Homecare saves, money, lives, dignity, etc (part 1)

Yet another well written, well reasoned opinion piece about the value of homecare workers and the care they provide. It's far more than just an extremely cost effective program for our most vulnerable citizens. Read on to learn more of what I am speaking about.

When great local unions go bad

(As per Perez Stern's direction in his Friday, March 26 entry here are the key terms in today's blog entry, and its supporting works: Huffington Post, BeyondChron, Sal Rosselli, John Borsos, Shirley Nelson, Carl Finamore, Andy Stern, SEIU, NUHW, UHW, Judge Alsup, $25 million in damages, lump sum payout pension, Alameda Hospital, Eliseo Medina, Mary Kay Henry, Tyrone Freeman and Leon Chow.) Now, on with the show (blog)!

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If occurs to me that some of my readers may be outside of the healthcare/NUHW/SEIU realm of understanding and therefore only vaguely aware of SEIU's lawsuit against the 26 union reformers now the leadership of NUHW. So I found a couple of articles that give a good summary of the trial; one from NUHW supporter perspective and one that gives an outside looking in perspective. Both are well written and will sum up this crucial trial for union democracy.

First, NUHW member and caregiver at Kaiser Redwood City Hospital Shirley Nelson sounds off with this bit about the absurdity of the Zombies attacks and why they are really suing the vanguards of union democracy.

Second is Carl Finamore's article on BeyondChron. It explains what happens when international union leadership runs roughshod over the local union's elected leaders, to the dismay of the electing members.

Editorial: A rebuke of SEIU

Hmmm somehow this one slipped past my union news filters. Good stuff, though; and I will have to revise my filters to cast a wider net.

Community support for Memorial continues... (part 3)

Who can figure out what the Press Democrat will print, especially when it's letters to the editor. It seems to me half the time I glance at the paper on the way out of the grocery store I see the median price of homes in Sonoma county as the above-the-fold story. We have some real news here and they can barely get it together to print a few letters to the editor. Recently they published a little and none too well researched article about the hospital's allegations of misconduct by NUHW and Labor Board agents itself. Seriously folks, Memorial management backed out of 6 of the 10 objections they submitted, not the NLRB, but somehow this is not newsworthy. Anyway, here's what little coverage it did get and better yet a couple letters to the editor that don't pull any punches.

 

Too bad the PD editor can't be bothered with presenting the voices of the community, as shown below.

Dear Editor:

I was shocked at the spare and biased article regarding the Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital Union elections.  It announced this Monday's National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearing to address hospital management's complaints that the union which employees have been STRUGGLING TO BRING TO MEMORIAL FOR FIVE YEARS clearly won.  Managements captive audience meetings to discourage workers from voting pro union failed.  MILLIONS OF DOLLARS spent by the "intervening" union, SEIU, failed to split the pro union ticket.  Out of 600+ eligible votes, SEIU got 13 even though they had filled the Petaluma Sheraton Hotel with paid "union organizers" brought in from all over the country.

Now management has bought time in order to deteriorate working conditions.  This is in preparations for the up coming dreaded legitimately won labor negotiations.  Their lawyers' tactics appear to be "Throw any allegations you can think of at the union.  Something is bound to stick."  But those I consider Memorial managements' partners in crime, SEIU, would not agree to ANY rules of conduct prior to the election.  NUHW fiercely tried to come to some sort of decent arrangement with management. But thanks to intervening Johny-come-lately union SEIU, no rules of conduct could be had.

The complaint that NUHW supporters were electioneering by wearing emblems, t-shirts, buttons and the like is particularly amusing to me.  Memorial is a Catholic hospital.  Some of the clergy were wearing NUHW buttons and such.  At least one of them was a Monsignor.  An open letter of support for Memorial Hospital's employees labor union organizing from Catholic Academics is on file.  Why was none of this information included in the article?

