Here's the second in our series of SEIU Healthcare PA members talking about the need to ban mandatory overtime.

Mandatory overtime affects hospital workers, nursing home workers, and state and county employees.

If you love seniors, call your state senator and tell them to vote for a ban on forced overtime. If you live in the district of a member of the Republican leadership, call and tell them to schedule a vote on the bill (HB 834).

On Tuesday, January 29, health care workers from around the state will be converging on the state capitol in Harrisburg to urge the Senate to ban forced overtime.

Click here to hear one nurse's story about why she's making the trip.

This is the first in a series of video emails we're sending the PA General Assembly, to let them know why health care workers all over the state need an end to mandatory overtime.

This morning, SEIU Healthcare PA brought four Manor Care nursing home workers and the family member of a resident at Manor Care's Easton facility to confront Carlyle CEO David Rubenstein. Carlyle, a private equity company, recently bought Manor Care, the the nation's largest nursing home chain, for $6.7 billion.

We dropped a banner inside the hotel and chanted while a nurse's aide attempted to talk to Rubenstein, who rudely suggested that she "take remedial English." The conference was disrupted for a good fifteen minutes.

Thanks to our friends at UNITE HERE!, ACORN, PUP, and our brothers and sisters from SEIU Childcare, SEIU 32BJ and the SEIU State Council for joining us at the event.

You can see coverage online here:

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20080118_Union_hecklers_disr...

http://www.dealbreaker.com/2008/01/david_rubsteins_speech_at_whar.php#mo...

http://www.pehub.com/?gclid=CK7E6ZaQgJECFRuhFQodsVWjGg

Last week, Total Health Home Care was forced to settle a lawsuit for failure to pay home caregivers for time spent traveling between their clients. Total will be required to pay $2.2 million dollars in back wages covering approximately 3,000 workers. Several home caregivers and seniors held a press conference on Wednesday, 11/21, to announce the settlement and to call for greater accountability for law breaking home care agencies.

Three thousand workers were eligible to participate in the lawsuit, based on their having worked for Total sometime in the prior three years. (The agency's turnover rate is in the neighborhood of 300% annually.) For more information on the campaign to win justice for Philadelphia's home care workers, or to contact the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging (which contracts with Total to provide home care to our seniors), visit homecarealert.org.

Earlier today, workers at two nursing homes in Pennsylvania voted to organize with SEIU Healthcare PA. Over 340 workers--RNs, LPNs, CNAs, dietary aides and housekeepers--will be represented by a union. While it's an exciting day for our union, you might wonder why I'm blogging about it on YPP.

The answer is that there was a big difference in these two elections, and the difference was directly attributable to politics.

The first nursing home, in Northeast Philadelphia, is run by a national, private, for-profit company. Workers at that home were subjected to an active fight against the union, orchestrated by their employer. They were subjected to captive audience meetings, misinformation, and subterfuge while on paid work time. The workers who supported the union were not allowed to conduct meetings with their co-workers while on work time, leading most rational people to the conclusion that the company strongly opposed unionization. The workers prevailed in this vote, but with only 56%--a margin that, while a blowout by electoral standards, means they will continue to struggle to get a first contract. (Thanks to Senator Bob Casey for writing an open letter of support.)

At the second nursing home, the county nursing home in Lehigh, the yes side of the equation got 83% of the vote. In that case, the county executive, Don Cunningham, agreed to employer neutrality and an expedited election. The nurses in that home were free to make up their own minds about whether to form a union, and overwhelmingly, they chose to do so. This wasn't the first organizing drive these workers had ever attempted, but it was the first one that ever succeeded.

I worked getting out the vote today in the first home, and we were nervous all day about whether the workers would be able to overcome their fears and stand together. It gave me an important reminder of just what it is that we're fighting for, in working to elect Ruth Damsker and Joe Hoeffel in Montgomery County. We're fighting to make sure that more workers can have the experience of choosing a union--or not--in an environment free of harassment and scare tactics.

So this is my first video post--Ray told me how to do it, so if it doesn't work, blame him. (Kidding! Ray, thanks so much for your help.)

As you may know, home care workers in Philadelphia have been fighting for justice, alongside other members of SEIU Healthcare PA (formerly District 1199P). Most home care workers are women. They care for some of our society's most vulnerable individuals--elderly Philadelphians--and they do so for little money, and often no benefits. Here's a video about our campaign to win justice for home care workers at two agencies in the City.

I should say, too, thanks to Lance Haver, who has been a stalwart ally of the homecare workers, and is committed to protecting seniors.

Are you curious about what life is like in Iraq for working people now? Tired of the mainstream media's slanted coverage?

