Barack Obama speaks to SEIU Convention 2008

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/462637

ACTION ALERT

Please say 'NO THANKS' to the Petition Cutting Health Care

Dear MSEA-SEIU Member,

We know what it's like to have our health care under attack. While we successfully fought off attacks in the last legislative session, now there's another effort under way that threatens to undermine the health care of thousands of other Mainers.

The beverage industry has hired an out-of-state company to collect signatures for a petition exempting this industry from paying its share for health care. This petition would eliminate health insurance for thousands of Maine children and adults. If someone asks you to sign this outrageous petition, please politely say 'NO THANKS'.

The only way to protect our health care is to make sure we're not the only ones with it! Please say 'NO THANKS' if someone asks you to sign the beverage industry's petition.

In Solidarity,

Bruce Hodsdon, President, MSEA-SEIU Local 1989

Fellow Members of the Maine Direct Care Workers Union, I'm writing to update you on our union's efforts to ensure quality, affordable health care for everyone in Maine, including us. Although our health care legislation on behalf of direct care workers was voted down in the last legislative session, we're not going away. Instead, we've retooled and broadened our focus to push for health care for everyone in Maine. This approach appears to provide the best opportunity for us to achieve some level of health security. Our union is working with the Kennebec Valley Organization, a group made up of faith communities, labor unions and other determined to improve life in Maine. Members of the Kennebec Valley Organization have been holding roundtable discussions to gather and hear personal stories about health care, good and bad. These stories will form the basis for a comprehensive health care campaign in the coming months. I'm asking for your help by taking just five minutes of your time to share your health care story. I know that we all have some very compelling health care stories. My health care story, for example, is one of ups and downs. I had health insurance through my husband when he worked at Blue Seal Feeds. He left that job and started up his own business. With that change, we now buy our own health insurance. Quite frankly, it is horrible. It is very expensive, $300 per month, with a high deductible of $10,000 per yer per family member and it only covers catastrophic care. Since November of 2007, I've been through multiple screenings for ovarian cancer. I am grateful to report that I am cancer free. The downside: These screenings are not covered by my health insurance; it doesn't cover any diagnostic services. The bill is upwards of $3,000. That's my health care story. Please share yours, such as being with or without health insurance, or how having it or not has affected you, your family and your work. Sharing your story is easy. Send me an email at helen.hnsn@gmail.com. As part of this health care campaign, the Kennebec Valley Organization will hold a health care forum on June 18th with policy makers. Then in the fall, the group will contact candidates for the Maine Legislature and Congress to sign its resolve of health care for everyone. This is all exciting work. Please be part of it by sharing your health care story. Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you. In Solidarity, Helen Hanson Maine Direct Care Workers Union MSEA-SEIU Local 771 (MSEA-SEIU Local 1989)

