator Max Baucus’s Senate Finance Committee hearing after they stood up and demanded that single payer be included in the healthcare debate. This was the second week in a row that the hearing had been disrupted in this way.
Senator Baucus has consistently stated that a single-payer system, where the federal government acts as the nation's sole health insurance provider, is off the table. On Capitol Hill, Baucus is the third largest recipient of donations from drug companies and the for-profit medical industry.
Senator Baucus expects the same people who created the problem to solve the problem. He has consulted with executives from Health Net, Kaiser, AHIP (America’s Health Insurance Plans), the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, the pharmaceutical industry and their lobbying groups.
Despite huge public pressure, including vocal disapproval from his own constituents in Montana, Senator Baucus refused to meet with advocates for single payer.
Then he caved.
In late May, Senator Baucus was invited to speak at a Democratic fund-raiser in San Francisco, where he was again dogged by dozens of single payer advocates with picket signs. A few days later, he agreed to meet with single-payer advocates.
We have to keep up the pressure. Healthcare should not be a commodity, but a human right.
Watch the video: Baucus’s Raucous Caucus: Doctors, Nurses and Activists Arrested Again for Protesting Exclusion of Single-Payer Advocates at Senate Hearing on Healthcare
Senator Baucus has received millions of dollars from the for-profit medical industry: Max Baucus Should Not Be Deciding Health Care for America
Eileen Prendiville is an RN at an acute-care hospital in San Francisco, USA. She is also on the bargaining team of the California Nurses Association.
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Canada Dumps Old and Injured Workers
by Jane Edgett - Canada
Age discrimination by workers' compensation boards (WCBs) has been ruled illegal in US states, yet Canadian provinces are dumping older disabled workers from the WCB system. The very nature of the WCB system in Canada allows this type of discrimination and allows Canadian WCBs complete immunity from prosecution for their discriminatory and illegal acts.
The Utah Supreme Court recently declared unconstitutional a statute that reduces workers' compensation benefits for people over the age of 65 who qualify for Social Security retirement benefits. Yet in Canada, such discriminatory legislation was passed by the British Columbia provincial government.
In 2002 the Liberal government changed the WCB Act to prevent any retiree over age 65 from receiving disability compensation for any illness, injury or disease.
This new legislation also denies ongoing benefits for those over 65 who are suffering from the number one occupational killer, asbestosis, a devastating disease that can take up to 40 years before it is detected. As a recent video explains,
"Asbestosis is extremely painful, and it's a terminal disease...Some [sufferers] are spending their last years of their lives in extreme pain and extreme agony...spending their last breaths fighting a system when they should be spending their retirement with some dignity. The employers are getting a holiday from this exposure and the workers are spending their last days fighting it in pain and agony..."
The situation is so bad in Canada because, unlike in the US, injured workers in Canada are prohibited from suing the WCB for wrongfully denied benefits. In the US, workers compensation is run by insurance companies that are liable in court for any bad faith decisions or wrongful denials of legitimate claims.
In Canada, however, an injured worker is unable to sue the WCB for anything, because the WCB has quasi-judicial administrative powers. (Cases can proceed to judicial review by a court of law, but that court cannot award damages, it can only send the case back to the WCB.)
Theoretically, the WCBs have a duty to ensure that their policies and legislation comply with federal Constitutional law and the Canadian Charter of Rights. In reality, no one enforces this duty, and provincial governments turn a blind eye to the illegalities because they want to keep WCB fees low to attract corporate business.
The workers’ compensation system in Canada is paid for by the corporations. Over the years, the corporate lobby to lower WCB fees has resulted in greatly reduced services to injured workers. Some characterize this as a war against injured workers by WCBs, governments and corporations.
The Canadian Injured Workers Society has been collecting horror stories for years and is calling for a federal public judicial inquiry into WCB wrongdoing.
Jane Edgett is an injured health care worker who was denied benefits by the Alberta WCB.
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Two Unions Battle for Labor's Future
by Eileen Prendiville - USA
On Saturday, May 30, I spent the day in Fresno, California walking precincts and talking to home care workers who will be voting over the next two weeks whether they want to be represented by SEIU-UHW, NUHW or no union at all.
Home care workers (who are California state employees) are paid only $10.25/hour and may suffer a pay cut of about $.50/hour with proposed state budget cuts. If any workers need to organize to protect their interests, they do.
This particular election is critical not only for SEIU and its breakaway union, the fledgling NUHW, but also for the entire labor movement.
If NUHW wins this election, they will gain more than 10,000 dues paying members and prove the power of their rank-and-file organizing strategy. To prevent this, SEIU is spending millions of dollars to win this election and defend its top-down organizing strategy.
