GOTV; HOW TO FILE GRIEVANCE: KAUFMAN & OTHERS ON LA MIGRA; RAFE ON DEFENSE; JOSH ON BC HMO

[SEIU721REFORMERS]

SEIU 721

Get Out The Vote!

Dear fellow 721 member,

This is it. Just a few more days until Election Day. Hurricane Sandy missed California but Prop. 32 is still heading straight for us, and Prop. 30 must pass if we don't want $6 billion in budget cuts to annihilate our schools and our communities.

From Saturday through Election Day, SEIU 721 members will pound the pavement and man the phones in order to support candidates and make sure Prop 30 passes and Prop 32 goes down in defeat.

We are the ones who can make it all happen. Below is a complete volunteer schedule for the next four days. Please find a location near your home or work, come on out for a few hours and help get out the vote in your community.

The stakes have never been higher.

NOTE: GO TO SEIU721.ORG for more details

 SEIU 721

On Thursday, November 29, the SEIU 721 Member Education and Training Committee presents

Advanced Grievance Handling Training

Topics To Be Covered Include:
Building a Case      Arbitration    
Civil Service            Skelly Hearings   
Discrimination       FMLA

Thursday, November 29
9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
SEIU Local 721 Auditorium
1545 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90017
Deadline to register: November, 9, 2012

To register, contact the Member Connection at 877.721.4YOU or sign up on the SEIU 721 website.

To download a flyer for this event, please click here.

Deadline for enrollment is November 9, 2012 at 5:00 pm to ensure work release. Seating is limited, so RSVP soon!

For more information, contact the Member Connection at 877.721.4YOU.

In Solidarity,

Katarina Thompson
Director of Registered Nurses, SEIU Local 721

October 31

FROM: ED KAUFMAN

 First let me say that "all" of the responses to my comments were well thought out and gave me a sense of the direction of other union members.  That's why Rafes blog is such a valuable tool.  My original comments were based on the fear that some of you think we can win this battle by simply saying it presents us with a "hardship."  That argument is going to go nowhere.  The city IS broke many citizens are unemployed and the media is portraying us as moochers dependant on the spoils of government.  The fact is if we don't turn this argument around we're going to lose big.  All I'm saying is we have to show the public that there are other areas that can be cut before targeting city workers.  For instance in Wisconsin Governor Walker instituted many cost cutting measures in addition to the same "take aways" we agreed to here.  These measures included making it easier to do business in his state, cutting fraud in entitlement programs and enforcing the E-Verify Program.  This spared his workers the drastic cuts we are facing because the additional revenue brought in helped Wisconsin to pay down its debt.  It's ironic that it took a Republican governor to broker a deal which protected the jobs of union workers.  Yes they temporarily lost the right to collective bargaining (which I don't agree with) but the governor seems to have brokered a better deal than we're looking at here.  Just saying.

FROM: P CONDE

Rafe,

I appreciate everything your doing to get the message out. But...once YOU start deciding what message gets sent out. Aren't you now becoming part of the system? As custodian of this email , the people in this email chain come to expect up to date news and to discuss what is ailing the city? Just my 2 cents.

Conde

Mou 18 - LAWA

To: P Conde

From: Rafe

For the sake of conversation, I would like to just go back a little bit in time and history to kind of put things into perspective from my point of view.

How many years ago was it that SEIU 347 was wallowed up by the international and SEIU 721 was put together?   

Well, back, then, there were a few activists in SEIU 347, I will mention two because I know these two gentlemen for a fact were in this group of activists who opposed the merger of seven locals into one.  Art Sweatman and Dan Mariscal among others started a group called Fight for 347.   As I recall, Art Sweatman started an email address called fight...@yahoo.com.

Remember, this was over five years ago and my memory doesn't serve me well, so don't hold me down to the exact truth on  what I am reporting here.

Anyhoo, after the merger and SEIU 347 became a bunch of memories, a result of the merger was that another group of activists at SEIU 721 emerged who were non conformists combined from all of the merging locals who did not want everything that was being spoon fed or in some cases forced fed into the members mouths.  At the International Convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico, a charge was being led by a group of "Reformers" from throughout all of the Locals in the SEIU kingdom.

Well, those of us in Los Angeles, who identify with reforming, making our Union a member led union and democratizing  our Local's way of doing things identified themselves as "reformers".

Again, this was over five years ago and my memory cells are a little tarnished, but there was a lot of local politics with election of officers, scandal involving prison time for seiu 721 individuals and the president being forced into exile and of course there was the constitution that was a big political dragged out battle.