Some Myths about the Employee Free Choice Act

Sen. Collins uses same talking points and backs up lies of Union Busting group "Union Facts" It is outrageous that Senator Collins’s office issued a written statement using the exact same deceptive language as the Center for Union Facts (the recent anti union ads blanketting Maine) in misrepresenting the Employee Free Choice Act. Collins is showing her true colors and she's either choosing to so grossly mislead the Maine people on such an important piece of legislation or simply doesn’t understand it and uses the spin of Richard Berman’s anti-union front group. Senator Collins owes the Maine people an explanation on her misrepresentation of this important piece of legislation. She must also denounce the sleazy, deceitful ads of all the Berman front groups that are getting involved in Maine (Center for Union Facts, Employee Freedom Action Committee, etc.) The Center for Union Facts misrepresents the Employee Free Choice act to equate it with electing people to office. Their ad depicting classroom elections for school officers is deceptive as it states that this is exactly what unions want to do with the Employee Free Choice Act. The Employee Free Choice act is about forming unions, not about how to elect union officers. Unions in America elect officers by way of healthy democratic processes. No-one is advocating to change that. The question is: what is the best process to form a union in the first place. It is important to note that no – one voted on whether or not we should have a Maine legislature or a U.S. Congress, our votes are to elect the representatives. This is a very, very different process. In response to the EMLC press conference on Thursday, the Washington D.C. based Center for Union Facts’ managing director J. Justin Wilson told WLBZ: "In organizing elections people go and have a vote, just like election day in Maine," Wilson explained. "They want to switch to a system where a union organizer approaches you at your house and say sign this contract and theydon't even show you the fine print." Senator Collins is against the legislation, Felicia Knight, Collins' DeputyCampaign Manager issued a written statement addressing the ads."Senator Collins' campaign has nothing to do with these ads, which are currently airing in several media markets around the country. On the issue, Senator Collins strongly believes that all workers are entitled to their long-standing right to a secret ballot. It is ironic that a public servant, elected by a secret ballot, would vote to deny union employees the same right." Brewer: Union head slams ads By Eric Russell Saturday, June 07, 2008 - Bangor Daily News BREWER, Maine — Local union representatives are hitting back at a national nonprofit agency that has been running targeted television advertisements, including some in Maine markets, slamming labor practices. Jack McKay, president of the Eastern Maine Labor Council, said the Center for Union Facts of Washington, D.C., claims to support workers’ rights but "everything they do undermines workers." "The biggest thing, I think, is that these ads are deceitful and they misrepresent what unions are asking for," McKay said Friday of the ads, which ran on local NBC, ABC and CBS affiliates in recent weeks but have since stopped. "Truthfully, they know what we want and they are deliberately misrepresenting that." One of the ads in question portrays children voting in a class election and then depicts union bosses hijacking the process. The ad campaign is centered on the Employee Free Choice Act, a piece of legislation that has been supported by the U.S. House but has yet to make it through the Senate. Union supporters and many Democrats are in favor of the bill, but Republicans have generally opposed it. The Center for Union Facts claims the Employee Free Choice Act would strip workers of their right to vote privately when forming a union. McKay said unions have always conducted their elections in the open and will continue to do so. The reason the ads have flooded the Maine market is because of the contested Senate race between Sen. Susan Collins and U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, who have differing views on the Employee Free Choice Act. McKay said the ads are particularly outrageous because the Center for Union Facts is little more than a nonprofit arm of Berman Associates, a powerful Washington lobbying firm. McKay said its founder, Richard Berman, has represented interests of the tobacco and fast food industries. Center for Union Facts managing director J. Justin Wilson issued the following statement regarding the group’s advertising campaign in Maine: "Union bosses are the ones with a long history of corruption, deception, and mismanagement. Given that, we think Mainers should be especially concerned with their deceitful attempt to eliminate workers’ fundamental right to a private-ballot election when unionizing." McKay said his first instinct was to ignore the ads, but he wants the public to have both sides. "It was important for us to come out and denounce these ads because they received so much air time," he said. "And I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of them."

The Kennebec Valley Organization

Special Delegates Assembly on Health Care

"Everyone should have the opportunity to get

quality, affordable health care."

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 2008

6:30 - 8:30 pm

First Congregational Church UCC

7 Eustice Parkway, Waterville

please register in advance to use free, on-site child care

Join KVO member delegates, health care policy experts, allies and friends as we:

• Report the stories and testimonies that surfaced from more than 100 participants in "Our Health Care Story" meetings held within our member institutions across the Valley;
• Hear from a panel of policy experts on the current status of health care in Maine and the country, and the best possibilites for reform;
• Decide on an action plan that will help to achieve our goal of health care opportunities for all.

for more information or to register for the event, please contact KVO Lead Organizer Dan Koehler at 873-5844 or kvo@gwi.net

Vote Yes on Question 1 Transportation Bond

Maine's transportation systems are in critical need of repair and improvement. That's why members of MSEA-SEIU Local 1989 are urging MSEA-SEIU members, families and friends to vote 'Yes" on the Question 1 Transportation Bond on the statewide ballot June 10. By approving Question 1, Maine will secure over $29 million in federal and private matching funds for repairs and improvements to Maine's highways and bridges, passenger and freight rail systems, ports and ferries, airports and bike trails. This is very affordable way to make critical repairs and improvements to Maine's transportation systems. Please vote "YES" on statewide Question 1 on June 10. Click here for more information about Question 1. Click here for the Kennebec Journal's editorial endorsing Question 1.

SEIU Unified in Support of Bold, New Program

Delegates Leave Puerto Rico Unified in Support of Bold New Program On Wednesday, June 4, in San Juan at SEIU’s 24th International Convention, member delegates overwhelmingly voted in support of a unity resolution. “After months of discussion inside and outside our union leading up to the Convention, nearly fifty hours of passionate debate and open discussion at the Convention, and vote after vote by the delegates, one thing has become abundantly clear," the resolution reads. "We are unified…. Now it is time for us to get to work." As part of the resolution, the members committed to honor, respect, and implement the decisions made by this Convention, hold each other accountable for these decisions, and have respect for all the voices that have made us stronger and pledge to engage in constructive debate going forward. The member delegates on June 4 also launched a new global action to take back the economy. For more information, visit www.July17Action.org