Mexico, MO- On Monday June 15 Representative Steven Webber of the 23^rd House District visited the Mexico Veterans Home to see first hand the hard work of AFSCME Council 72 members. Denise McCall the President of AFSCME Local 3503 guided Representative Webber’s visit through the residential floors of the veteran’s home and had this to say, “Rep. Webber’s visit to our facility was wonderful. It is great to see our elected officials taking an interest in the care of our veterans and the working people who care for them. Our members take great pride knowing Representative Webber is looking out for all of us.”  

During the Representatives tour President McCall highlighted two of the main challenges Local 3503 members face, mandated overtime and chronic understaffing at the facility. As a Marine and fellow veteran residents of Mexico Veterans Home were especially glad to see on of their own looking into their facility and care.

At the end of his tour Representative Webber had the following to say, “As a veteran I understand the sacrifices the residents of Mexico Veterans Home have made for all of us. It is our duty to make sure they receive the best care possible. That means making sure facilities like Mexico Veterans Home are fully funded and have staffing levels that ensure quality care for every veteran.”

(Op-ed originally printed in the Kansas City Star June 2, 2009)

Privatization has become a dirty word. And for good reason. Imagine where we would be today if George W. Bush had gotten his way and gambled away our Social Security on the stock market.

So it is disheartening to read that Missouri is privatizing more mental health services at Western Missouri Mental Health Center by transferring them to the financially fragile Truman Medical Center system.Sounds like a bad bet for those needing care for severe mental illness.

For years Western Missouri Mental Health Center has provided high quality care to patients with crisis mental health problems. But now those services are in jeopardy at a time when they are needed most.

More than 87,000 Missourians have lost their jobs in the last year. For the affected families those job losses are accompanied by a spike in mental stress and anguish and an increased demand for public services.

The solution proposed by some is simply to offload care for distressed Missourians to the Truman Medical Centers system. But Truman’s own CEO, John Bluford, has acknowledged that Truman might not be able to maintain its current level of services over the next three years.

According to a recent Kansas City Star article, “Bluford is anticipating that the Truman system will break even this year. But unless the economy improves or health care reform starts covering the uninsured, his hospitals may soon face red ink.”

It was important to stop former President Bush from privatizing Social Security.

We didn’t want to see our retirement security gambled away on the stock market.

Why would we ever gamble the health and safety of distressed Missourians in the same manner?

Every Kansas City area resident should be able to count on mental health services in good times and bad. We cannot do that if delivery of these services is contingent on how they affect a corporation’s bottom line. That will not guarantee them in tough times.

The state of Missouri should step up and continue to fully fund Western Missouri Mental Health Center. Now is not the time to gamble away the badly needed services it provides.

Don Zavodny is director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 72 Missouri/Kansas. The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees represents more than 6,000 public employees who provide mental health services across Missouri.

Washington, DC- A new union survey of more than 100 health care facilities across the country reveals that many are not adequately prepared to protect workers' health and safety during an influenza pandemic. The report, "Health Care Workers In Peril: Preparing to Protect Worker Health and Safety During Pandemic Influenza" conducted by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the AFL-CIO and other unions, concludes that workers face a very high risk of becoming infected when caring for patients with pandemic flu unless adequate health and safety measures are in place in advance of a pandemic. 

Download the Report: Health Care Workers In Peril (4.4MB PDF)

by Seth Michaels, May 27, 2009 of http://blog.aflcio.org/

If you sign up to join a union, you won’t face coercion or intimidation from your co-workers—or employers. Despite dire warnings by corporations against the majority sign-up process, a new study shows majority sign-up (card-check) protects workers and gives them the chance they need to form a union. It’s another critical point in favor of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would give workers across the country the choice about how to form a union and bargain for a better life.

The study, “Majority Authorizations and Union Organizing in the Public Sector: A Four-State Perspective,” written by top labor policy scholars under the direction of Robert Bruno of the University of Illinois, looks at the experience of four states (New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Oregon) where public-sector workers have the freedom to form unions through majority sign-up. If passed, the Employee Free Choice Act would give millions of workers the option of using either majority sign-up or a National Labor Relations Board election to form a union.

The study finds that since 2003, more than 34,000 public-sector workers have successfully formed unions through majority sign-up, without either coercion from their employers or their co-workers.

The study unambiguously revealed that the majority sign-up provision was used extensively without hint of union or employer abuse…contrary to business claims, in 1,073 cases of union certification and in at least 1,359 majority-authorization campaigns, there was not a single confirmed incident of union misconduct.

Workers who successfully used majority sign-up included nurses, nuclear safety policy analysts, custodians and others across a variety of job sectors.

The experience of these workers is a sharp contrast to workers trying to form unions under the broken private-sector system, where management controls the process and can interfere with impunity. In 2007 alone, nearly 30,000 workers were the victims of unfair practices or even illegal firings while trying to form unions.

Scholars at four universities participated in the study: the University of Illinois, Rutgers University, Cornell University and the University of Oregon. It’s an extension of Bruno’s earlier study that looked at majority sign-up in Illinois.

The researchers conclude:

New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Oregon have demonstrated that a majority authorization petition can genuinely determine the will of the employees to be unionized and provides a functional, largely non-adversarial and event-less process for insuring a fair work environment for everyone.