I was there the night of the vote count.  It was going to be held in a large conference room in the main hospital building.  At the last minute, perhaps because too many community people (like me) showed up, it was moved to a small trailer across the street.  Greeting us at the door was a security guard and the hospital's lawyer.  NUHW's lawyer had to ARGUE his way in to observe the count.  NLRB reps witnessed this nonsense.  We Memorial Hospital Employees' supporters deferred entry to employees, but even some of them were turned away.  This is clearly a case of the pot (management) calling the kettle (NUHW) black.  

Why do I care???  Because I look forward to the day we have an election in Sonoma County IHSS so we can throw the SEIU bums out.   They stripped us of our leadership, colluded with the governor to trash our contracts, harass us workers, and are talking of raising our union dues to boot.  I don't want to give them one red cent, let alone a raise.  They give unionizing a very very bad name.  I want my NUHW leadership back.  It's a union I do believe in.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Elsa Stevens

Here's another.

Dear Editor;

I am writing in disbelief of Bleys Rose's "Hearing Set for Memorial Workers", February 6.

First of all, why was there no pro-union comments from the SRMH workers?  A hearing is really unnecessary and could be avoided due to the following facts:

 Hospital management filed objections with the National Labor Relations Board,(NLRB), which have no significance. They had confirmed that the majority of employees who voted, did so to form a union with NUHW.  However, weeks before and up to the election voting day, SRMH Management had meetings to try to persuade workers to vote against a union, and refused to comply with the Fair Election Oversight Commission, (FEOC), who are community members, whose role was and is to defend the employee's right to understand about forming a union in an workplace that would be null of intimidation, misinformation and pressure tactics., as well as helping set ground rules for the election.  Instead, management held anti-union meetings, with one-sided misleading information on strikes, bargaining, and dues.,further creating undue pressure and stress on their employees prior to voting, etc.

They now need in all good conscience to finally respect the worker's decision and begin to bargain in good faith without further delay, and respect their employee's final decision to form a union with NUHW...

Management and St. Joseph Health System is going against their own "principles" of dignity, service, excellence and justice by contradicting themselves, having promised that: "If workers held a secret ballot election through the NLRB, they would stand steadfast by their decision."  This history making vote and victory by SRMH workers should be celebrated !

I and other elected officials as well as community leaders believe that SRMH Management needs to withdraw the remaining objections and end this unnecessary conflict so that a fair contract can benefit everyone.

Andria Callas

Homecare fraud: you're lucky if you can find it!

Recently there has been some press coverage about homecare fraud with nearly all of it being bad. If we didn't get bad press we'd get no press at all. It seems the nature and cost effectiveness of homecare is horribly misunderstood. If you follow the LameStream media's coverage of this attack on homecare you'd think that the disabled poor and those who care for them are criminals worthy of only the harshest treatment. Following the Governator's line of reasoning one might think were it not for homecare the State wouldn't have a budget deficit at all! Here's an example of the spoon-fed and lopsided thinking that makes my blood boil.

 

This is exactly what we don't need: division among the consumers (clients) as to who is eligible. Having met several homecare providers (workers) and their consumers I can tell you if a consumer is receiving homecare services it's vital to the well-being and happiness of the consumer. My wife is much happier living with me than living in a group home! Homecare is no road to riches for the providers and it saves the State far more than it would spend if it housed every consumer in a nursing home, group home or whatever dungeon they think the disabled poor should be warehoused in.

When legislators and journalists stop blindly accepting what someone else tells them is the irrefutable truth (the Gov tells the Legislature, and the journalists gobble up whatever they hear from Sacramento) and the State attempst to find the fraud, they find much less fraud exists than is reported by the media. In 2007, the Gov stated it was as high as 25%, but when investigated by his own administration it was found to be no more than 1%. Don't get me wrong: even 1% is unacceptable but the way the State is going about reducing fraud is Draconian, and obviously lopsided (which is putting it nicely). For those who choose to abuse the system and steal from both us the taxpayers and us the overwhelmingly majority of honest workers just trying to earn a living, I say hang them up by their ampersand caret asterisk toes in the middle of town.

