Union Wars: 2009

The labor movement is engaged in an aggressive strategic military operation against itself, the war for workers (between NUHW and SEIU) keeps bubbling up into the mainstream media. This distresses and confuses liberals who wring their hands about the left’s circular firing squad and delights the right. Byzantine union bureaucracy stifles any real understanding or discussion about the roots of the dispute; and no sane news agency wants to spend the time and resources necessary to explain; much less understand the problem. Completely left out of the discussion, and increasingly at risk for injury due to friendly or unfriendly fire or simply collateral damage are the union members themselves. Their stories remain untold.

Union members at the Alameda County Medical Center stand before the rising tides of uninsured, violence in Oakland, decreased funding from the State, Measure “A” revenue rip-offs from the county and in between Andy Stern and Sal Roselli two warring union heavy weights. In the interest of full disclosure and in giving a name, a face and a voice to the dues paying masses; I offer myself as an embedded reporter and participant in, Union Wars 2009: Ground Zero Highland Hospital.

Randy Shaw

If anyone wants to understand organizing or how regular people can change the world they live in "The Activist Handbook" is a must read. The author, Randy Shaw, local genius and hero edits the Beyond Chron blog, he has written on the dispute between SEIU and NUHW. He also wrote a piece on the SEIU and CNA agreement. The face and mood of "big labor" will profoundly impact the shape of healthcare and healhtcare reform. If you want to unnderstand what happens next I'd keep reading Randy.

Worker’s World: Sternlandia

Welcome to Worker’s World your new reorganized, pasteurized, homogenized, deskilled, retrained and reconstituted union. No, we don’t have anyone who can write a grievance or negotiate a contract; we replaced them with a call center. No, we don’t answer the phone, we just told you and we have a call center. No, we can’t help you keep your job our employees are too busy trying to keep their own jobs.

Here in Workers World we’re using your hard earned dues to invest in the future, it’s the new fresh young faces of SEIU, they wear tummy Ts, and they have piercings, the ooze enthusiasm and raw sexuality. Go team! Go union! These new “organizers” have enthusiasm of drunken soccer fans. Unfortunately, they have the intellectual capacity of rabbits and the manners of frat boys, but can they follow orders. So what, if dues paying members have to remind them not to interrupt while grown-ups are talking, these kids work hard, they work cheap and they don’t ask questions.

You see, the problem with the labor movement is all those whiney union members leaving all those negative messages like, my boss wants to fire me or my boss refused to pay me. Uncle Andy has National Agenda he can’t spend time and money on whiners, let them go to voice mail. At Worker’s World we say why have employees; when you can have a call center.

Sternlandia makes labor a real corporate player like McDonalds or Wal-Mart and they’ve learned from the corporate model, why invest in people when you can invest in plastic? SEIU is proud to say they have branded and distributed more purple and yellow plastic shwag than any other labor union. SEIU proudly leads the labor movement in plastic pollution. Don’t worry, Uncle Andy will not stop there, no sir? Next year CEO Stern has set bold and exciting corporate goals, watch out Mc Donald’s here comes SEIU. The Unity Meal: a bologna sandwich in a purple plastic bag with a yellow plastic folk served at a soup kitchen to former union members who lost their jobs because SEIU forgot to check their phone messages.

Lassiter's a Hero

Lassiter sued the feds and saved us read it and breath a sigh of relief.

More great news and Chris Thompson is back. He's saved our "you know whats"more than once. Most reporters are too dumb to figure out health care issues, Chris is not dumb. He left us for New York, but now he's back.

www.eastbayexpress.com/blogs/alameda_county_medical_center_saved__again/Content?oid=780774

My Ride

Red

I have had more husbands than I have had cars and I got this one used. Come to think of it, the current husband is used too. I’m from Berkeley, we think we invented recycling. Red, my 1992 Corolla was made back before Toyota figured out things like temperature control. Someone once stole my radio and returned it because it was so old.

I walked out of Highland, spilling half my diet Doctor Pepper on my already sweaty T-shirt. I worked Saturday and it had gotten hot, two friends sat at the new bus bench. I paused briefly before offering them ride, I had left one of the kid’s lunches in Red and it probably smelled pretty bad. I offered to get my car and pick them up but they refused. When we got to Red and I had to cram all the kid’s crap into the trunk to make room.

