On November 2, 2009, Attorney General Martha Coakley walked a day in the shoes of 1199SEIU home care worker Monica. Coakley worked with Monica to care for Maureen, a consumer with MS. These are some photos from parts of their morning together:

Martha Coakley received a unified endorsement for the U.S. Senate from five SEIU Local unions and 60,000 workers. At the press conference celebrating her endorsement, Coakley boldly declared that she will fight for healthcare workers. "I have a reputation for not backing down," she said of her record for standing up to big business interests and law violators.

This week, Coakley also recieved an endorsement from the Massachusetts Nurses Association. Learn more about SEIU's Walk A Day In My Shoes program by visiting www.walkadayinmyshoes2008.com.

Thousands of activists have been whipping votes in Congress today in preparation for tomorrow's scheduled vote on health insurance reform. You've contacted 272 members of the U.S. House, but many still haven't gone on the record, and 163 members still need to be called. Have you whipped your Representative's vote yet? Whip your health care vote here: http://action.seiu.org/whip

Our legislative team is using your reports on the Hill, so keep them coming. Below are just a few of the helpful report-backs from callers:

Caller to Rep. Tim Ryan's office: At first he wouldn't tell me but once I pushed him a little he told me Congressman Ryan would vote "likely in favor of" the health care bill.

Caller to Rep. Jerry Moran's office: He does NOT support HR3962. I requested that the Congressman do some soul searching considering my insurance premiums increased by 20% last year and I can NO longer justify the extreme cost of health insurance.

Caller to Rep. Ben Chandler's office: She stated that the representative has not made a final decision however he is leaning towards no.

Caller to Rep. Betsy Markey's office: He said she had not made a decision at this time and as she was continuing to read the very long and important bill. I encouraged support several times. Sam says there have been many phone calls and that is why I got a busy signal on my earlier calls.

Caller to Rep. Kurt Schrader's office: The Congressman is still undecided until he reads through all of the legislation and looks over constituent feedback, including this call.

Caller to Rep. Tom Perriello's office: The Congressman is still undecided as he is still studying the changes from this past summer. I said I hoped he was not swayed by the Chamber of Commerce scare ads and reminded him it is his constituents who put him there.

Caller to Rep. John Boccieri's office: The Congressman is still reviewing information; told [the staff aide] that I work with many people who need a health care system without discrimination for pre-existing conditions or women's health care concerns.

Caller to Rep. Marcy Kaptur's office: He said Marcy was still reviewing the bill and that he would pass on any message. I asked him to please tell her to pass H.R. 3962 and that I hoped with all my heart that it has a strong public option.

Caller to Rep. Richard Neal's office: He actually said that Neal was leaning towards a yes vote. He said he wants to see what's in the bill.

Now it's your turn.

Cleaners at Anheuser-Busch breweries in Newark and Rochester recently found themselves without jobs, despite years of loyal service to the "King of Beers." The brewing behemoth has brought in cleaning contractors who seem bent on cutting costs for the $23 billion dollar multinational on the backs of the working people who keep their plants running and profitable.

The new contracting companies, U.S. Metro Group Inc. and Dawn Brite, have refused to accept job applications from the laid-off custodians who have long worked for AB. These new contractors have slashed wages by a margin that's rumored to be around 40 percent.

As for benefits (like affordable quality healthcare)...there aren't any to speak of.

"Doesn't Anheuser-Busch get that we need to feed our families?" asked 32BJ member Luci Peralta, a cleaner who has worked at the Newark brewery for six years but was laid-off last week (pictured on the right next to Giovanny, another janitor that was laid off on Oct. 31). "With no income, I don't know how I'll put food on the table and make our house payments."

Since merging with Brazilian-Belgian brewing company InBev a year ago, American beer lovers have seen what was once a family-led company that spared little expense turn into "one that is focused intently on cost-cutting and profit margins." The company reported revenues of more than $23.5 billion in 2008.

However, in order to afford to buy Anheuser-Busch last year, InBev had to borrow very heavily from a syndicate of banks, including JP Morgan Chase. As a result, the combined group is now saddled with more than $50 billion in debt. Yet despite weaker sales in 2009, the company said in August that their net profit for the quarter rose 28 percent. What InBev is not saying is that they are trying to turn a huge profit in a downturn economy on the backs of their employees. And while AB's workers have already faced cuts and layoffs, it's a distinct possibility that InBev's attempts to balance their deficit asap will continue to threaten the jobs of current employees at the 11 other breweries and Anheuser-Busch facilities across the country.

