[Educationforall] spam con huevos, labor news, views and concerns, 1.09.12-I‏

Mon Jan 9 19:24:05 UTC 2012

Working People Keep Heat on Indiana Lawmakers‏ NUHW Goes National, Winning Union Elections in Michigan‏ NUHW Goes National, Winning Union Elections in MichiganIs the U.S. Still a 'Land of Opportunity'?Why Is Public Education Being Outsourced to Online Charter Schools?  As 'Right to Work' Law Looms, Indiana Occupiers and Striking Union Members Fight for Working People  LAUSD Teachers Speak Out Against Cuts‏Celebrating One Hundred Years of Free Speech in San Diego opening at the Centro Cultural de la Raza‏The Cost of Trickle-Down Government Job Creation: $1.5 Million Per Worker   
There are 5,000 Janitors in the US with Phds
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In a landslide victory Friday, the 150 nurses at Chicago’s Jackson Park Hospital voted to join National Nurses United.The battle to stop Indiana Republicans from ramming through a so-called right to work bill enters its second week after a state Senate committee voted to approve the bill. Thousands of workers packed the statehouse inside and out Friday during a hearing on the bill, and Hoosier working families are mobilized for another week of action.
Got comments? Post them at blog.aflcio.org. Chicago Nurses Overwhelmingly Vote for NNU RTW: ‘Bad Economics and Cynical Politics’ Who Broke the Economy? Arkansas Ag Firm Agrees to $1.5 Million in Back Wages for Guest Workers ‘Brotherhood Outdoors’ Goes on Louisiana Gator HuntRead more important news of the day on the issues working families care about.Follow the AFL-CIO:
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NUHW Goes National, Winning Union Elections in Michigan

BY Mike Elk

In These Times
FRIDAY JAN 6, 2012 3:27 PM

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/12491/nuhw_goes_national_winning_union_elecitons_in_michigan/

Among those seeking to reform trade unions, there is
often a debate about whether or not trade unionists
should try to reform unions from the inside or simply
leave and form their own. Often the task of reforming a
union from the inside can be difficult, as union
leaders can make challenges to leadership difficult, if
not impossible, in some cases.

For years, Sal Roselli, the former president of United
Health Care Workers (UHW), a large Service Employees
International Union (SEIU) local in California, found
himself frustrated with his efforts to reform the
union's organizing model, which he felt did not give
rank-and-file workers proper decision-making power.
Eventually, Roselli and over 100 shop stewards were
kicked out of SEIU leadership positions in California
after SEIU trusteed their local in January 2009.

Immediately following that action, Roselli and several
thousand UHW workers decided to form a new union to
implement their vision of trade unionism: the National
United Healthcare Workers (NUHW). “In reality, we were
forced to leave the union and had no other choice but
to form our own union,” Roselli admits.

During the last three years, Roselli and a team of shop
stewards were able to get 9,000 former UHW-SEIU members
to join NUHW through a series of hard-fought
decertification elections, through which workers
switched their allegiances from SEIU to NUHW. NUHW has
resisted concessions at big hospital chains like Kaiser
Permante while SEIU has accepted concessions. Last
fall, SEIU members crossed a picket line at a Kaiser
Permanente facility set up by NUHW members and members
of another union, National Nurses United in California.

NUHW, though, isn't content to just win back former
members who had left SEIU in California. The union is
now becoming a truly national union by winning
elections in other states. On Wednesday, in Muskegon,
Mich., NUHW won an election because SEIU members at the
Hackley Campus of Mercy Health Partners opted to leave
SEIU for NUHW by a margin of 65 to 9. It’s the second
election NUHW has won in Michigan; another election
occurred earlier this year at Luther Manor Nursing Home
in Saginaw.

SEIU had sought to delay the election by using the NLRB
election process to delay the election by nine months.

“Nine months is a long time for workers to wait for the
freedom to choice a union, but it is short compared to
some of the waits we have in California," said NUHW
Communications Director Leighton Woodhouse.

The Michigan workers had grown upset with an SEIU local
that had faced allegations of corruption. The former
president of SEIU Healthcare Michigan, Rickman Jackson,
was forced to resign after it was revealed in 2008 that
he was a receiving a salary from a Los Angeles-based
local union as well as a separate local union after he
had already left the LA-based union.

