On September 30th, the Child Nutrition Act expired.

The Congressional Committee on Education and Labor, which oversees the Act, had the opportunity to improve the lives of our children and those that feed them.

But rather than pass a bill that would create a program that works far better, they simply decided to simply take a pass for the next few months.

The result is a year-long, temporary extension that keeps the program exactly as it is today: a program that leaves children hungry, places a burden on our school districts, and leaves school food workers without the resources to cook nutritious and healthy school meals.

We need to tell the Committee members that this isn't acceptable. In the midst of the Great Recession, there's no better time to fix these problems than right now.

In the next few months, the members of the Committee will once again take up this legislation. But we can't hold off until then. We need to tell them right now that a real Act - with real improvements - must be authorized.

We've laid out common-sense ideas like expanding enrollment, giving sick days to school food service workers at a time when the swine flu is spreading, supporting fresh and local foods, and better transparency in how taxpayer funds are spent. These are real solutions that can benefit our children each and every day.

Now, we need you to tell the Committee members why a real Child Nutrition Act is important to you. In the next few days, we'll hand-deliver your messages to the members of this Committee.

Write to the Congressional Committee on Education and Labor right now: http://action.seiu.org/page/s/cnaexpiration

Quick hits: Around the union this week...

• Tea-bagging conservatives continue blaming SEIU for perpetrating the violence surrounding a St. Louis health care town hall--but now you can finally hear both sides of the story. Listen to SEIU staffer Reverend McCowan's interview correcting the record on incidents surrounding a Missouri town hall.

• Spread the truth about the right-wing's fear campaign being funded by anti-healthcare forces: SEIU counters "death panel" noise with real facts about healthcare.

• SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger took the main stage at the Netroots Nation Convention this weekend to talk about building a 21st century economy that works for all Americans. More here about other SEIU panels at the annual gathering of progressive activists and political bloggers.

• Watch three short videos of Workers United members who are dealing with John Wilhelm, UNITE HERE's raids, and interference in their workplaces.

• "We spend more time at patients' bedsides than anyone else in the hospital, and have a better understanding of patient needs than hospital executives. Despite this, our executive officers essentially refuse to include us in discussions regarding patient care." In a Billings Gazette op-ed, registered nurse J. Curt Jensen makes the case for why nurses and all Montana workers need the Employee Free Choice Act.

• Will American children grow on "fat, salt, and corn-sweetener-laden government subsidized surplus"? Read Iowa City chef Kurt Michael Friese's commentary at Grist Magazine.

• Check out the story of a Detroit college freshman fighting to stay in the U.S. and find out how you can help defer her deportation.

• Major advertisers like Geico, Proctor and Gamble, and Lexis Nexis are pulling their ads from Glenn Beck's show in response to his disgraceful rhetoric...but not Wal-Mart! Tell Wal-Mart to end their financial support of Glenn Beck's televised hate.

• Be a part of SEIU's mobile alert list. Text SEIU to 787753 (PURPLE) right now, or click here to sign-up for our new mobile alerts program.

Published today in Grist is a fantastic commentary by Kurt Michael Friese, a chef in Iowa City and a member of the board of directors for an organization called Slow Food USA. His article discusses how, in the last 50-75 years, we've moved from an "understanding of foods, of cooking, and of the pleasures of the kitchen" and replaced it with "the language of the drive-thru, the shopping mall, and the convenience store."

Friese makes a good point when he says that "our children are what they eat," and raises the question as to whether or not our children can be expected to learn and grow on "fat, salt, and corn-sweetener-laden government subsidized surplus."

Food service staff, Friese says, is "restrained by inefficient kitchens, ludicrous time restraints, and a budget that is laughable at best." Pointing to the current federal reimbursement rate for school lunches, Friese asks, "how well would you expect to eat on" that kind of budget?

Friese concludes that we need "a paradigm shift" when it comes to school meals. Rather than "just throwing money at the problem," we need a real investment in "the health and well-being of our children and our community," and parents "must no longer choose to ignore the situation to the proven detriment of their country."

To read the full commentary, head over to Grist's website here, and check out Slow Good USA's "Time for Lunch" campaign here: http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/campaign/time_for_lunch/our_partners/.

An improved school meals program and Child Nutrition Act is a major priority for SEIU and its workers. To find out more, check out our sister website, the Campaign for Quality Services.

Childhood obesity rates in the United States have tripled, according to a new study by the Academic Pediatrics journal.

Using data collected by the National Health and Nutrition Survey, researchers looked at 12,384 children aged from 2 to 19 years, and were able to conclude that found that 3.8 percent of the children within the sample meet the criteria for "severe obesity."

Generalized to the entire childhood population of the United States, this could mean that *nearly 2.7 million* American children are severely obese.