The laid-off janitors at the Newark brewery had been making $13.30 an hour and receiving healthcare. Now, they're worrying how they're going to feed their children and pay their bills. "This is an awful time for Anheuser-Busch to watch these workers be put out on the street,"said Kevin Brown, New Jersey area director for SEIU. "The holidays are right around the corner, and in this economy, the workers may not find jobs that pay the same wages. They may only find minimum-wage jobs that don't even cover their basic bills."

Remember when the HHS ordered Humana and other private insurance companies to stop sending customers mailers with deceptive information to scare them into joining the opposition's fight against reform? We're experiencing a very strong sense of deja vu with insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina.

BCBS sent out a mass mailing asking recipients to send a pre-paid postcard to Democratic Senator Kay Hagan to pressure her into opposing health care reform, which includes a public option to make insurance companies compete. Ironically, Blue Cross sent out the mailings denouncing health reform - while at the same time notifying its customers of double-digit rate increases.

The cover of the mailing sent by BCBS reads:

BCBS calls health care reform that includes a public option "unfair competition." You know what the irate recipients of the Blue Cross mailer think is unfair? That the insurance company spent thousands of their insurance premium dollars to fund such a counterproductive campaign. "People want affordability and choice in their health insurance; Blue Cross wants to keep their monopoly," said SEANC Executive Director Dana Cope. (Currently, Blue Cross controls over 70 percent of the market share in North Carolina).

The State Employees Association of North Carolina has launched a new website to fight back against the "non-profit" insurer's efforts to maintain their monopoly and put a lid on their corporate profits at the expense of ordinary working people and businesses: www.stopbcbs.com. SEANC is calling on Blue Cross to stop using health care dollars to fund their political machine and protect their bottom line. "North Carolina already has a single-payer system...We all pay Blue Cross and Blue Shield and they'll stop at nothing to protect their monopoly" reads the tagline above the petition.

A recent Elon University poll shows that a majority of North Carolinians support a public health care option. Help send a message loud and clear that it's time to deliver on health care - sign the petition and urge Senator Kay Hagan to back a public health insurance option.

Check out the mailing SEANC sent out in response to BCBS's anti-reform mailing after the break.

Thanks to your support, on Thursday the Senate voted NO on the Vitter-Bennett amendment by voting for for cloture in a 60 - 39 vote on the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations bill. For now, this puts to rest the divisive Vitter-Bennett amendment.

Thanks to SEIU's Don't Wreck the Census campaign--our micro site and Tweet your Senator tool--we generated over 750 letters and 1,700 phone calls to members of the Senate, urging them to vote NO on the Vitter-Bennett amendment.

In a statement, SEIU Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina said:

"Today U.S. Senators put working families ahead of the politics of division and hatred. Joining a chorus of former U.S. Census Directors and advocacy leaders, the Senate voted down Senators Vitter and Bennett's misguided attempt to undercut 2010 enumeration efforts and mar this critical process with hateful, anti-immigrant politics."

Read full statement by Medina here.

Again--thank you for making calls, writing letters, blogging, and Tweeting your Senators to vote no on the Vitter-Bennett amendment. In addition to SEIU, the Don't Wreck the Census campaign was composed of the of the following organizations: AAJC, CAP, Demos, HNBA, LCCR, LDF, LULAC, MALDEF, NALEO, NDN, PFAW, SEIU.

Read coverage of the victory in NOLA.com, the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal.

Have you ever helped "whip" a vote? Well, get ready.

Before a vote takes place, most Members of Congress are asked ahead of time which way they'll vote. It's called tallying the "whip count." It helps us figure out who needs to hear from us, and who's already made up their mind. There are 435 members of U.S. House of Representatives. That's a lot - and we can't do all this counting alone.

Our goal this week is to call every single office and ask how they'll vote on "The Affordable Health Care for America Act," H.R. 3962. Can you help whip a vote? Click here to whip a health care vote.

We're told the vote could happen this Saturday, and that it might be incredibly close. Help make sure Congress votes for this bill, which would:

• Vastly improve access to quality, affordable health care coverage
• Provide a strong public option that will compete side-by-side with insurance companies
• Eliminate insurance company "rescission" and denial of coverage due to "pre-existing conditions"
• End insurance company discrimination against women

You can bet that insurance companies like UnitedHealth, Humana and CIGNA have a legion of lobbyists talking to Congressional offices right now. We've got to make sure they remember who they were elected to represent - the American people. Help hold politicians accountable by whipping the vote for health care reform. Tell them to vote for H.R. 3962, "The Affordable Health Care for America Act."

>> Whip your Representative's vote right now.

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Several key groups just endorsed the House health care bill, H.R. 3962, including American Medical Association (AMA), AARP, and the American Cancer Society. Keep up the momentum - whip your Rep's vote right now: http://action.seiu.org/whip

 

Eight months of members advocating for a 2% base pay increase has paid off in a big way for SEIU Texas members in Dallas.