The money spent to detect and stop fraud is ridiculous in both absolute dollars and when the amount of money recovered is divided into the amount spent finding the fraud in the first place. Here are some examples:

 

Did y'all get that: they spent $3 million to save $315,000! That's $157,894.74 per conviction! I thought the Zombies' dollar-to-vote ratio was out of control but this is ridiculous! A quick run crunching the numbers shows this was a prime example of the State's penny-wise but pound-foolish approach to handling our tax money.

Maximum number of hours that can be assigned to any one consumer: 283 (a 40 work week is 173 hours a month, 283 is ~1.6 times more)
Hourly wage for IHSS workers in Sacramento: $10.40
Months in a year: 12
A years worth of homecare work at the above given wage comes out to $35,318.40

Difference between cost per conviction and maximum payout for one consumer's worth of work (283 x 10.40 x 12=): $110,576.34.

I say (s)he who wastes more money gets required lifetime employment at McDonald's working the drive thru window!

So, yet again way more money is spent than is recovered, but at least the politicians can feel good about their efforts to root out the fraud. Sheesh, does it hurt to be this stupid?

This is not an isolated example of the State's overzealous attack on the poor and defenseless.

 

So as you can see the State is very concerned about the 0.2% (NOT 2%!) in over-payments in Fresno county, the State's leader in homecare fraud detection, prevention and conviction and the only way they can see to fix the problem and punish this despicable and very small group of scamming "caregivers" is to take us all down. Make the poor poorer (reduce us to minimum wage), punish the innocent (fingerprinting for all), surely that will solve all our problems!

So to combat this problem they've written the "improvements" below into law. As far as I know they have yet to figure out how to implement these new laws. What the State has in mind is indeed punitive:

• checks can't be mailed to P.O. boxes (which is a bummer because in my neighborhood, a P.O. box is an excellent way to prevent identity theft)
• fingerprints for both the provider and consumer put on each timecard (Who pays for the ink? Who is charged with matching 800,000+ fingerprints to people on a semi-monthly basis? What if a consumer doesn't have (accessible) thumbs? Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"?)
• State required but not funded fingerprinting for both consumers and providers (and where were the Zombies when these proposal became law? Busy fighting with members, again!)
• unannounced home visits (Which seem to be in violation of  multiple homecare contracts about the consumer's right to chose whom, how and when someone enters their home.)

Seems like overkill doesn't it?

A few things need to be said about fraud:

• fraud is wrong, no matter the justification or significance
• those who commit fraud, both providers and (living) consumers must be punished
• the rest of us who aren't committing fraud need to be left alone, no fingerprinting at our own expense to prove our innocence
• the folks handling the timecards (counties) and the folks who cut the checks (the State) need some simple checks to be put in place, specifically:

• no checks for the consumers known to be deceased (except for consumers who passed away mid pay period)
• no checks for providers or consumers who are in jail

Had the counties and the State been checking for this all along who knows how much money could have been saved. Consider the lack of seething animosity that could have been avoided. The oft reported, but grossly exaggerated costs of IHSS fraud could simply never have happened but for that you'd need a state that cares for it's elderly and disabled poor, instead of taking every possible action to move us both ever-faster into the grave. Even when these fraudsters are caught it's a great expense to the State and the money is not always recovered.

Fortunately for us all the writing of a few bright minds makes it's way to the Op-Ed sections of our newspapers and blogs.

Indeed, this is a rare voice of reason is a sea of stupity.

How to Take Down a Monster: Stewards, the Truth

Paul Krehbiel writes an excellent article at Labor Notes, describing how the Zombies lost the election down in L.A. In Paul's, article the Zombies actions to destroy NUHW and perpetually enslave it's members backfired in the worst possible way. It also points out what is obvious to the rest of the world yet totally foreign and incomprehensible to the Zombies: the resolve of the members is unstoppable. For any Zombie who might be reading this article take note, this is how your demise will play out over and over again. The Kaiser victory was the first major crack in the dam and the Zombies just have enough fingers to plug the holes.