Compared to data collected in between 1976 and 1980, the researchers found that the prevalence of severely obese children has essentially tripled in the last 25 years. Back then, only 0.8 percent of children met the criteria for severe obesity.

Among the groups that had the largest increases in severe obesity were children in families that are below the poverty level.

The study provides more evidence for the need of an improved Child Nutrition Act.

The findings in Academic Pediatrics show the need to ensure that healthy and nutritious school meals are available to our nation's children. Currently, there are far too many processed foods with even fewer nutrients in our school cafeteria menus. While the study concludes that more children need to be treated for obesity, we know that it's also important to prevent obesity in the first place, and that's exactly what good school meals can do.

But more importantly, the study also shows a huge need to improve accessibility for these programs. Currently, there are barriers to entry to the school meal program, and reducing them would be an excellent way to ensure that more children - especially those in need - are better able to access the nutritious and wholesome meals that this study shows they need.

Improving the Child Nutrition Act this fall is a priority for SEIU, its members, and the children that our members serve each and every day. You can read more about this at one of our sister sites, the Campaign for Quality Services.

Yesterday, Service Workers United cafeteria workers from across the country went to Capitol Hill to lobby members of Congress for stronger USDA Child Nutrition Programs. One member of the group was Marlon Taylor, a food service worker from suburban Illinois. Here, Marlon discusses why he loves his job working with kids and why it's important to improve the Child Nutrition Act.

Last year in the U.S., a record 20 million subsidized school lunches were served each day. In Illinois, Taylor's home state, there were 713,755 free or reduced-price lunches served during the 2007-2008 school year alone.

Earlier this month, the agriculture appropriations committees in both chambers of Congress agreed to spend an additional $13 billion this year on nutrition programs. However, exactly how much of that will be allocated towards improving the quality and nutritional value of the food served to children in public schools remains up in the air.

Congress is scheduled to take up the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act this fall--which is why now is the time to lend your voice to tell Congress we need an improved Child Nutrition Act: http://action.seiu.org/page/speakout/nutritionact

For the first time in the 63-year history of our nation's School Lunch Program, front-line food service workers are on Capitol Hill today to petition their government to strengthen the program that serves food to more than 30 million children every day.

Because of the current economic crisis, more and more families are relying on school food programs to provide their children with a complete and well-balanced meal. Last month, USA Today reported that "nearly 20 million children now receive free or reduced-price lunches in the nation's schools, an all-time high" and that "many school districts are struggling to cover their share of the meals' rising costs.

On Capitol Hill, the 80 food service workers - members of Service Workers United, and from all over the country - are advocating for stronger USDA Child Nutrition Programs that will:

• Improve food safety, nutrition, health and wellness, and customer service by raising workplace standards and providing living wages, benefits, paid sick leave, and training for all school food service workers.
• Increase federal reimbursement rates for meals to enable schools to cover the rising costs of meeting dietary guidelines and to purchase fresh, healthy foods.
• Reach more struggling families by relaxing eligibility requirements, streamlining application processes, and allowing for regional variations in cost of living in determining eligibility.

These 80 food service workers are representative of the more than 420,000 workers employed in school cafeterias throughout the country. Although these workers' mission is to fight poverty and hunger work, some of them are paid as low as $6.55 an hour with no benefits.

Do your part by signing on to tell Congress we need an improved Child Nutrition Act: http://action.seiu.org/page/speakout/nutritionact

Members of the CSEA/SEIU Local 2001 chapter that represents the Connecticut Windham Public Schools' food service workers will speak out against outsourcing food services at Board of Education public forum tonight.

The union members who provide food services in Windham's public schools are committed to providing the district's children with healthy, nutritious meals every day--while outside contractors are less accountable to the taxpayer and cut corners in food quality, nutrition and service."Our schools' cafeteria program does not need to make a profit, so we can focus exclusively on providing the best quality, nutritious meals to the kids," said Mary Jackson, manager of food services at Windham High School.

Reversing the history of poor labor-relations in this country has been a priority of SEIU for more than five years. Tonight's speak out will be the fourth time members have organized community opposition to contracting-out services to a private, for-profit corporation at a Board event since March 2009.

Thousands of school food service workers in New Jersey are living at or near poverty, according to a new report commissioned by SEIU Local 32BJ. The report found that the average hourly wage for food preparation workers in educational services was only $8.15, and revealed that many of these jobs pay no more than the NJ state minimum wage of $7.15.

The report, prepared by the Rutgers University Center for Women and Work/School of Management, ascertained that 64 percent of NJ K-12 school districts contract their food service to an outside company and that those private sector cafeteria jobs are largely part-time and typical offer with no affordable health benefits. As a result, most workers are uninsured or forced to turn to the state's public health insurance programs-- a result that contributes largely to the school food service industry acting as one of the biggest drains on New Jersey FamilyCare, as over 6,300 employees and their children covered by the taxpayer-funded state health assistance plan.