His replacement as head of the SEIU Healthcare Michigan
hasn't avoided criticism, either. NUHW released this
flier (PDF) noting that current SEIU Healthcare
Michigan Marge Faville is paid more than $160,000
annually, and her niece, daughter and son are on the
union's payroll (NUHW activists claim they hold do-
nothing jobs.) In addition, Faville charged the union
$17,600 a year to rent a luxury apartment in Detroit.

SEIU members claim that while their union leaders found
creative ways to use the union for their own financial
gain, the union provided little in the way of servicing
members and helping them resist concessions attempts by
employers.

"We've been waiting for this moment for a long time,"
said Kim Vossekuil, a surgical technologist at Hackley.
"SEIU is too corrupt and indifferent to its members for
us to remain with them for a single day longer. We've
gone months at a time without ever seeing our SEIU
representative, and SEIU staff refused to do anything
when management ran roughshod over our contract."

SEIU did not respond to a request for comment for this
story.

NUHW President Sal Roselli says that his union plans to
challenge SEIU across the country in places where rank-
and-file SEIU members claim their leaders are not doing
a good job representing their members. “We are getting
calls across the country from SEIU members and other
workers because people are seeing the publicity of our
members fighting concessions and it is inspiring
people," Roselli says.

NUHW also hopes thought simply by challenging SEIU, it
will force the union to do more for its members.

“Our goal is not to reform SEIU. There is no democratic
way to change it from the inside,” says Woodhouse. But,
she notes, "we found SEIU is in a harder position to
sell out members as easily as they were able to without
the NUHW challenge. “

Judging by NUHW’s recent victories in Michigan, SEIU
will have to put up with the upstart union’s challenge
for a long time to come.@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Is the U.S. Still a 'Land of Opportunity'?Why some ambitious Americans emigrate, and how the U.S. could ensure that hard work pays off.@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Why Is Public Education Being Outsourced to Online Charter Schools?Virtual charter schools are educating kids on computer screens, instead of in classrooms. READ MORERania Khalek /
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-As 'Right to Work' Law Looms, Indiana Occupiers and Striking Union Members Fight for Working PeopleStriking workers at a limestone company find their fight against private equity ownership at the center of Indiana's battle for workers' rights. READ MOREBy Joseph Varga / Labor Notes
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LAUSD Teachers Speak Out Against Cuts One of LAUSD's cost saving measures includes hiring back laid off teachers in temporary positionsBy Ted Chen | Sunday, Jan 8, 2012 | Updated 7:14 AM PSTTeachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District fear that 2012 will be far worse than the past several years combined with hundreds of millions of dollars in more cuts and thousands more teachers being laid off.Some teachers who have received their pink slips are being hired back, but as a sort of substitute for themselves in what has become a typical cost-saving measure by LAUSD."The district has called me back, put me in a classroom but I am no longer getting paid sick time, I am no longer getting paid holiday time and I am no longer getting benefits because the healthcare coverage won't kick in until the following year," said David Garcia, a former full-time art teacher.California schools face another $5 million in cuts next year, which means more layoffs on top of the thousands of LAUSD teachers who have been let go, but they're not the only ones being affected."As these layoffs and cutbacks proceed, the quality of the education of the students is going down further," said Neil Chertcoff, retired teacher.Although school district officials claim to be cut to the bone, some teachers insist there are still millions to be saved in contracts and consultants.But they also see their own union as part of the problem and accuse United Teachers Los Angeles of being too cooperative with the LAUSD."They have not done any proactive activities, they have not mobilized the thousands of teachers that they have," said John Fernandez, retired teacher.Taking matters into their own hands, teachers and their allies hope to rally the public against the system, a task they said the Occupy movement proved possible.Follow NBCLA for the latest LA news, events and entertainment: Twitter: @NBCLA // Facebook: NBCLA

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The Cost of Trickle-Down Government Job Creation: $1.5 Million Per 
Worker
Ravi Batra, Truthout: "Suppose I were to tell you that 
for the past two years the federal government has been spending nearly $1.5 
million to create one job.... The trillion dollar question is this: where is it 
all going, when the annual average wage is no higher than $50,000? Obviously, it 
must be going to the so-called 1 percent group or what the Republican Party 
calls the job creators, i.e., the mostly male CEOs and other executives of large 
corporations." 
Read the Article 

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There are 5,000 Janitors in the US with Phds
Read the Article at Gizmodo
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