About face, SEIU style (part 1)

It's ironic how a Sonoma homecare worker's mysterious switch to Zombie UHW foreshadowed the Zombie's about face. The switch is obvious and quite telling of the character of Karen Timmons a one time NUHW proponent turned Zombie drone. The first bit shown below is her op-ed piece (replete with spelling mistakes and junior-high quality writing) shown on Op Ed News. Spirited writing indeed but with a few factual mistakes which will be corrected. Below that is her about face with many opportunities for correction. The reversal is available at the West County Gazette Volume 6, Number 3, March 12 - April 16, 2009

It’s All About The Money: Greed and Fascism in the Service Employees International Union

March 6, 2009

By Karen Timmons

There’s a new kid in town and we are NUHW, National Union of Health Care Workers. And Andy Stern, Fuhrer of SEIU, is pissed. He came to the Warsaw Ghetto and is getting his ass kicked, deservedly so. When SEIU (Service Employees International Union) illegally took away the right of United Health Care Workers West (UHW) to vote on breaking away from SEIU, I became angry. Let’s call it righteous indignation. Contacting the ACLU about what I considered an infringement of my civil liberties I was told that I had none. I was told that once I belong to a union I’ve given away my rights as an individual. “Well,” I thought, “that means I’m chattel.” Doesn’t Andy Stern know that Lincoln freed the slaves? And what’s with the bean counter mentality of the ACLU? Last week Stern went to the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) and said, “They can’t form a new union, they are members of SEIU UHW, and are my property.” Geez, I had a husband like that years ago and divorced him, and UHW did the same to Stern. So why were we UHW’s so upset that we need to desertify from SEIU and Stern? There are two reasons. First, we are a bottom up democratic organization: members vote on issues and elect officials. Stern’s organization is a top down organization: He gives the orders and they are carried out. Our executive board is elected, his is appointed by him. Second, Stern would have us all in one health care union whence he’d broker sweetheart deals with employers and reduce us to minimum wage, thereby creating a workforce of drones. Or in his words, “They are my property.”A domino effect would ensue and, piece by piece, workers in home health care, hospitals, and nursing homes, would be subjected to SEIU acting as our employer, not our representative. As of this writing 60,000 health care workers have desertified (legally petitioned Washington to leave) from SEIU. As of this writing SEIU as shrunk from 150,000 members in California alone to 90,000 and the numbers are growing. It is a movement of workers across the US saying, “Hell, no, we won’t go gently into the good night.” All of Denver, Colorado, Kaiser, has petitioned Washington to leave SEIU As of this writing, Andy Stern just lost a $30,000,000 yearly income from health care workers in California. And, if others go the route of Colorado. .  .well, you do the math. I am begging all those health care workers who live amongst us to sign the petition to desertify. Democracy requires education and action. Please sign before you wake up to the fact that you belong to Andy Stern with no bargaining rights and minimum wage.

Except for spelling mistakes (namely "desertify" and its conjugates) and some unsupported sentences this piece was a fairly well written summary of the hostile takeover of UHW. Even so, and for the benefit of the reader, I'd like to correct her statement. Since homecare workers are quasi-public employees we are in the jurisdiction of the California Public Employees Relations Board (PERB), not the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), so petitioning an entity in Washington be it SEIU or NLRB, would have no effect. Karen if you are reading this (as you have before), please write to tell me how many of the iron-clad truths you've listed below you know from your own research and still believe to be true. Also, the next time the librarian let's you near a computer with a word processor pay attention to the red squiggly line beneath words. This line beneath a word means it is misspelled! You'd know this if you weren't using Notepad.

You'll notice the adolescent nature of her writing: mild profanity, threats of violence, etc. She was ripe for the picking by the Zombies when bargaining time came around. This bargaining team refused to share the details of the bargaining process with the rest of the homecare workers subject to the contract. This was in clear contrast to the way contracts have been bargained before UHW was hijacked.

