The economic crisis in Puerto Rico is fast racing towards a depression-era level. The unemployment level is already at 17 percent, and Governor Fortuño's recent pink-slipping of 17,000 government workers to take effect Nov. 6 will only make things worse. If not stopped, Puerto Rico's unemployment rate could easily reach that of New Orleans post-hurricane Katrina.

Gov. Fortuño said the job cuts, expected to save $386 million, are necessary because the government faces a $3.2 billion deficit this year. These numbers are certainly nothing to sniff at---but I can't help but wonder about the money Puerto Rico has received from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Thanks to these funds, other states in crisis have already generated thousands of new jobs in green sectors, sustainable energy, information technology, and infrastructure. But according to federal reporting, Puerto Rico has created only 126 jobs after receiving $2.9 BILLION in ARRA funds. Even with my rudimentary accounting knowledge, I'm pretty sure these numbers don't add up.

In a Huffington Post piece today, SEIU Healthcare Chair Dennis Rivera warns that "what started as a march in protest to the impending firings of public sector workers has turned into a movement to hold Governor Fortuño accountable for solving [Puerto Rico's] financial nightmare."

Failing to suppress turnout, the Governor's administration did its best to minimize the event, officially stating that 15,000 people turned out while the media estimates were 150,000 and organizers estimated closer to 300,000. Governor Fortuño and his administration are clearly aware that it's one thing to have a problem contained at home; it's quite another thing to become a problem in the eyes of Congress and the Obama administration.

While President Obama's vision for the U.S. economy is anchored in creating good jobs, affordable healthcare, and increasing accountability in the private sector, Governor Fortuño is clinging desperately to George Bush's failed economic agenda. This agenda protected the private sector and the very wealthy at all costs, decreased government accountability, and basically stacked the deck against the poor and middle class. And here we are one recession, an American Recovery Investment Act and a TARP Act later working our way out of it.

If Governor Fortuño and Puerto Rico's Resident Commissioner, Congressman Pierluisi can keep the problem quarantined within Puerto Rico, they too will get a free pass on accountability for their lack of a clear plan to revive the U.S. territory's plummeting economy. They will continue to apply "survival of the fittest" economics to Puerto Rico with no need to account for how America's multi-billion dollar funding to the island is invested.

Read the full piece at Huffington Post here. More on SEIU's blog about today's follow-up actions by Todo Puerto Rico Por Puerto Rico.

For an inadvertent visitor, there were plenty of street festivals going on in Puerto Rico on Thursday. Very loud music played on enormous loudspeakers, people were chanting and dancing in the streets and a very joyful ambiance was felt everywhere.

It wasn't a carnival happening in Puerto Rico though--it was the General Strike that mobilized over 150,000 workers and citizens to protest Republican Governor Luis Fortuño's massive layoffs. "It was tremendous. I've been in the labor movement for 44 years and this was the most impressive event I've ever seen. It was up there with the immigrant mobilizations of 2006," said Executive VP Eliseo Medina of the assembly of Puerto Rican workers. "It was one of the most diverse events that I've ever seen in a society. Lawyers, workers, students, psychologists, priests and minsters and nuns and everyday people. It was truly an amazing sight. It was pretty clear, our rejection of Governor Fortuño's policies."

Thursday's one-day national strike and rally was a first for many Puerto Ricans who had never taken the streets to protest before. As 'firsts' go, this one was quite impressive! On the morning of the 15th, seven marches from various locations across the Island converged at the main rally site in Hato Ray: Plazas las Americas, the largest shopping mall in the Caribbean. The shopping center was transformed into an enormous rainbow of flags and colorful banners, calling for a revoke of the law that authorized the firing of over thirty thousand public servants. According to reports, all mass public transportation was stopped, except for the trains. The port, docks and ferries in San Juan came to a halt, as did practically all public services across the Island. The public school system closed after only 2 percent of all students showed up for class, and all public universities were also closed.

SEIU Healthcare chair Dennis Rivera, Local 1966SPT President Robert Pagan and Eliseo Medina joined the historic protest alongside hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rican workers, SEIU members, faith leaders, students and citizens in what's being called 'the greatest public demonstration in Puerto Rico's history.' SEIU leaders have been in San Juan since Wednesday helping out the striking workers, as many of the laid-off workers are SEIU members. "It is critical. 7,500 members of SEIU are going to lose their jobs," SEIU Healthcare chair Dennis Rivera told The Hill. "If SEIU cannot help their members in their time of need, what good would this organization be?"

