Mike Hall, AFL-CIO, May 12, 2012 Kaiser Permanente and the nearly 100,000 members of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, reached tentative agreement yesterday on a new, three-year national contract. The tentative agreement covers workers at hundreds of Kaiser Permanente health care facilities in nine states. The current agreement expires September 30. The tentative agreement includes wage increases and maintains current benefits plus improves the dental plan. Kaiser Permanente also has committed $19 million annually to two existing educational trust funds to ensure career development for its diverse workforce. ... Unions

Sal Rosselli, National Union of Healthcare Workers, May 11, 2012 Two years ago, NUHW members at Kaiser Permanente made a decision: at a time when Kaiser is making billions in profits, there’s no reason for workers to agree to the benefit cuts that Kaiser put on the bargaining table. So along with our allies in the California Nurses Association and the Stationary Engineers, we fought back. Our campaign to win a fair contract for Kaiser caregivers has included four separate strikes, including the two biggest walkouts in Kaiser’s history. Through these actions, we have stopped Kaiser from imposing any cuts on NUHW members. ... SEIU

Debbie Almendarez, National Union of Healthcare Workers, May 8, 2012 For months, SEIU and Kaiser have been trying to figure out a way to cut our health and retirement benefits. We’ve been standing up to them and saying, “No Way.” Because thousands of us have stood together, Kaiser and SEIU are stuck. They can’t push takeaways on us without being exposed as frauds. So now Kaiser and SEIU officials are discussing postponing the cuts until after the government reruns our Service and Tech election. There’s only one reason Kaiser and SEIU are backing away from their agreement to cut our benefits: because we said no. ... We're

Barbara Anderson, Fresno Bee, May 4, 2012 Fresno County's 10,000 homecare workers could face a rerun of a bitterly fought union election to decide their representation if an effort for a new vote is successful. But the bid for a re-election won't come without its own fight. Members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers want to overturn a narrow win in 2009 by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers-West. SEIU-UHW vows to oppose the attempt. ... Homecare

Caps Historic Day of Protest – May 18.
National Nurses United, May 15, 2012 The critically acclaimed actress and playwright Anna Deavere Smith, who portrays a nurse on the Emmy award winning Showtime dark comedy Nurse Jackie, will perform Tell Us Where It Hurts, America’s Nurses are Listening, a theatrical piece written for an estimated international audience of more than 1,000 nurses. This unique performance is derived from real-life stories of nurses and their patients gathered by the members of National Nurses United (NNU). ... Anna

National Nurses United, May 13, 2012 New York - Moyers & Company, a current affairs program featuring Bill Moyers and airing on PBS stations nationwide, will run a segment this Sunday evening with RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in the country, with 170,000 members. The interview focuses on the union's call for a Robin Hood Tax, a sales tax on Wall Street speculation that could raise up to $350 billion a year in revenue. "The money generated," says Moyers ... "could be used for social programs and job creation" ... Bill

Max Berger, AlterNet, May 13, 2012 As long as there has been a thing called Occupy Wall Street, there have been people who've suggested it should become the left's version of the Tea Party. Josh Harkinson's piece is a notable contribution to the conversation because it comes after eight months of in-depth reporting on the movement. Harkinson, like Jennifer Granholm, suggests that Occupy should recruit and run candidates, so the left has champions in Congress and can credibly threaten less ideologically aligned Democrats. According to this logic, it doesn't matter if Occupy does this itself or essentially outsources the job to our progressive allies ... Occupy

Nurses Praise Tom Morello, Public Support for May 18 Rally.
National Nurses United, May 11, 2012 National Nurses United today welcomed a decision by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and city officials to reverse efforts to block a planned rally by nurses and community supporters, joined by eminent musician Tom Morello, at Daley Plaza, May 18.

 Earlier this week Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the city had demanded an 11th hour shift in the rally site from Daley Plaza to a far less visible location – despite the fact that nurses have long held a permit for the plaza, and many years of legal precedent and established practice ... Chicago

Sarah Anderson, Chicago Sun-Times, May 11, 2012 Of all the street actions leading up to the NATO summit, the one that might seem most perplexing is a nurses’ rally for a tax on securities trades. Financial markets are pretty remote from hospital bedsides, you might think. Why would nurses get mixed up in an issue like that? RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, says there’s a simple explanation: “The big banks, investment firms and other financial institutions, which ruined the economy with trillion-dollar trades on people’s homes and pensions and similar reckless gambling, should pay for the recovery.” ... Nurses

Richard (RJ) Eskow, Campaign for America's Future, May 11, 2012 Heard about the meeting that's being held to decide your economic future? If the answer's "no," don't feel bad: That's because you weren't invited. But Tim Geithner was. So was Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican member of Congress whose radical right-wing plans for cutting Medicare have made him the subject of a Mitt Romney "bromance." So was Bill Clinton, who showed up last year and uttered the usual Beltway insider's falsehoods about what's really wrong with Social Security. ... Will

Labor Notes, May 10, 2012 If there's one consensus opinion about the weekend's Labor Notes Conference, it's certainly that there's more than any one attendee could keep track of. Or even a dozen. Sameerah Ahmad first came to a Labor Notes Conference as a student activist and was impressed to find a place where rank-and-file workers, union activists, and troublemakers of all stripes - from all over the world - had a home. Now she's the director of the Cincinnati Interfaith Workers Center, and she brought 12 members along with her to Chicago for the May 4-6 Labor Notes gathering. But even with a dozen folks participating in workshops, she said they couldn't get to everything ... The

Mischa Gaus, Labor Notes, May 9, 2012 Wisconsin voters chose Tom Barrett yesterday as the Democrat to face Republican Scott Walker in the June 5 vote for governor. Barrett won the Democratic primary handily, defeating Kathleen Falk, the candidate endorsed by most major unions in the state, by 22 points. Barrett, the preferred choice of the state's Democratic establishment, has hinged his campaign on his independence from labor, and repeated many of the same talking points about public sector workers that voters hear from the Walker camp. ... Wisconsin

Mike Hall, AFL-CIO, May 9, 2012 This is National Nurses Week and National Nurses United (NNU) is sending out “a simple thank you” to the nation’s 3.1 million registered nurses because: Your work is not easy. You must have compassion and endurance to be there in the middle of the night, when your patient is struggling with pain. You must have patience and courage to fight that bureaucratic red tape that’s delaying your patient’s medications from the hospital pharmacy. ... Thank

CBS, May 9, 2012 Chicago – Is the city of Chicago double-crossing demonstrators planning protests during the weekend of the NATO summit? That’s what protest organizers are charging, claiming the city is going back on its word on where and how two big marches will conclude. CBS 2’s Derrick Blakley reports veterans planning an anti-NATO protest thought they could rally near McCormick Place, but have been told they can’t. Nurses planning their own protest rally that weekend wanted to go to Daley Plaza, but have now been told to go to Grant Park. Both groups claim the city is unfairly changing the rules very late in the game. ... Nurses

David Heinzmann & Jeff Coen, Chicago Tribune, May 9, 2012 Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration pulled the plug Tuesday on the only NATO protest planned for a workday in the Loop business district, revoking permission for a May 18 Daley Plaza rally barely a week before world leaders are to arrive in Chicago. The National Nurses United group that planned the demonstration and other protest groups called the move a violation of free speech and said it fits a pattern of City Hall trying to marginalize demonstrations against the May 20-21 gathering. "If the nurses are a threat to Rahm Emanuel, then heaven help the US," said RoseAnn DeMoro ... City