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In a mailing to CNA/NNOC members this week, SEIU blasts CNA/NNOC forsupporting a "government-run health care system." McCain has used almostidentical language to disparage Obama's proposals for healthcare reform on anissue that will be a major focus of the fall campaign.
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"By carelessly and cynically adopting the McCain language, SEIU is notonly showing its contempt for the majority of Americans who have toldpollsters that the government should guarantee healthcare for everyone as asolution to the healthcare crisis that has put so many of our families atrisk.
"They are also giving aid, comfort, and ammunition to Sen. McCain whoseown healthcare plan would be a disastrous continuation of the dismal andfailed status quo," said CNA-NNOC co-president Malinda Markowitz, RN.
By using his language, SEIU is effectively "validating McCain's attack onObama," she charged. "We can now expect that McCain will be able to quote SEIUas sharing his disgraceful attempts to subvert desperately needed efforts totransform our dysfunctional and broken healthcare system," she said.
SEIU's latest attack comes just days before a planned "mediation" sessionbetween SEIU and CNA/NNOC next week in Washington. But SEIU's tactics, saidCNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro, "make success in this forum lesslikely."
SEIU, she said, "will be using the meeting as a staging ground to attemptto show Democratic Party officials that it wants to end its war on RNs, evenwhile it is quoting McCain in its attacks on us."
What SEIU says it is proposing, she noted, is a "no-raid agreement," atthe moment SEIU is actively campaigning to raid the New York State NursesAssociation, other RN unions, the Puerto Rico Federation of Teachers, andother unions.
"SEIU's goal is to cannibalize all professional nurses' unions," saidDeMoro, "while it is undermining the power of RNs to be patient advocates andcolluding with employers against the interests of nurses and patients."
"For SEIU to represent any RNs is an injury and insult to all RNs,"Markowitz said.
SEIU is a non-RN union -- only 1 percent of its members are RNs -- and hasbeen steadily reducing representation for its remaining RNs, DeMoro noted.
Just this week at its national convention, SEIU adopted a plan to endworkplace representation and force RNs and other members to phone call centerswhen they need help.
As one SEIU member told the New York Times, "sometimes you can't getthrough to these centers. It's like talking to an ATM." During debate on theresolution, several delegates expressed concerns about the centers,particularly those that handle calls for several locals. "I never dreamedoutsourcing would be a good idea," one delegate said, adding, "we aren't acorporation," the Bureau of National Affairs reported today.
To obtain sweetheart deals with employers, SEIU has "routinely sacrificedpatients," DeMoro noted. She cited, for example, an agreement with Californianursing home operators under which SEIU agreed to back legislation impedingpatients' rights to sue over nursing home abuses and oppose reforms to requirebetter staffing for patient safety. SEIU also joined with the New Yorkhospital industry to endorse the closure of hospitals and nursing homes.
On healthcare reform, CNA/NNOC's position "to demand genuine reform hasbeen repeatedly directed by CNA/NNOC members in convention and other forums,"said Markowitz, "because nurses daily witness the pain and suffering of ourpatients at the hands of the private insura