I felt compelled to help NUHW, so I drove 3½ hours through the Central Valley to volunteer. It was 90 degrees and humid but worth every minute to be a part of history.
To swell the ranks of the 200 SEIU staff already in Fresno, hundreds more SEIU organizers arrived the day before the ballots were mailed.
SEIU reserved 500 hotel rooms and paid for local TV and radio ads that aired continuously. I thought, what a way to stimulate this economically depressed community! Ironically, the dues paying members of SEIU are footing the bill, which includes rental cars and expenses for all SEIU staff.
I was amazed by the enthusiasm of the NUHW staff volunteers who are working long hours without pay because they believe in rank-and-file union democracy and want to send this message to Andy Stern, the leader of SEIU.
In its small headquarters, NUHW had listed potential members by precinct, language and nationality. I found it interesting to visit such a culturally diverse community of working-class people. Not only are there many Latino workers, but also Chinese, Vietnamese, Hmong, Laotian and Cambodian workers. This rich farming community became home to many Asians escaping poverty and war in Southeast Asia.
I was impressed by how well organized NUHW is. On arrival, we were given ten minutes of training and a package that included talking points, door hangers, sample ballots, window signs and our assigned precinct. We were sent on our way and given a contact phone number if any questions or concerns arose.
The outcome of this critical election will determine the future of NUHW and also shape the future direction of the American labor movement.
For background on the SEIU/NUHW dispute, read "WE are the Union" and "A Battle for Labor's Future"
Eileen Prendiville is an RN at an acute-care hospital in San Francisco, USA. She is also on the bargaining team of the California Nurses Association.
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Enough is Enough!
by Susan Rosenthal - Canada
By March of 2008, the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve had spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion to float the financial system.
This staggering amount almost matches the total amount of goods and services produced in one year in the U.S. ($14.2 trillion in 2008) and works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the nation.
Imagine how much it would stimulate the economy to give every family of four an extra $168,420 to spend! But that’s not how capitalism works.
Instead of getting the support they need, workers are seeing their wages and benefits cut. They are losing their jobs, homes, health insurance, pensions and social services. The result is an epidemic of misery tht is expressed in rising anxiety, depression, family violence, desperation, hopelessness, suicide and murder.
The news is full of it. A young married couple lose both of their jobs shortly after buying a new house. They kill their three children and then themselves. A man stabs a security guard in the back when she confronts him for stealing baby food. A old woman kills herself rather than lose her home.
These public reports are just the tip of the iceberg. The bulk of the pain is hidden behind closed doors or directed into the health care system.
The medical system treats social problems as individual illnesses, dispensing diagnoses and drugs in a profitable effort to contain the overwhelming stress of people who are trapped in impossible situations.
Professional Sellouts
Last week, I attended a conference on Secondary Trauma (also called Compassion Fatigue) which is an occupational hazard for health workers exposed to too much misery. Were we instructed on how to help our patients fight this heartless system? Of course not.
Medical professionals are prohibited from supporting people’s struggles against capitalism, because that would turn troubled people into troublemakers. The individual is expected to adapt to the system. The system itself is never questioned.
So, when our own jobs become too much to bear, health workers are blamed for failing to achieve "a healthy work-life balance." Any who question the system are condemned as “political,” when not questioning is equally political.
The ruling class can revive its failing system only by driving down the standard of living of the working class. They can’t do this by force alone; they must convince the majority to make this sacrifice.
And that’s the job of professionals – to sell us out by insisting that there is no alternative. That's why union professionals advise their members to swallow concession contracts and medical professionals instruct their patients on how to adapt.
Fortunately, small pockets of workers are refusing to go along.
In Chicago, workers at Republic Windows and Doors occupied their factory and won almost two million dollars in severance and vacation pay and medical benefits. Inspired by this victory, Visteon workers in Belfast and London successfully occupied their factories a few months later.
NUHW’s battle to organize a rank-and-file controlled health workers' union is another hopeful sign. Whether they win or lose (and we are rooting for them to win) they are showing us the way forward.
People’s needs must come first. Nothing else matters.
If we organize ourselves, we can get the bosses, the bankers, the politicians and the professionals off our backs and use the world's resources to take care of one another.
Enough is enough! It’s time to rebel.
Susan Rosenthal is a practicing physician and the author of POWER and Powerlessness; Class, Health and Health Care; and Professional Poison: How Professionals Sabotage Social Movements and Why Workers Should Lead our Fight.
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International Health Workers for People Over Profit (IHWPOP) has joined the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign against Israel. We oppose Israel’s repression of the Palestinians and support a single state in Israel/Palestine with equal rights for all.
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