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Where is Juan when we need him?
Fresno County Supervisor does not support a living wage for home care workers
JUAN ARAMBULA CRITICIZED FOR NOT SUPPORTING A LIVING WAGE FOR HOME CARE WORKERS
Service Employee International Union local 250 president Sal Rosselli sends letter to Fresno County Supervisor Juan Arambula:
I write to express our profound disappointment with your role in the recent events in the homecare contract negotiations. We had believed that you shared our goal of winning a first step out of poverty for minimum wage caregivers. Your actions, however, in voting to unilaterally end negotiations and implement a sub-standard wage indicates that our faith was misplaced. We are also shocked to learn of the county’s campaign, concurrent with “negotiations,” to cut average hours of service for Fresno’s IHSS clients throughout the county.
We made every attempt to work with you to identify existing and to win new state and federal funding to offset county costs. We believe our accomplishments have been impressive. Indeed, in the weeks immediately prior to your decision, SEIU secured millions of dollars in new and previously unexpected federal funds for Fresno’s IHSS program, a fact that appears to have been treated as irrelevant.
An impressively broad array of community activists expressed their support for improving IHSS, and poll results demonstrated overwhelming support among your constituents for increasing wages and benefits to or above the state standards of $9.50 an hour with medical coverage.
In spite of all this, acting as the Chair, you spearheaded the Board’s move in its unilateral implementation of the County’s shameful contract proposal of $7.50 an hour with no benefits. While we recognize that you do not cast the votes of all five Board members, your decision to cast your own vote against caregivers was yours alone. It is also noteworthy, however, that you have provided leadership to the Board on issues that are truly important to you. We sadly have come to realize that the welfare of caregivers and their clients is not one of those issues.
It is our hope that you will demonstrate a desire to find a path to a better life for caregivers and consumers by choosing to return to the table to bargain in good faith.
Sincerely,
Sal Rosselli
President
SEIU 250
*****************************************************
End of letter from Sal Rosselli
*****************************************************
SEIU 250 has worked tirelessly to negotiate a living wage for home care workers. There are stories about this struggle on Indymedia at:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/01/1566386.php
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/03/1581879.php
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/06/1620532.php
http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/12/1553792.php
Join home care workers, their union, and community allies for the next BIG event:
Friday, August 29
Home care workers and their allies will risk arrest to demand a living wage and medical benefits. Join them at the Fresno County Hall of Records. Call 265-4890 for more information.
Service Employee International Union local 250 president Sal Rosselli sends letter to Fresno County Supervisor Juan Arambula:
I write to express our profound disappointment with your role in the recent events in the homecare contract negotiations. We had believed that you shared our goal of winning a first step out of poverty for minimum wage caregivers. Your actions, however, in voting to unilaterally end negotiations and implement a sub-standard wage indicates that our faith was misplaced. We are also shocked to learn of the county’s campaign, concurrent with “negotiations,” to cut average hours of service for Fresno’s IHSS clients throughout the county.
We made every attempt to work with you to identify existing and to win new state and federal funding to offset county costs. We believe our accomplishments have been impressive. Indeed, in the weeks immediately prior to your decision, SEIU secured millions of dollars in new and previously unexpected federal funds for Fresno’s IHSS program, a fact that appears to have been treated as irrelevant.
An impressively broad array of community activists expressed their support for improving IHSS, and poll results demonstrated overwhelming support among your constituents for increasing wages and benefits to or above the state standards of $9.50 an hour with medical coverage.
In spite of all this, acting as the Chair, you spearheaded the Board’s move in its unilateral implementation of the County’s shameful contract proposal of $7.50 an hour with no benefits. While we recognize that you do not cast the votes of all five Board members, your decision to cast your own vote against caregivers was yours alone. It is also noteworthy, however, that you have provided leadership to the Board on issues that are truly important to you. We sadly have come to realize that the welfare of caregivers and their clients is not one of those issues.
It is our hope that you will demonstrate a desire to find a path to a better life for caregivers and consumers by choosing to return to the table to bargain in good faith.