A Win for Workers

By Karen Timmons

I was a member of the bargaining team for the new contract between our union (SEIU-UHW) which represents IHSS homecare workers and the Public Authority, the administrators of In Home Support Services. Well, from the beginning of bargaining in early August to the end September 29th, when the Supervisors accepted our contract, the experience could be called advance training in manipulation and skullduggery. Despite a campaign of misrepresentation and harassment that our members endured, hundreds of members came to vote throughout Sonoma County and approved our contract with 90% support. Our contract was up September 30th and without a legal contract we workers would have been open to 2 events: 1. the county could lower our wages because we would then not legally be protected by a contract; and 2. the .split off organization NUHW would have the right to an election to take over our union. For months this organization has called our members to tell them that they are the new union and in a new contract their wages would be reduced $2 an hour and they’d have no health care benefits. Many members, including myself for a short time, listened to their rhetoric and became confused as to who was telling the truth. They are cheerleaders for their leader, Sal Rosselli; I am not a cheerleader for Andy Stern, head of SEIU, or any other leader who doesn’t have term limits. In any large organization there is power, money, ego, and greed. Just look at any legislative body.

Our process was democratic. We surveyed members and asked what their top priorities were they wanted bargained for. The top priority was A Win for Workers keep our wages the same: $11.50/hr. Not much, but better than the $7/hr. we were paid before SEIU started UHW (Service Employees International Union/United Healthcare Workers) came here 9 years ago. We were supposed to be up to $15/hr. by now but Gray Davis messed up and Arnie has tried to destroy us completely since he got into office. We bargained and kept our wages in a 2-year contract and, if the economy improves next year, we can open negotiations for a raise. If Kaiser raises its rates, we will query our members to find out if they can afford the rate change. If not, we’ll find more acceptable health care. Of course, the Public Option would win hands down. Several NUHW (National United Health Care Workers—not national and not a union) members went to the County Supervisors the day after Labor Day and told them that our process of bargaining was not democratic and that our voting would not be democratic. They accused us of what they themselves were doing — lying. They asked the Supervisors to extend the time for accepting our contract until after September 30th. All was set for the Supervisors to approve our contract on September 29th when the same group of NUHW workers went to them that morning and again asked to not accept our contract. Fortunately, our County Supervisors did accept our contract.

It is a win win situation for IHSS and for us, the homecare workers. The State Legislature, pressured by Schwatznegger, cut 57% of IHSS funds (ouch) and we kept our wages.

When will the children, disabled, and elderly be put first and not last? We can only work toward this future.

Karen makes several good points. The first and most important was her claim to having an "advance training in manipulation and skullduggery". What she isn't saying is that she was part of the manipulation and skullduggery. Even more startling is her steadfast belief that without a contract the county can slash wages and benefits. This is completely false, the Zombies know it, and they use it everywhere they can especially in Fresno. I know this because it has already been settled by the NLRB.

Karen's is right in stating that hundreds of workers voted, not thousands as is usually the case. Karen used a classic bit of SEIU strategy: the half truth. What she failed to mention, possibly because she wasn't told by anyone in SEIU, was what the typical voter turn out was and how voting is usually done. Thousands vote via mail, instead of a couple hundred in person, with a misleading "consultation" before the vote. Why? Informed voters will vote no and force SEIU back to the bargaining table. Unfortunately this didn't happen and we now have the worst contract ever (3 different write ups...check them out)!

I can only speak for myself, but as for the threat of wage reduction and benefit elimination, why would NUHW use the same threats the Zombies are using against their own members?!

Karen speaks of "telling the truth", but I wonder if she took the time to verify on her own any of the Zombies claims? Not likely since a few of her statements are identical to those of her union dues financed "friends". Nothing released by NUHW contains a lie; whereas the Zombies rely on lies.

The democratic process she speaks of seems to reflect the closed group of Zombie-picked members who can be easily persuaded to do the unions bidding and will never question the motivations of their masters. I have yet to speak to a fellow homecare worker who was aware of the bargaining process much less was asked to be part of the bargaining team. The Zombies pick the members and then the members elect themselves as bargaining team members, stewards, e-board members, what ever gap needs filling with the pick of the litter when it comes to malleable minds.

