Tuesday, April 6, 2010

The other bloggers...

The well informed Zombie UHW prisoner keeps abreast of what's going in a media climate that doesn't cover labor issues unless there is a trusteeship, strike or other high profile event. The real coverage about what is going on in labor can be found in so called "alternative" sources such as Labor Notes, Daily Kos, Empire Report, In These Times, etc. The one exception has been the L.A Times journalist Paul Pringle's exposé of ULTCW's (United Long Term Care Workers) much maligned former president Tyrone Freeman.

Just as important and much more in depth than any Lame Stream media reporting are my fellow volunteer bloggers Sierra Spartan (retired) at ¡Adiós, Andy!, Tasty Burger at Stern Burger with Fries, and of course the highly respected and scathing-without-being-petty commentary of Perez Stern at (you guessed it) Perez Stern (back in action). What we all have in common is our burning desire to bring the evil of SEIU to the light of day and throwing in a little snark to take the edge off the daily dose of betrayal served up by the Zombies. And we do so gladly, for no compensation, real name recognition or any other means of motivation. We do it because it needs to be done.

So I find it especially galling that SEIU is now apparently paying members to blog about the trial against the former leaders of UHW in San Francisco these last 2 weeks. These likely dues-financed bloggers are (and likely without knowing it) taking one the remaining forms of unadulterated journalism and using it to deceive the few who read their blogs. I normally don't promote my intellectually inferior, morally bankrupt, react without thinking mortal enemies, but in the spirit of encouraging my readers to do as I do and form their own opinions I will list those bloggers below. I read them in my effort to keep a well rounded sense of what is going on down in San Francisco but I find their writing wholly unsubstantiated, irritating, highly speculative and far more biased than my own writing. Somehow I think it's more than just $8 an hour (California minimum wage) or $20 an entry. The way the Zombies throw around money, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case. As for the pseudo-bloggers following the trial no new entries have been made since the verdict! Perhaps the Zombie have cast them aside, just like they wanted to cast us homecare workers aside!
Bob "Nolehace" Lewis: http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/author/nolehace (First entry 3/24/10)

Erica Boddie: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erica-boddie/ (First entry 3/22/10)
"Homecare Mary" Harms: http://homecaremary.blogspot.com/ (First entry 3/19/10)
Rudy Vallin: http://www.calitics.com/userDiary.do?personId=4980 (First entry 3/19/10)
Apparently, the Zombies feel they have hit on something because now 3 more blogs popped up just today. They are centered around the KP national level bargaining. Notice how they all have the same kp prefix: it's kp-person's first name.blogspot.com. And they all were created on the same day, April 5, 2010. Clearly this wasn't a coincidence in either batch of bloggers.

Silvia Torres-Limon (Northern CA):
http://kp-silva.blogspot.com
First entry 4/5/2010
Shirlee Anne Shirley (Southern CA):
http://kp-shirlee.blogspot.com
First entry 4/5/2010

Angela Young (Northern CA):
http://kp-angela.blogspot.com
First entry 4/5/2010

As far as I know the progress of bargaining is only shared with the people represented: management negotiators report to management, labor negotiators report to the membership. This is how it was in homecare bargaining before the trusteeship. Oh wait, no, I'm wrong. According to Karen Timmons, Sonoma County bargaining team member for the first post-trusteeship contract renewal, said in no uncertain terms that:
Contracts are NEVER given to members to read until they are a done deal, signed by committee, IHSS/PA and the Supervisors.
For my outside of the wacky world of homecare readers, the IHSS PA is the In Home Supportive Service Public Authority, an arm of county government and the entity with which we bargain. The county supervisors double as the board of directors for Public Authority.

So why exactly is Zombie UHW encouraging and likely paying members to violate what I suspect is banned in the ground rules of bargaining? My guess: smoke screen. This way the Zombies can bargain away even more of the hard fought gains of Kaiser members without distraction of the members whose lives they will be harming. Prove me wrong Zombies! Show me your track record since the trusteeship was just temporary insanity!

This makes me so mad! So if you see any of these blind obedience to Zombie UHW folks running around off their leash...well send them on a Keyser Söze-inspired wild goose chase!

(10 minutes pass...)

And where were these pseudo-bloggers before the trial and before the KP bargaining? Perez Stern's got his start on 2/4/2009, Sierra Spartan 2/6/2009, me on 9/16/2009 and Tasty on 11/12/2009. In defense of Perez & Sierra, they may have started within 2 days of each other but took different approaches and used different writing styles. Also this was right after the train wreck in slow motion (trusteeship) was implemented.

Update (4/7/10): I found 3 more. They were all born yesterday, literally!

Therese Fleming (Central Valley):
http://kp-therese-f.blogspot.com

First entry 4/6/2010
All entries removed 4/8/2010

Rachelle Heartte (MSW, ACSW): 
http://kp-rachelle-h.blogspot.com
First entry 4/6/2010

Victoria DeLacruz (Central Valley):
http://kp-victoria.blogspot.com
First entry 4/6/2010

1 comment:

  1. The SEIU-UHW Zombies have finally realized that they're getting their ass kicked as far as winning the hearts and minds of union members. Of course, all these Zombie bloggers did not just jump out of the woodwork. Not a chance. You can bet though that they're getting paid with union members' dues.

    The good thing that's happening regarding the civil war between SEIU-UHW and NUHW, is the fact that the Zombies are also getting their ass kicked by UNITE HERE.

    NUHW RISING! UNITE HERE RISING! SEIU DIMINISHING

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