Well, at the time that this seiu 721 inception occurred and seiu 347's demise, the old fight...@yahoo.com became irrelevant because the overwhelming majority of seiu 721 members do not work for the city.   The city's union local went from what, 7,000 to over 70,000.   And these folks did not relate to or give a hoot about 347.

So, I offered the user name and password, to leaders of the reformers at seiu 721, to this email address, seiulocal7...@gmail.com.  However, no one was interested.

So, I began getting individuals who were interested in receiving and participating at this email address.

I have given myself the title of custodian.   I have had to bring a sense of civility to the tone set here.  And we don't sell Avon or widgets.

I recently mentioned, that I had to edit a letter out from Candi and I think that this particular instance of editing is what you are referring to.

If you saw how large his email was, I think that you would agree, that possibly,you may want to subscribe to his email address.  If that is the case, send me an email indicating you would like to get on Candi's address list and I will forward it to him.

As custodian of this email address, I am not interested in bringing down the city or the Union SEIU 721 or any individual.

I am interested in providing a forum in which you can critique anyone, policy or express opinions without being censored as long as you do not use profanity and do not make a personal attack.

As an individual and an original SEIU 721 Reformer, I have difficulty in wearing my hat as an activist and custodian at the same time.

Ed Kaufman recently raised the issue of immigration and it has generated chatter.

I don't necessarily agree with Ed, but if he went to the SEIU 721 blog, believe me, he would be censored, let alone edited.

I recently became active here again when my Anthem Blue Cross nixed my Loma Linda Hospital care.

On a Friday, I got the letter from the Labor Management Team telling me my Health Care Provider would no longer be available as an HMO.

The next day, a Saturday, I generated an email to inform the members and the next thing, SEIU Staff and Joint Labor started back pedaling and got UCLA and Cedar Sinai back into the PPO system after the members were alerted that the health care packages that they had been subscribing to for years was being threatened by the City.

Now, this past week, SEIU 721 has indicated that the full HMO has been reinstated.

Was SEIU721r...@gmail.com the catalyst that stirred the members, seiu staff and joint labor management teams to go back to the negotiating table?

A weather bell is a big and heavy bell that only rings when the wind is sufficiently strong to move it.

I like to think of seiulocal7...@gmail.com as a weatherbell.

Because of the number of leaders who receive this email, seiulocal2...@gmail.com has a distinct advantage over the Union Local to get breaking news out to a substantial number of its members.   Not having to wait until Monday morning for the office to open, Staff have a meeting to discuss the issue, generate a rough draft, have it approved by appropriate parties and then and only then will the members get the email. 

I would like you to think that when you get an email from seiulocal7...@gmail.com it is not junk mail.

That's why I try to minimize the number of emails that are sent from this address and the length of the letters if I can avoid this.

I also attempt not to speak too much.  But you obviously can see that I have not mastered the ability to control this urge to write.

And so I apologize for my loquaciousness. 

Am I becoming part of the system?

This system has been in operation since August 2008.

Rafe

FROM: JULIO RODRIGUEZ

Bruce you are 100% correct they want to blame illegal's and that is not the case they case start on the city waist they do for years and years when they have the pot full of money now they have the pot empty and they need to blame somebody for bad administration  and make cuts on the workers is the easy way out to do so, but each city council still have his $2 millions spending allowance every year and city keep paid for loss suits against the city for LAPD bad law police enforcement. Julio

FROM: JOSH GELLER

Rafe,

Before you pop the champagne on the Blue Cross HMO deal, check the fine print. It required a modification to everyone's MOU to allow the City to charge for access to the full BC HMO network. Definitely better that everyone has the option to stay in that network, but it comes at a price to those who wish to remain in that network. 

Thanks for all your hard work.

Josh

Josh,

Thank you for the compliment.

It will be interesting to learn what was specifically agreed upon in exchange.

I will tell you, that I will gladly pay more to keep my health care service with Loma Linda University Hospital.

I look forward to more details on this.

Thanks again!

Rafe

Let the elections begin!

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That's all folks!

 

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Be sure to notice: [Message clipped]  View entire message at the bottom of page

SEIU Local 721 Reformers is an email address attempting to share information with SEIU Local Members, Stewards, Officers, Staff and Officials.
Rafe Garcia, Steward, is the custodian of this email address.
Those of us sharing, exchanging and participating in this forum are attempting to engage the membership to further the concept of a member driven Union.
We, you and all the rest of us have the best interests of the rank and file members, over 70,000 strong.
FOUNDED AUGUST 31, 2008