At no time were we paid $7 an hour: It was $6.75 which was the state's new minimum wage and then $8.50 --  the wage bargained by Local 250, the predecessor to UHW.

"[I]f the economy improves next year, we can open negotiations for a raise." This statement is as optimistic as it is unrealistic. The economy won't pick up enough if at all by that time so to make this statement shows what kind of grip on reality Karen has. We aren't getting a raise, period. We'll be lucky to keep what we have but Section 7.2B (shown below) pretty much allows for a reduction in wages should the Public Authority run short on cash.

If, during the term of this Agreement, either State or Federal participation levels are reduced or, either the State or Federal sharing formula is modified in any manner, relative to the baseline numbers described below, that would result in an increased cost to the County and/or the Public Authority to maintain the wage level described in this MOU, wages will be reduced by an amount necessary to keep the total cost to the County and/or the Public Authority the same as such cost existed on the day prior to the effective date of such reduction or modification.

So there have it: if their costs go up our wages go down, period. The past practice of lobbying at the capital is pointless.

As for our benefits, members outside of the elite 8 bargaining team members were never allowed to see the proposed coverage from the potential replacement to Kaiser. When she called me to explain this to me she said any paperwork describing the couldn't be mailed to me since they didn't have enough time before a decision would be made. Thanks Karen and fellow Zombies for sitting on the information we asked for repeatedly.

Karne: who told you NUHW isn't a union? Perhaps it's time to consider why your Zombie overlords told you this.

The county supervisors knew they were getting a deal so of course they accepted it. Once they were made aware of the Zombies super secrecy and coercion, 3 of the 5 supervisors objected to the Zombie's heavy-handed tactics against it's own members --  including lying, they saw the SEIU for what it really is. Karen, what evidence of NUHW supporters lying do you have to defend your argument?

Finally Karen asks: "When will the children, disabled, and elderly be put first and not last?" I wonder when will she, and by extension the Zombies, put dues paying members, irrespective of union affiliation and the people we care for first?

Support for Memorial workers is unwavering

Lisa Maldonado, Executive Director of the North Bay Labor Council and champion of the working woman and man, sums up the obvious 2-faced nature of Memorial management. It's good to see the labor community is still fiercely devoted to the vote for Memorial workers.

Op-ed: "Stall Tactics" at Memorial

Will management ever grow up? Without SEIU to do their dirty work they are now wasting money, credibility and only guaranteeing fierce resistance from workers, the community and it's leaders, media, etc.

Nothin' to see here folks, move along

In response to yesterday's letter to the editor of the New York Times Press Democrat Jo Sandersfeld, VP of Mission Integration (what does she integrate?) penned this denial of wrongdoing letter to the editor. As far as I am aware they've said very little to defend themselves, which makes me suspicious and yet it speaks to management's collusion with the Zombies. (Scroll down to near the bottom of the letters.)

Opinion: Memorial Vote

Long time resident Tony White gives a from-the-outside-in perspective of the unionization effort at Memorial. (Scroll down to near the bottom of the letters.)

Wall Street Journal: California Labor Wars

Well now the Zombies cover has been blown! Finally, an SEIU staffer had the courage and decency to step forward with his recollection of what he and likely all of the other scabs in Fresno were asked to do against their own sense of decency. What we all suspected happened in Fresno has been written up in the Wall Street Journal. I wonder how the Zombies will play this one down and if another election for Fresno homecare workers in the works. I say save everyone a whole bunch of trouble and just let the battered homecare workers of Fresno have what they wanted all along: NUHW!

Labor wars at Memorial Hospital

Here's a fine opinion piece from long time advocate for unionization at Memorial, Monsignor John Brenkle. He is the pastor of St. Helena Catholic Church. As you may recall the Monsignor had a few words to say with his clergy peers back on October 23, 2009.