Sincerely,
Sal Rosselli
President
SEIU 250
*****************************************************
End of letter from Sal Rosselli
*****************************************************
SEIU 250 has worked tirelessly to negotiate a living wage for home care workers. There are stories about this struggle on Indymedia at:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/01/1566386.php
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/03/1581879.php
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/06/1620532.php
http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/12/1553792.php
Join home care workers, their union, and community allies for the next BIG event:
Friday, August 29
Home care workers and their allies will risk arrest to demand a living wage and medical benefits. Join them at the Fresno County Hall of Records. Call 265-4890 for more information.
For more information:
http://www.fresnoalliance.com/home
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If you can't live the way you'd like on what they're offering, then it's simple: find a better-paying job. Or move to a cheaper area. Or get a roomate. Or acquire some more valuable skills. Or relocate to an area where your skills are in higher demand.
Employment with any one employer is a priviledge, not a right. You have no more a right to their money, than they have a right to your labor.
Life is an opportunity, not a reward. No one owes you a living.
-Libertarian
Employment with any one employer is a priviledge, not a right. You have no more a right to their money, than they have a right to your labor.
Life is an opportunity, not a reward. No one owes you a living.
-Libertarian
that's not even worth responding to. i hope you never get hit by a bus or some other kind of personal catastrophe, 'cause your theories definitely won't save your ass then.
AP
AP
I received this article from Mike and feel I need to speak on the subject...I'm send this for those outside of Fresno also because it would be great if you could call or send an email so the Supervisors know that just because the Fresno Bee refused to write any articles that would improve the lifes of the working class or that come from the suppose liberal people of Fresno...it doesn't mean that the news isn't being written and distributed.
Please take the time to call or write. And take a moment to think about what if your job only paid $8.00 an hour and you had no health insurance. Then think about if you where also raising a family. And then think about what if you ended up needing home health care.
Funny how some people don't realize if the health care workers keep leaving the field of taking care of our elderly or disabled because they can't live on the pay....then how will take care of us. Amazing..why doesn't someone who physically takes care of another human being who unfortunately can't take care of themselves is paid so low...shouldn't they be paid a higher wage just for the clean ups..of the writing/charting that is involved and passing tests and taking exams to keep their license up to date (I suppose you thought they were illiterate).and the physical labor of the job...besides having to deal emotionally with the person you take care becoming sicker or in pain and being there when they pass away. Many of these people don't do the job because they aren't smart enough, or because they couldn't get a job elsewhere, or cause they are lazy,..( you couldn't keep a job as a healthcare worker if you where)..they do it because they care about others..their gift is being able to handle all the physical and emotional labor it takes to care for the disabled. They are one of Christ's chosen professions. Not everyone in this world is greedy...most people just want to make enough to live on.
Why is it that it is ok for accountants, sales people, lawyers, engineers, bankers, loan officers to make so much money...what are they doing that is so incredible great..
I saw many health care workers leave for higher paying jobs...it didn't take much to get a higher paying job...it wasn't cause they didn't like being a caretaker..it was because they couldn't survive. And those that stay and stick with it...often working overtime and hardly seeing their children...do it because they worry about who will take care of the disabled if they don't. Please write your officials in support of giving a higher wage for the the health care workers..and ask them.to.at least have the decency to provide health insurance. How sad that they provide health care to others yet they don't get any insurance themselves. The money is there,,,and we know that..the officials should have the courage to do the right thing.
Thanks..Ann Galloway and please forward to others...thanks
Please take a second to give them a call or an email...feel free to clip and paste what I wrote...I'm not a writer but at least it is fast and sends a message.
Thanks again for your help
To contact Juan Arambula:
Please call: (559) 488-3663
or Email: JArambula [at] fresno.ca.gov
To contact Bob Waterston:
Please call: (559) 488-3665
or Email: Kburrows [at] fresno.ca.gov
or Visit: http://www.bobwaterston.net
To contact Supervisor Phil Larson:
Mailing address: 2281 Tulare, Room 300
Fresno, CA 93721-2198
Phone: (559) 488-3541
Fax: (559) 488-6830
Please take the time to call or write. And take a moment to think about what if your job only paid $8.00 an hour and you had no health insurance. Then think about if you where also raising a family. And then think about what if you ended up needing home health care.