Even in the wake of largest demonstration in Puerto Rican history as the country's unemployment rate tops 17 percent, Governor Fortuño continues to parrot his plan to lay off 17,000 state employees made viable under Law 7 will not be repealed. While Governor Fortuño has made it clear that he's not going to listen to the citizens of Puerto Rico or the widespread opposition to his administration's policies, this fight is far from over. "The people have spoken, and they are not going to allow this administration to devastate the lives of working families, ruin the economy, and dismantle Puerto Rico's safety net," said Dennis Rivera. Members of SEIU Local 1996SPT, Local 1199 UGT and other unions and coalitions in Puerto Rico have pledged to continue protests against the job cuts in and outside of the Island.

As the impending date the massive layoffs go into effect creeps closer, thousands of civil servants are living in moments of despair and distress, wondering how they will pay their bills and feed their children after November 6th. Fortuño's draconian budget cuts and cancellation of workers' collective bargaining rights in response to the fiscal crisis is not an acceptable solution by the Government to the Island's already under-served citizens. It's up to us to turn up the heat on Congress and demand they hold hearings on Fortuño's anti-American actions: http://action.seiu.org/page/s/PRcivilrights

More on the strike and recent events in Puerto Rico on SEIU's Blog here. More photos from the October 15th strike here.

Throughout the August recess, thousands of nurses, doctors and healthcare workers across America signed medical scrubs in support of healthcare reform. Over 10,000 scrubs emblazoned with the message "Every Patient Matters" carry personal stories like this one from Jennifer Solovay, an ICU nurse from Northridge, California:

"I know of patients playing 'doctor' meaning, they would literally cut their blood pressure pills in half to stretch the medications simply because they cannot afford it. It's the choice of putting food on the table or buying expensive medicine."

On Wednesday, September 23, nurses, doctors, and SEIU healthcare workers will join Dennis Rivera, Dr. Toni Lewis and activists in a rally on Capitol Hill to deliver the hand-signed scrubs to members of Congress.

You can RSVP to this event, in Washington DC, by clicking here.

In union news this week...

• Disability service workers at the Ulster-Greene ARC in New York State voted overwhelmingly to join SEIU Local 200United over the weekend. These 600 workers provide services to more than 1,000 people with developmental disabilities-- epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, autism, Down syndrome and cerebral palsy, to name just a few.

• On Friday, SEIU hosted a myth-busting conference call with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and thousands of SEIU members across the country. "This is our moment in history and we don't want to look back and say 'if only we had...'" said Sebelius, urging SEIU members to attend local health care town hall meetings and spread the word that those supporting reform need to write letters to their Congressperson or Senator "so our representatives know we need healthcare reform this year."

• Just eight months after U.S. creditors pulled its credit lines and forced the 100 year-old company whose employees make suits for President Obama to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the Hartmarx purchase is (finally!) finalized...thanks largely to the efforts of Workers United members, who saved the company--and their jobs.

• SEIU 32BJ's Training Fund has developed the first-ever Green Buildings Initiative to train building superintendents in the latest, state-of-the-art, best practices in energy efficiency to foster the greening of NYC's buildings.

• Andy Stern discusses healthcare reform with Roland Martin on the Tom Joyner Morning Show.

• "Fixing our country's health care system is a pressing issue for every American, but it's of critical importance to communities of color," writes CIR/SEIU Healthcare President Dr. L Toni Lewis and SEIU Healthcare Chair Dennis Rivera in a guest op-ed on BlackAmericaWeb.com entitled "Why We Need Healthcare Reform Now."

• The NY Times publishes an op-ed by Dr. L Toni Lewis honoring journalist Sidney Zion's work to uncover the connection between hospital staff hours and medical errors.

• The 1021 NewsWire and other SEIU Local 1021 publications win a total of six awards for excellence in writing, design and production from the International Labor Communications Association (ILCA). Congrats!

Now that we're closer than ever before to reforming our health care system, the opposition is ratcheting up the fear-mongering and deception. They'll say anything to dominate the public conversation and disrupt productive dialogue, and do anything to block reform--including harassment, intimidation, and physical violence.

For several days now, radical-fringe right-wing opponents bent on blocking any reform legislation have disrupted town hall meetings conducted by members of Congress. At the same time they're engaging in Astroturf [read: fake grassroots] activism, these radical-fringe groups are disseminating discredited myths about health care reform bills that were adopted by four Congressional committees. Astroturfing by conservative opponents of reform is particularly dishonest because it masks the true motivations of the powerful interests--like the desire of industries to maintain the status quo.

These conservative lobbyist-run groups are leading the way orchestrating town hall mobs.

FreedomWorks
According to TPM, FreedomWorks is teaming up with the Tea Party Patriots to target Blue Dogs on health care reform. "Take, for instance, an email exchange, obtained by TPMDC, between a protester and a FreedomWorks field organizer on a list serv operated by the latter. Last month, Tom Gaitens, a FreedomWorks field manager posted a spreadsheet containing contact information for Blue Dogs and their chiefs of staff, to a tea party organizers list serv that he manages." In addition, Roll Call reported that FreedomWorks is one of the organizations "behind the efforts" to disrupt town hall meetings. [Talking Points Memo, 8/4/2009; Roll Call, 8/5/2009] The group, chaired by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, is emailing 380,000 supporters an "August Recess Action Kit" link this week.