Workers need the freedom to form unions and bargain to get a fair share of the prosperity they create. It’s good for workers and it’s good for the economy. This landmark study demonstrates once again that workers—not their bosses—should get to choose how to form a union.

In a report issued today to Missouri legislators the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees called Republican moves to divert federal stimulus money to tax cuts as "an affront" to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and "likely illegal."

"The proposed redirection," the AFSCME report charges, "will undermine the vital public services and structures thousands of Missourians rely on every day."

Furthermore, the report finds that "The proposed reallocation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds will have little effect on the Missouri's economy and will squander a historic opportunity to reinvigorate Missouri's public services."  The supposed economic benefit and wisdom of such tax cuts has been challenged even by Republican leaders.

The ARRA was intended to ease state budget shortfalls and stimulate the economy by maintaining jobs and opening up new employment. However, the AFSCME report finds that the recent Missouri House Budget Committee proposal to divert the state's $1 billion share of recovery funds into further tax cuts "ignores urgent budget deficits...and puts at risk the growing number of vulnerable citizens who rely on the services."

AFSCME, with 1.6 million members nationwide, represents the state's health care employees and those who maintain state facilities. Over the past four years these agencies

have undergone severe budget cuts that have left them with serious staffing shortages and high turnover rates. High turnover wastes already limited resources and detracts from employees' ability to efficiently deliver services. In tandem with recent layoffs and cuts services provided to Missourians will be further undermined by the Republican  proposal.

Doubt among Republican leaders about efficacy of tax cuts

Republican claims of the economic benefit of tax cuts are dismissed even by some of the party's own legislative leadership. Senate President Pro Tem Charlie Shields has downplayed the impact of tax cuts as most Missourians are in the periphery of the state and, "A lot of the money leaks out across the state borders." Given the nebulous benefit of the proposed tax cut, the report finds the Budget Committee to be "playing politics with much needed federal stimulus dollars."

Making stimulus dollars work for Missourians

To reinvigorate the Missouri economy as called for in the newly enacted stimulus package, AFSCME is calling on the General Assembly to direct stimulus money toward repairing vital services for the state's citizens. Specifically,

•  $2.6 million to the Department of Mental Health maintaining critical services for 160 residents of the Marshal Habilitation Center and the St. Louis Developmental Disabilities Treatment Center and protecting 126 Missouri jobs.
•  $15.8 million to the Department of Mental Health to maintain state operation of 25 acute psychiatric beds and to maintain employment for 83 state employees at Western Missouri Mental Health Center
•  $35 million to transit funding for St. Louis Metro to restore normal service for thousands of St. Louis citizens and workers
• $300,000 to achieve full funding of the voter established Missouri Quality Home Care Council
•  $1.7 million direct investment for Direct Care and Craft & Maintenance salaries - aligning their salaries to the "market rate" in accordance with Personnel Advisory Board recommendations from FY 2004-FY 2009

 A Copy of the report can be found by clicking here: Investing in Missouri's Workers and Citizens

The economy no longer works for working families, and our broken health care system is a major part of the problem. That's why we hope you'll sign-up to participate in an official Health Care for America Now event this April.

Congress is at home on their April recess this month and we're working with Health Care for America Now to organize events across the country. Together, we will show members of Congress we need real health care reform and we need it now.

Stand for working families everywhere and find an event for quality, affordable health care near you.

The fact is, working families pay a steep price for a health care system that is broken—and it's dragging our entire economy down:

• Roughly half of the families that file for bankruptcy do so at least in part because of health care debt.
• More than 46 million Americans had no health insurance in 2007, a number that has shot up with the onset of the economic recession.
• Over 40% of working-age Americans had problems paying medical bills in 2007.

When Congress returns in May, you can bet they'll be hearing from the drug and insurance companies in Washington—that's why it's so important that they hear from YOU this April.

If you're up for it (and we hope you are) please join the more than 15,000 people who are taking a stand for working families and attend a Health Care for America Now event this month.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tenn., where he traveled to support AFSCME sanitation workers fighting for fair wages and recognition of their union: AFSCME Local 1733.

Dr. King did not live to see the full realization of his dream. Nonetheless, the cause of equality and economic justice to which he dedicated his life remains as relevant today as it was four decades ago.

Our country has made definite progress toward ensuring the doors of the American Dream are open to all. As Pres. Barack Obama said in his inaugural speech, this is “why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.”

But the fact of the matter is this: when it comes to completely fulfilling Dr. King’s dream of an America with abundant opportunity and shared prosperity and when it comes to making sure the American Dream really is in reach for all, this nation still has a lot of work to do.

When 47 million Americans lacking health insurance and those who have it see their premiums skyrocket beyond their means, it’s clear that we need quality, affordable health care for all.

When national unemployment stands at 8.5 percent, we need to stop layoffs and ease the burden on state and local governments so they can keep providing vital public services in times of need.

When the middle class continues to get squeezed out of existence, and more than half of U.S. workers – 60 million – say they would join a union if they could, we must give them this possibility. We need the Employee Free Choice Act to restore the freedom to bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions without harassment from employers.

In other words, we must create an America that lives up to its ideals – the ideals expressed in Dr. King’s dream.