Funny how some people don't realize if the health care workers keep leaving the field of taking care of our elderly or disabled because they can't live on the pay....then how will take care of us. Amazing..why doesn't someone who physically takes care of another human being who unfortunately can't take care of themselves is paid so low...shouldn't they be paid a higher wage just for the clean ups..of the writing/charting that is involved and passing tests and taking exams to keep their license up to date (I suppose you thought they were illiterate).and the physical labor of the job...besides having to deal emotionally with the person you take care becoming sicker or in pain and being there when they pass away. Many of these people don't do the job because they aren't smart enough, or because they couldn't get a job elsewhere, or cause they are lazy,..( you couldn't keep a job as a healthcare worker if you where)..they do it because they care about others..their gift is being able to handle all the physical and emotional labor it takes to care for the disabled. They are one of Christ's chosen professions. Not everyone in this world is greedy...most people just want to make enough to live on.
Why is it that it is ok for accountants, sales people, lawyers, engineers, bankers, loan officers to make so much money...what are they doing that is so incredible great..
I saw many health care workers leave for higher paying jobs...it didn't take much to get a higher paying job...it wasn't cause they didn't like being a caretaker..it was because they couldn't survive. And those that stay and stick with it...often working overtime and hardly seeing their children...do it because they worry about who will take care of the disabled if they don't. Please write your officials in support of giving a higher wage for the the health care workers..and ask them.to.at least have the decency to provide health insurance. How sad that they provide health care to others yet they don't get any insurance themselves. The money is there,,,and we know that..the officials should have the courage to do the right thing.
Thanks..Ann Galloway and please forward to others...thanks
Please take a second to give them a call or an email...feel free to clip and paste what I wrote...I'm not a writer but at least it is fast and sends a message.
Thanks again for your help
To contact Juan Arambula:
Please call: (559) 488-3663
or Email: JArambula [at] fresno.ca.gov
To contact Bob Waterston:
Please call: (559) 488-3665
or Email: Kburrows [at] fresno.ca.gov
or Visit: http://www.bobwaterston.net
To contact Supervisor Phil Larson:
Mailing address: 2281 Tulare, Room 300
Fresno, CA 93721-2198
Phone: (559) 488-3541
Fax: (559) 488-6830
It is interesting to me that "libertarian" assigns a political philosophy to the view he espouses, rather than a real name, which might bring him closer to a human frame of reference. Were we to subscribe to the view he sets forth, we might believe that there is no injustice or inequity in the world whatsoever; we might believe that to counter injustice, we should flee it.
I take the contrary view. Injustice and inequity do exist; there are Enrons, tyrants, dictators, and there are many who are undervalued and underprivileged. The task of the "liberty" we enjoy, is to right those wrongs. Home Heath Care workers have a place in that scheme as much anyone asserting the value of his work -- or his existance.
I take the contrary view. Injustice and inequity do exist; there are Enrons, tyrants, dictators, and there are many who are undervalued and underprivileged. The task of the "liberty" we enjoy, is to right those wrongs. Home Heath Care workers have a place in that scheme as much anyone asserting the value of his work -- or his existance.
Libertarian
What a pile of patronizing garbage!
What many don’t realize is the money saved by helping incapacitated individuals stay in their homes and out of costly facilities and hospitals. Further, paying a living wage puts more money right back into the community.
But, most important of all is the client who remains happier and more likely to recover because these caregivers are available to help them while they remain in familiar surroundings with their memories and their lives still intact.
I hope you stay healthy. Spreading views like this won’t help you when, in time, you may need to cling to hope, and struggle with a health issue.
Carolyn Waller
What a pile of patronizing garbage!
What many don’t realize is the money saved by helping incapacitated individuals stay in their homes and out of costly facilities and hospitals. Further, paying a living wage puts more money right back into the community.
But, most important of all is the client who remains happier and more likely to recover because these caregivers are available to help them while they remain in familiar surroundings with their memories and their lives still intact.
I hope you stay healthy. Spreading views like this won’t help you when, in time, you may need to cling to hope, and struggle with a health issue.
Carolyn Waller
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