It is rather sad when you think of it. Like Ms. Henry said we had the courage to put a man on the moon but we can’t tell billionaires to pay their fair share.

We can no longer afford tax subsidies for big oil companies, we can no longer afford to allow corporations like Wells Fargo to receive a $4 billion refund from taxpayers after posting $12 billion in profits, and CEOs likeExxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson can afford to go without his $1.4 million Bush era tax cut. With $800 billion, money generated by rolling back corporate tax breaks and forcing millionaires and corporations to pay their fair share, we could put more than six million Americans back to work over the next two years. These workers will in turn spend their wages and help create millions more jobs.

When Santander acquired Sovereign, it immediately laid off 23 percent of its new subsidiary’s workers. The company cut pay, slashed hours and doubled the cost of healthcare for workers. Sovereign workers knew they had to do something, so they approached SEIU last spring to help them organize.

via Too Big Not To Organize — In These Times.

Santander has responded to efforts at organizing by firings and union-busting activities.

I think this paragraph really says it all:

Santander bank branches are on average 75-percent unionized outside the United States, according to UNI Global Union Finance Director Oliver Roethig because most other industrialized nations have unionized banking sectors. In the United States, however, less than 1 percent of all front-office bank workers are organized. In fact, the unionized janitors working for contractors that clean Sovereign Bank’s headquarters in Boston, Mass., often make more than the bank tellers and personal bankers, whose average wage is $10-$12 dollars per hour, despite individually producing millions of dollars in profits for the bank each year.

Republican turned Democrat Arlen Specter is being endorsed by the Service Employees International Union in Pennsylvania’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary. SEIU says Specter is well-known as a fighter for Pennsylvania. The union said Specter has been there for SEIU and close to 100,000 SEIU members in Pennsylvania are now there for Specter. In endorsing Specter SEIU pointed to his support for increasing the minimum wage, for the economic recovery act and for unemployment compensation extensions.

via SEIU Endorses Arlen Specter In PA Democratic Senate Primary – 03/17/10 | Workers Independent News.

Well personally I’d have rather seen Joe Sestak get the endorsement, but I’m sure there are reasons that SEIU is going with Specter. All I’m saying is he better vote for the Employee Free Choice Act if he makes it back to Capitol Hill.

Look out American Medical Association, Phrma, Aetna, Cigna, Humana, UnitedHealthcare, GHI and Blue Cross Blue Shield! There’s a new anti-healthcare group in town. You all are no longer the leaders in denying millions of Americans healthcare claims and hiking up drug costs. Yes, that’s right HAARM is here. The acronym stands for Healthy Americans Against Reforming Medicine and they have a message for all of us.

I also like their list of HAARM-FUL Hereos.

Here’s one…

Most people know Rush Limbaugh as one of the country’s foremost experts on prescription drugs. But Rush is playing a much bigger role in the health care debate than that. Every day he educates his 20 million listeners on the finer points of Obamacare, like the little known tidbit that once this plan passes the government will be able to tell you not only what kind of car to drive but what kind of TV to purchase. Rush will never let the facts get in the way of scaring the bejeezus out of his listeners.

I see that healthcare workers at five hospitals operated by the Daughters of Charity Health System are planning to go on strike on August 28th for one day.

Caregivers represented by SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West have been bargaining a new contract with the health system since March. But management has refused to make any economic proposals, and is attempting to take away the voice of healthcare workers in staffing decisions, which could negatively impact patient care.

Technorati : seiu

They’re fighting for a living wage and health care for all. There’s also talk of a possible strike next month. The organizing effort to get the janitors unionized in different parts of the country has been one of the successes in an otherwise hostile labor environment in this country. Actually, Steven Greenhouse also talks about SEIU’s victories with the janitors in his new book which I just finished reading.