In the worst economy since the Great Depression and one of the City's worst budget years ever, employees within the following SEIU job classifications received a 2% base pay increase on October 1st: Crew Leaders, Equipment Operators, Laborers, and Truck Drivers.

MYTH: The Employee Free Choice Act played a role in Tuesday's elections.

Corporate lobbyist-backed groups like the Workforce Fairness Institute and other conservatives made the fact-free claim that Tuesday's elections were a referendum on the Employee Free Choice Act. Wrote WFI in an email to supporters:

National issues played heavily in The Old Dominion and no issue played more of a role in the debate than the Employee 'Forced' Choice Act or EFCA.

The Truth? Exit polls showed 71% of voters named health care or the economy as their number one issue Tuesday. And despite the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others' millions in spending to make Employee Free Choice an issue in last November's elections, they failed to have an impact there as well: a majority of voters stated that they supported the legislation, and that it was not a significant factor in their vote.

FACT: Workers who want to form a union routinely face harassment from their employers.

Lowe's employee breakroom signs against Employee Free Choice

After Lowe's Home Improvement settled last month (for nearly $30 million) a class action suit for requiring workers to work "off the clock," workers were greeted with the sign to the right in their workplace breakroom--a not-so-subtle reminder of the company's position on giving workers a voice on the job.

Employer intimidation continues to be a problem, and it's nothing new: according to a study by Cornell labor expert Kate Bronfenbrenner, 34 percent of the time workers try to form a union, their employers fire union supporters. Sixty three percent of the time companies interrogate workers, 54 percent of the time they threaten union supporters, and 47 percent of the time they threaten to cut workers' wages and benefits.

We just learned that the Senate is scheduled to vote on the Vitter-Bennett amendment today at noon.

It's time to make our voices heard on Capitol Hill.  Can you join us in calling your senators right now?

Don't let them inject their anti-immigrant agenda into every conceivable realm of public life.

Click here to call your Senator and tell them to vote NO on the Vitter-Bennett amendment: http://call.seiu.org/9/NOammendment2644

There's an old saying that goes, 'We make the road by walking.' Today, even in the face of historic opposition to change, there's no question that Barack Obama and the pro-worker members of Congress we elected last November are taking the steps towards real change with working families at their side.

Last November, we made history by electing Barack Obama. Over the past year, the change we've dreamt of for so long is becoming reality. Together, we saved the global economy from depression, made significant investments in green jobs, and have gotten further than at any other point in our history to winning affordable healthcare for all. Clearly, there is much more to be done. Because as we all know, real change is never achieved quickly--or without a fight.

But on this momentous anniversary of Barack's election, we're going on focus on the positive (as in, the glass is half-full instead of half-empty) and run down a laundry list of progress we're proud has been made over the past year:

• Make law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which has been responsible for creating or saving 650,000 jobs;
• Sign into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act;
• Pass a budget that includes a historic commitment to health insurance reform, and work with Congress to ensure that comprehensive reform passes in 2009;
• Appoint cabinet secretaries that working families can count on, including Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius;
• Provide a pathway to legal status for young people who were brought to the U.S. as undocumented immigrant children through the DREAM Act;
• Pass a sweeping expansion of the Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides healthcare coverage to an additional 4 million children of working families;
• Create a Middle Class Task Force and a Presidential Economic Recovery Advisory Board, and allow working families representatives like Anna Burger on it;
• Create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, to protect consumers from the unfair practices of our largest financial institutions.

"Along with the policy shifts we are witnessing, there is a change in culture as well," said SEIU President Andy Stern. "When Jordan Barab, the new Assistant Secretary for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, took office, he replaced the conference room photos of OSHA managers with photos of workers who've been killed on the job. How's that for a change in attitude?"

Check out the video our healthcare team put together to celebrate this moment:

I have been going to church for many, many years. And, I have to say, this is not something I've ever heard preached from the pulpit before.

Bloomberg reports that, last night, executives from the big banks went to churches across London to spread the word that their billion dollar bonuses are actually inspired by biblical teachings. According to Goldman Sachs bigwig Brian Griffiths, Jesus' teachings were an "endorsement of self-interest." He went on to say, "we have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all."

The term "inequality" doesn't even begin to describe the situation, though. Wall Street banks - Goldman Sachs included - are still paying out record bonuses in the billions of dollars. In fact, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein was one of the highest paid executives in the country last year. All this while millions of Americans are filing for bankruptcy, foreclosures are at record high rates, and unemployment has skyrocketed - largely due to the risky behaviors of these big banks.