Mary told me they needed to go to 35th Avenue and the BART station. When they saw how bad my car looked she offered me gas money. We drove down 35th to Tahoe Terraces, Mary pointed to her window and the freshly painted sign. “Yeah, they had to repaint the sign; someone had blacked out the “Ta” making it Hoe Terraces.

You know Oakland, in my neighborhood we got a Peet’s and touch of gentrification, so whenever something happens to the yuppies they get all indignant. Then they have to tell you how successful and important they are and how their kids are getting into medical school and how their dog’s GPA is higher than your IQ. They want you to marvel at how something so awful could happen to someone special. The whole time they’re talking, you’re thinking what kind of a dipstick chases someone collecting aluminum and tries to take their cans back? I say stay out of other people's shopping carts.

Now Oakland has tons of these incredibly important gifted people, they live in Montclair, they go to Claremont, their children excel at everything, they sit on Boards, they chair committees, they write memos, and they think they know what’s best for all of us. They never need a ride home, they wouldn’t bed caught dead in Red and they don’t live in Hoe Terraces. Whatever, just so I don’t have to listen to them whine.

The drugs I need

Lockdown

The blood is getting spilled closer and closer to the front door. Four or more shooting victims in the last month dropped off in the Highland lobby. We are the front line of Oakland’s crime wave, Alameda County’s public health melt down and we don’t even have the funding to keep ourselves from getting shot at work.

The county supervisors will let our patients and our staff get killed at work before they will give up a penny of their Measure “A” money. Worst crime wave in years and Highland is giving Scott Haggerty, Nate Miley, Gail Steele, Alice Lai-Bitker and Keith Carson over a million a month. They’re out bragging about their violence prevention successes and we’ve got blood all over the driveway.

The county supervisors need to put people before politics. They need to stop taking millions out of the Medical Center and give us the political and financial support we need to stop the violence and bleeding and make sure we don’t killed in the process.

Health Access

Health Access is a statewide advocacy group for sane healthcare reform. They spent excruciating hours sorting out proposed healthcare reform bills and came up with a rational policy proposal. It's not an easy read, it's like drinking mud through a narrow staw but if you really want to understand healthcare policy it's worth your time.

http://www.health-access.org/advocating/policy.htm

A Good Read

The East Bay Express started a blog. It has their best writers and real news on local politics.

East Bay Express Blog

May 1969 Berkeley (Channing Street)

  

May 1969 Berkeley (Channing Street)

  

May 1969 My Neighborhood

  

Just One White Lady’s Opinion

I had the unique opportunity of trying to explain Martin Luther King Jr. to my children. I had to go buy books; to children it’s a compelling story. That people could be so cruel, that the world could be so unfair and that people actually kill each other over ideas. We kill each other over words. At 148 killings in the Oakland in the last 12 months, they found the assassination of one man shocking, perhaps I have sheltered them too much.

I told them racism was alive and well and that they were fully expected to make this world a better place. They answered, “What’s racism?” That’s the thing with kids, they go quickly to the hard questions. As I struggled to explain hate and how it drives human behavior my children corrected me, “mommy you’re not supposed to say hate.” Actually, you’re not supposed to act on feelings of hate and when you have those feelings you have to examine them.

In another part of Oakland an inaugural took place at the Paramount Theater. According to my Council Member Jean Quan’s email it was her inaugural. The Oakland City Council promptly re-elected Ignacio De La Fuente as council president which drew boos and hisses from the crowd. Then a series of public speakers got up and called for his ousting from the seat.

Now the Oakland Tribune and Jean Quan (remember it was her inaugural) have declared it an incident of racial hate. Poor “potty mouth” De La Fuente, who regularly cusses to the press and is rude to the public when they speak at City Council, has become the object of racial hate. Come on guys, he’s the object of an FBI investigation, there is growing concern about corruption and his sweet developer deals and the Latinos in his own district voted for Dellums. Apparently Ignacio and the Council were so shattered by the verbal attacks that they are mounting a PR war against the black community. Come on “potty mouth” De La Fuente, if you’re gonna pitch you gotta catch.

Meanwhile, Scott Haggerty Alameda County Supervisor for South County became president of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. Supervisor Keith Carson is the outgoing president. When Scott Haggerty was asked about assuming the post after Keith Carson, he said, “He (Keith Carson) is like my brother from another mother.” Funny, no one at the Tribune said that this remark might be inappropriate. Nor did they criticize Sheriff Plummer who upon retirement said one of his only regrets was that “I wish I would have hit some people harder during the riots (in the 1960s in Berkeley).”