Conservatives for Patients' Rights
Conservatives for Patients' Rights, a $20 million operation that's running a national campaign against a public plan to kill progressive health care reform, is now publicly taking credit for helping stir up the sometimes-rowdy outbursts targeting House Dems at town hall meetings around the country. Which makes these disruptions seem....a little less than spontaneous, or simply a reflection of grassroots sentiment. CPR has posted a list of congressional town halls to be held over August recess "as a resource for our visitors." The fact-checking website Politifact.com has rated Conservatives for Patients' Rights statements about health care reform, "Barely True."

Americans for Prosperity
Americans for Prosperity Helping to Organize Tea Party Protests. The Charlotte Observer reported that Americans for Prosperity is "the organization behind this year's taxpayer tea parties," and the Roanoke Times reported "the Tea Party Patriots and Americans for Prosperity organized the Nationwide Tea Party protest day." [Charlotte Observer, 7/22/2009; Roanoke Times, 7/18/2009] The group is listed as a "Health Care Freedom Coalition Partner" on the Tea Party Patriots website. It was established by oil magnate David Koch, and its creation is a result of a split from an earlier Koch-based enterprise, now called FreedomWorks (sound familiar?) AFP was also instrumental in orchestrating the anti-Obama, anti-tax tea party protests in April.

Americans for Prosperity's various fronts and disclosures that point to ever-increasing oil and corporate donations to the group are guided by AFP President Tim Phillips--who, as The Wonk Room notes, "has built a long career of inventing fake grassroots causes." Phillips' resume includes founding an Atlanta-based firm with Abramoff-connected Ralph Reed. The firm, Century Strategies, has a history of mounting "grassroots lobbying drives," and Reed in the past has said (when attempting to help Enron deregulate the electricity industry), "it matters less who has the best arguments and more who gets heard -- and by whom."

Club for Growth
Right-Wing founder Steven Moore pushed for ending all assistance to low-income Americans, calling Medicare "Catastrophic." In 2000, Moore advocated abolishing welfare, stating, "The most valuable step the Congress could take to help dismantle the welfare-poverty trap would be to abolish all programs that provide benefits for not working: food stamps, AFDC, and public housing, for example." In 2003, Moore wrote, "Every American taxpayer knows full well the fiscally catastrophic impact of programs like Medicare, Medicaid and other black-check income redistribution programs." [Washington Times, 4/07/00; Detroit News, 7/21/03]

Americans for Tax Reform/Grover Norquist
Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist Pushing Members to Attend Town Hall Meetings. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, "said he encourages his members to attend town-hall meetings - and arms them with suggested questions." [Roll Call, 8/5/2009]

A serious and civil discourse about healthcare reform - tied to facts, not myths - will substantially increase the public's support for reform. "America's families want the peace of mind that comes with knowing that health insurance and care can never be taken away - when they switch jobs, lose jobs, start a business, or become sick. That's why a civil discourse is so important, and that's why health insurance reform is essential," said SEIU Healthcare Chair Dennis Rivera.

Playing politics with health reform is simply unacceptable. We must fight back against lies and fear-mongering to drown out the opposition--and send the message that health care reform must happen this year. That starts with knowing who we're up against--so read our "fact checks" on FreedomWorks, Conservatives for Patients' Rights, Americans for Prosperity, Club for Growth and Americans for Tax Reform/Grover Norquist.

This week, Politico dubbed SEIU Healthcare Chair Dennis Rivera "The Organizer" on their list of five people who could play a prime time role in affecting the course of health care reform. Using SEIU's war room operation as an example, Politico highlights how Rivera has "helped SEIU become the most aggressive and ubiquitous player in the healthcare debate;" describing him as a man "with a reputation for getting the job done."

As both a successful online and a print publication in just its third year of existence, Politico has done an impressive job of establishing itself in Washington as a key destination for political news and beyond--making Rivera's inclusion on this list as someone to watch a noteworthy accomplishment indeed. Read Politico's "The five faces to watch for in debate over care" here.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and SEIU Healthcare Chair Dennis Rivera have published a joint op-ed on the Huffington Post with a simple message: health care reform must happen this year, period.

As the mayor of the largest city in America and the chair of the largest health care professionals union in the country, Bloomberg and Rivera probably don't agree on every detail of the best way to fix health care. But they do agree that putting aside minor differences to support President Obama's plan is crucial not only for fixing health care but also for reviving our economy.