On Tuesday, June 19 at 5:30, two members of the Iraqi Trade Union movement will be speaking at Friends Center (1501 Cherry St.). Faleh Abood Umara, General Secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Workers, and Hashmeya Mohsen al Hussein, President of the Electrical Utility Workers' Union, are on a national tour sponsored by US Labor Against the War.

Local sponsors of this event include the Philadelphia Labor Council, AFL-CIO; the American Friends Service Committee; AFSCME District Council 47; SEIU District 1199P; the Philadelphia Coalition of Labor Union Women; the National Organization for Women, Philadelphia Chapter; Temple University Association of University Professionals, AFT Local 4531; AFT Local 2026 at CCP; Veterans for Peace Chapter 31; Temple University Hospital Nurses Assocation/PASNAP and Veterans for America.

Tickets are $20 per person--for more info, email kblack at dc47 dot org or morbraxton at aol dot com.

Last year, I blogged about SEIU's efforts to ban mandatory overtime for health care workers. Our bill passed in the house, but we ran out of time to pass it in the Senate.

Responding to the comment about needing to know the arguments. The main issue at stake here is that if you are a direct care giver (RN, LPN, CNA), the boss has the ability to 'mandate' you to work an extra shift. Workers are often threatened with being charged with 'patient abandonment' (a charge that the state Board of Nursing takes very seriously) if they refuse to work a second shift. Hospital RNs commonly work a 12-hour shift, so mandation means that they are at work for 24 straight hours.

Friday, Oct. 27th
4:30 PM
Opera Company of Philadelphia
1420 Locust St.

SEIU is inviting you to join us in “welcoming” the anti-union CEO Alan Miller of Universal Health Services as he attends a black tie gala dinner and opening night at the Opera Company of Philadelphia.

This opera lover has hired a top anti-union law firm to keep the nurses from raising patient care standards at their hospital in Las Vegas. With HDQ in King of Prussia, Mr. Miller refuses to meet with union nurses in Las Vegas. The nurses have been fighting for more than 6 months to improve patient care at their hospitals. Even though nurse leaders have been fired, they refuse to give up.

JOIN SEIU as we stand with our nurses from Las Vegas to deliver our message and shame this CEO. We will meet at 4:30 at the southwest corner of Broad and Locust.

I posted last week (http://youngphillypolitics.com/node/1542) about the PA House passage of a bill that would ban mandatory overtime for health care workers. We're announcing a day of action next week on Tuesday, October 17th. Please call your senator and tell them to vote on HB957* before the end of the session. If you need more info, see www.protectpatientcare.org (and to the person who let me know the site was down temporarily, thanks!).

*Yes, it's a house bill number--we need them to vote on the exact house bill, so that it doesn't have to be sent back to the house for concurrence.

Finally!

The Pennsylvania House voted last night to ban mandatory overtime (MOT) to all direct care givers in the state. The high use of MOT in PA has been linked to the nursing shortage--in a recent report by the state Department of Health, nearly 9,000 nurses in PA reported having been mandated to work an overtime shift in the two weeks prior to completing the survey.

We're on to the Senate now. Please call your state senator & let them know you support these health care workers. The companion bill in the senate is Tartaglione's SB 692.

For more information on the campaign to ban mandatory overtime, see http://protectpatientcare.org.

I was saddened today to hear that Marty Berger had passed away over the weekend. For most of us in the progressive labor community, Marty was an inspiration. He was a true fighter for justice, who spent his life working in the garment unions. In his retirement, he headed the PA chapter of the Alliance for Retired Americans and was on the board of NARAL-PA. I think most of us who knew him would agree that Marty worked harder in his retirement than most people do in their regular jobs.

The number of rallies, marches and demonstrations that I attended with him over the years numbered close to one hundred. He was a true practitioner of the ideal of solidarity. And he always loved his union, and the members that made it strong. Several years ago, he and I sat in together with a bus-load of strikers from a pillow factory in Frackville at the national headquarters of Ikea in Plymouth Meeting. The strikers were trying to get Ikea to agree to refrain from selling scab-made pillows. During the sit-in, Marty and I had a long conversation about his work organizing in the South, and I told him that my grandmother had been in the ILG. He quipped, "that's the problem, we're everybody's grandmother's union!"

Are you concerned about rising inequities in access to health care?

Do you want all Pennsylvanians to have access to high quality, safe patient care?

Do you know someone who has medical debt to a hospital that is threatening to take away their house or income?

Come to a Public Meeting to talk about it!

click read more to see the details

Today's Inquirer (click here to read more) reports that the owners of the Marathon Grill chain have agreed to pay nearly $21,000 in back wages to a group of former employees, half of them immigrants, to settle a Department of Labor complaint against the company.

Every day, thousands of immigrant workers go to service jobs in the Philly area. Most of them work for employers that are ethical and comply fully with the law. But not all of them are that lucky.

Find out why by clicking "read more" below.