So I did my best with my kids. Slurs are hurtful but it’s bigoted laws and public figures that target minorities and exploit fear of particular racial groups that must be fought. It’s political campaigns that exploit mistrust and racial stereotypes like “all black men are criminals; even successful ones.” It’s the press, which due to prejudice, laziness or personal relationships with politicians perpetuates the hate. In Oakland it’s the City Council which has crippled free speech and denies access to the data which might reveal institutional hate, like crime reports. It’s public schools that only educate the privileged, it’s plastic flowers on a fence in Monclair and trash left on the streets in East Oakland. My kids have the attention span of rodents but they believe in fairness, kindness and the promise of a better world. After an hour of discussion they have a better grasp on the problem than the Oakland Tribune or the Oakland City Council.

Martin Luther King's Birthday

Oakland Sky

 















Photo by Patrick Mills Highland Hospital (artist, co-worker and friend) 

Another Year

Door closed, curtain pulled, light off. When I finally got through to the bed it looked more like a shroud than a patient. A crisp white sheet stretched from the patient’s head to toes. The only noise and movement in the room came from the IV pump, the alarm sounded and the LCD flashed “occlusion” on the panel. Actually, the bag of IV fluids had finished running. I made as much noise as possible pushing back the curtain and I turned on the light and then stood at the bedside letting the alarm sound. I stood a full minute before the sheet spoke, “are you going to turn that damn thing off?” “I’m sorry, I’m not a nurse; I’m a physical therapist are you going to walk with me?”

Reality is that which we can’t make go away. It’s like the bumper sticker said “Froto lost, and Bush has the ring” many of us have a strong urge to leave our current state of affairs. And we do try: drugs, wine, curtains, luxury vehicles, cruises, casinos, blankets, TV, escaping has become such a big part of our lives that many have forgotten what we are running from. A year of violence and failure for Oakland, our children our dying, what could be worse.

This year hundreds of parents, grandparents, girlfriends, boyfriends and siblings spent their days at Highland at the bedside, pulling back the sheet, bringing in food, helping the patient get washed up and to the bathroom and home. Caregiving is a “no glamour no glory,” type of a job; it is also what holds a community together and makes Oakland a wonderful place to live. Politicians hate hospitals they don’t understand illness, adversity or how strong or brave people are. Families and parents don’t have the luxury of wallowing in their losses, Highland’s families spent the year fighting to keep us here, to keep us well and to keep us together.

Oakland Night

 














Photo by Patrick Mills Highland Hospital (photographer, artist and friend.) 

Dirt List- Your Tax Dollars at Work

1,448,905 - Population Alameda County (2005 census estimate)

48,219 - Oakland Coliseum Seating Capacity

4,000 - Inmate beds at Santa Rita Prison

360 - Juvenile Hall Beds

236 - County Hospital Beds (Highland)

250,000 - Conservative estimated number of uninsured in Alameda County
That’s 1 hospital bed for every 1,000 uninsured people in Alameda County.

Based on these numbers the sick and dying should seriously consider going to a Raider’s game and kissing their ass good-bye or getting arrested and trying to get the dialysis or chemotherapy from the robustly funded county prison system.

Wacktivists Wule!

As you may or may not know and as you undoubtly could care less; I have embarked on a journey of self-discovery. Do you want to hear what I learned about myself? That’s a rhetorical question, you don’t really have a choice. Actually, I find almost anything more interesting than self-discovery and last evening as I scrupulously avoided self-examination in bed with a candy bar and a New Yorker magazine, I inadvertently discovered myself, printed in black and white. I’m a wacktivist, Nick Paumgarten wrote a piece called “Dirty Wikitricks,” there I was in black and white.

Why wactivism you wonder. Well, wacktivism works. I started my career as a worker wonk. Pass out the flyers spread the message from the committee, don’t offend, follow Wobert’s Wules of Worder and walk in step. I have trouble with authority, wules and worder. See wacktivism is all waction, gives the politicians the willies. When you refuse to play by their wules you create a clear and present danger, which is the next best thing to a big fat campaign contribution.

Politicians know, I’ve heard them say, “That Ann Nomura, she’s a wacko.” Wong bucko, I’m a wackivist and I’m your worst nightmare.