That's not just inequality, that's injustice.

I don't pretend to be an expert on religious teachings; and I wouldn't dare presume to know what Jesus thinks of Wall Street's behavior. I want, instead, to post a few Bible passages that address this subject directly:

35 ' If one of your brethren becomes poor, and falls into poverty among you, then you shall help him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you.
36 'Take no usury or interest from him; but fear your God, that your brother may live with you.
37 'You shall not lend him your money for usury, nor lend him your food at a profit. (Leviticus 25:35-37)

17 Who has withdrawn his hand from the poor And not received usury or increase, But has executed My judgments And walked in My statutes -- He shall not die for the iniquity of his father; He shall surely live! (Ezekiel 18:17)

10 "I also, with my brethren and my servants, am lending them money and grain. Please, let us stop this usury!
11 "Restore now to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive groves, and their houses, also a hundredth of the money and the grain, the new wine and the oil, that you have charged them." (Nehemiah 5:10,11)

It's up to us, regardless of our faith, to decide if we want to live in a country that allows this behavior to continue.

Thanks to the working Americans who funded the banks' bailouts, banking giants and CEOs were able to get up, brush themselves off, and walk away from the financial crisis relatively unscathed. It is in no way acceptable, however, that their version of 'jumping back into the saddle' means continuing to pay out big figure bonuses to the architects of our economic collapse. Recent data from eFinancialCareers.com shows that financial professionals still think that the middle class should still be taking it on the chin to pad their pockets:

According to the survey, 83 percent of Wall Street professionals expect to receive bonuses this year, and one-third expect to receive even bigger bonuses than they did in 2008.

"You can't change 200 years of history overnight," said John Benson, founder and CEO of eFinancialCareers.com. "...Changing the pay structure is going to be an iterative process, because there are always unintended consequences to every change."

Although just over half of the 1,074 financial services professionals who participated in the survey noted their firms have revised bonus policies, most respondents said the attitudes towards the extreme risk taking that got us here in the first place hasn't changed. After all, why should bankers do things any differently when there is nothing to discourage their behavior? The typical worker has seen their 401k go down 24.3 percent, but Wall Street bonuses remain bigger than ever. The phrase "undeserved entitlement" comes to mind, to say the least.

It's time to end the notion of "too big to fail."

Over the past year, SEIU has partnered with a wide variety of organizations in the fight for health care reform. One such group is Sojourners, a Christian inter-faith group who view health care reform as a social justice issue.

Sojourners has released an online video, entitled "They Wait," that underscores how, as politicians and special interest groups attempt to delay and derail health care reform, ordinary people all over America are forced to wait, sustained only by the hope of quality, affordable care.

The video closes with a powerful call to action: "In suffering silence, they wait for us to remember why we began the debate. We cannot afford to wait any longer. The time for health reform is now."

An email this morning from Jason McBride of the humorously named "Workplace Fairness Institute" read, "Bob McDonnell made EFCA a central issue in his campaign and as a result, small businesses and workers from across the state decided to stand with him."

Unfortunately for Jason, the number of times "EFCA" is mentioned on Bob McDonnell's campaign website is ...

Zero.

Members of SPT-SEIU Local 1996 in Puerto Rico scored a victory when Superior Judge Carlos Dávila Vélez granted their petition to stop the Department of Education's (DE) plans to lay-off 6,000 workers on Friday, giving them an additional 30 days on the job. SEIU's petition claimed the DE failed to follow proper notification procedures requiring notice to workers 30 days prior to letters of dismissal.

Today the good news just kept on coming. In response to another national strike scheduled for this Friday, Puerto Rico's Board of Fiscal Reconstruction and Stabilization announced that state employee layoffs are to be postponed through at least January 8, 2010.

Over a hundred civil and labor leaders rushed to the SPT headquarters in Río Piedras to celebrate the victory tonight that is such great news for 6,746 SEIU members. "It is a victory, indeed," said Bishop Felipe Posada, a spokeperson of coalition Todo Puerto Rico con Puerto Rico. "But the struggle is not over." Posada announced the coalition is ready to resume talks with government, and not just on the subject of the lay-offs but on many other issues afflicting the people of Puerto Rico.

While the fight is far from over, this announcement is a powerful sign that the strong voices of labor, faith, and student leaders are being heard in San Juan. Nevertheless, the plans for a general strike and the agenda for Thursday vigil are still on. This good news doesn't change the fact that on Friday, the non-unionized workers will still be laid off. "In this extra time," says SPT-SEIU President Robert Pagan, "we must increase the pressure and give time to the Government to reflect on the damage done to the people of Puerto."