From the article:

That is why we heartily support President Obama's plan to address healthcare reform immediately and to evaluate any reform proposal against eight commonsense, nonpartisan principles: protecting families' financial health, making health care coverage affordable, aiming for universal coverage, providing portability of coverage, guaranteeing choice, investing in prevention and wellness, improving patient safety and quality of care, and maintaining long-term fiscal sustainability. These are principles that everyone -- Democrats, Republicans, Independents, mayors, business and labor -- can and should rally around.

As with all the great advancements our country has made, solving the health care crisis will not be easy. But the importance and urgency of finding a solution far outweigh the difficulty. For Congress, there is no greater imperative than fixing health care this year.

President Obama made his commitment to quality, affordable health care crystal clear yesterday at his White House Forum. Change needs to happen this year and SEIU members will help lead the fight to reform health care. After attending the forum, SEIU President Andy Stern, Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger, and SEIU Healthcare Chair Dennis Rivera had this to say:

Tell Congress to help put our economy and our health care system back on track by supporting the president's budget.

Today, beginning at 1pm ET, President Obama is hosting a one-day health forum at the White House to officially launch a discussion on how we can bring about meaningful change in health care. The White House Forum on Health Reform represents the next step in the administration's strategy to fix our broken health care system. It will bring together key stakeholders in the health care debate - those who worked to pass health care reform a decade ago and those who worked to defeat it.

The 120 participants - Republicans, Democrats, insurance companies, labor, doctors and patient advocates, including SEIU's President Andy Stern, Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger and SEIU Healthcare chair Dennis Rivera - will be working together to offer up ideas for the best way to make reform happen and increase coverage for all Americans. Rivera will participate in one of five panels at the Summit, discussing how to bring down health care costs.

In addition to this forum, the White House has also launched a new website, healthreform.gov to allow Americans to follow Washington's progress in enacting real reform. Starting at 1pm, you can go to healthreform.gov and watch live video streams of each session of the forum. Watch the White House Forum on Health Reform live now.

Reuter's has a list of groups who will be involved with the debate (SEIU, AARP, and Business Roundtable, to name just a few): http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0443193020090305

WASHINGTON, DC - SEIU Healthcare Chair Dennis Rivera issued the following statement today regarding the 2008 Colorado Health Care Summit:

"The more than 2 million working families of SEIU commend Former Senator Tom Daschle and the Obama healthcare transition team for their commitment to fixing health care--and we look forward to doing our part to promote this vital effort across the country.

"Senator Daschle's announcement today confirming the commitment of the new administration to address the healthcare crisis in America is great news for patients, caregivers, and employers alike. Senator Daschle has long been a champion for working families, and his announcement today is a tribute to his proven record of standing up for improvements to the healthcare system.

"More broadly, the recognition by Senator Daschle and the Obama team that rising healthcare costs are putting pressure on families and on businesses offers hope the mounting crisis will be addressed early in the next administration to help get our economy back on track. Clearly, any solution must expand coverage, reduce costs, and improve quality--the very priorities spelled out by Senator Daschle in Denver today.

"Today, SEIU's working families applaud Senator Daschle for his ongoing innovation, his steadfast commitment to fix the healthcare system, and his bold proposals for engaging Americans in the solutions. The fact that the Obama team is proposing some of the same tools that worked so well during the presidential election to ensure the voices of ordinary American families are part of the debate--including soliciting ideas by Internet and at house parties--demonstrates their commitment to addressing the problems on Main Street in a real way. SEIU healthcare workers plan to attend these house parties so we can share what we hear every day: working Americans need quality, affordable coverage they can count on.

"It is both fitting and telling that Senator Daschle's announcement should come from an event in Colorado, where Senator Ken Salazar has also shown great leadership in the movement to reform the healthcare system. With the Partnership for a Healthy Colorado citing each Colorado family will spend more than $934 to care for the uninsured by the end of 2008 and Families USA showing premiums for the average family have risen 82 percent in the last six years alone, Colorado exemplifies the severity of the situation nationwide. Senator Salazar has consistently shown he recognizes Coloradoans--and Americans overall--can't wait any longer to hear solutions to the healthcare crisis.

"SEIU members--more than one million of whom went to work today in hospitals, nursing homes, and as home care providers--are committed to work together with Senators Daschle, Salazar and other elected and business leaders to rebuild the healthcare system and the economy so they work for working people again."

"We have a president who has promised to prioritize health care and improve the lives of workers. We have a Congress that has committed to providing economic relief for families--including affordable health insurance," writes SEIU Healthcare chair Dennis Rivera, in The Hill's Congress Blog.

"The 46 million Americans without health insurance--many of whom are just one illness away from financial disaster--cannot wait any longer. That's why the two million working families of SEIU have begun gearing up for an unprecedented campaign to win health care for all."