Hundreds of union members celebrating the 90th anniversary of women’s suffrage rallied Thursday at the state Capitol, holding signs that said “Women vote for women who vote” an attack on the state’s first female Republican nominee for governor.

The signs were criticizing the abysmal voting record of former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, who has acknowledged that she failed to vote for most of her adult life. The rally was organized by the California Nurses Association, a vocal Whitman critic.

Many marchers wore wide-brimmed hats adorned with flowers, long skirts and high necklines, in reference to the attire of the era of suffragettes. While some speeches focused on the struggles women went through to secure the passage of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, other speakers touched on a modern political issue: the upcoming November election.

A group of California Teachers Association members chanted “Teachers vote without fail, California’s not for sale.”

Whitman, a billionaire businesswoman, has contributed $104 million to her campaign to date, breaking all previous state spending records.

At a campaign event Thursday in the City of Industry, Whitman called the rally a distraction from the most pressing issues facing the state.

“That is the union bosses trying to distract from the fact that I will go to Sacramento and I will change Sacramento,” she said. “I will get the public pension under control. I will fix our K-12 education system. So in my view, my voting record isn’t perfect, but the main issue here is how are we going to turn California around, and I think I have a plan.”

Whitman has been a vocal critic of public employee unions, which largely support her Democratic challenger, state Attorney General Jerry Brown. He re-emerged on the campaign trail this week after a quiet summer spent fundraising for a costly campaign this fall.

The California Nurses Association has held rallies around the state with a colorful “Queen Meg” character who proclaims she would like to buy the state. Whitman has responded in kind, skewering the union in mailers sent to some nurses’ homes calling out executive director Rose Ann DeMoro’s $293,000 annual salary.

Whitman says she supports the group’s signature issue upholding the California law that requires hospitals to have at least one nurse for every five patients. The CNA successfully lobbied for the law.

But Jan McDermott, 63, a postpartum nurse from San Francisco, said she doesn’t believe Whitman would uphold the law or other patient safety protections.

“She’s apparently anti-union. And anything we’ve won, we won through the union,” said McDermott.

Associated Press Writer John Rogers in City of Industry also contributed to this report.

Casey and Dan visit with an RN from San Francisco’s St. Luke’s Hospital. The hospital has recently been under fire for discriminatory hiring practices. This is yet another issue that has plagued the hospital since Sutter Health took it over.

Terri Tate

Later in the show we visit with RN consultant and inspirational speaker Terri Tate. Terri introduces a very sensitive topic known as “lateral violence,” or nurse-on-nurse violence. This is a very interesting and important conversation you won’t want to miss.

And as a matter of gratitude we wish to thank our friends at California Nurses Association and National Nurses United for their unwavering support of Nurse Talk. Never could we have imagined the contribution they have been to us.

We’d also like to thank all of the guests we’ve had on the show, the good people who work every week to create the show, June Miller, Peter Collins, Tonia McCallum, Casey Hobbs, Dan Grady, Liz Jacobs and last but not least…our listeners!

Nurse Talk is Coming to Boston!

And next month…move over Car Talk…we’re coming to Boston!  A big thank you to the Massachusetts Nurses Association.

You can listen…to Nurse Talk every Sunday at 2PM PST on Green 960AM or live stream at green960.com. You can also download and listen anytime on iTunes, or stream at NurseTalkSite.com and TheRadioFactory.com.

Until next time remember “laughter is the best medicine!”

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Karen Coughlin, RN provides her testimony to the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Judiciary

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Dan’s on vacation so after a series of her own “medication errors,” Pattie steps in and oh…it’s a bad hair day! It just makes us realize how much we miss Elvis!

BUT help is on the way when Casey talks to RNs Karen Coughlin and Linda Condon about the epidemic of workplace violence against nurses and other health care workers. This is something you don’t hear about and the conversation will shock you.

Linda Condon, RN, speaks about her experiences with violence in the workplace.

Did you know that nurses are on par with prison guards and police officers for the highest rate of workplace violence? For many years it has been looked at as just “part of the job.” Help is on the way and the nurses are on the front lines to change legislation to protect against this abuse.

An open letter from a group of progressive experts finds the Republican’s policies if implemented would deepen the budget crisis, raise unemployment and cut growth.

Meg Whitman’s economic policies are based on a flawed understanding of the challenges California faces, and the Republican gubernatorial nominee’s proposals would make the state’s troubles worse, according to an open letter to Californians signed by a group of mostly Democratic economists from throughout the state.

“The evidence and theory that Whitman uses to diagnose California’s problems are unscientific and an unsound basis for policy,” the economists write. “As a result, her diagnosis and her proposed economic policies are both deeply flawed. If implemented, her policy proposals will deepen California’s budget crisis and are likely to reduce employment and economic growth.”

The letter and an 18-page report detailing their findings will be released Tuesday by the advocacy arm of the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning nonprofit think tank in Washington. The professors who signed the letter are well regarded in their fields and include Kenneth Arrow, a Stanford University economist and Nobel laureate.

Whitman’s supporters said the report was tainted by partisanship.

“The same people who are engineering our nation’s blundering economic recovery are now criticizing candidates who are committed to balancing budgets through spending cuts, targeted tax relief and job creation,” said Crystal Feldman, spokeswoman for the California Republican Party. “If these guys were so smart, maybe unemployment wouldn’t be at 9.5% and our national deficit wouldn’t have ballooned to over $13.3 trillion.”

A spokeswoman for Whitman declined comment.

The study, written by UC Berkeley economist Michael Reich, analyzes the 48-page policy booklet Whitman unveiled during the primary campaign. Reich said he saw the book and instantly noticed statements that he knew were inaccurate, so he rounded up fellow economists who were willing to scrutinize it.

“She claims to have a plan that’s very detailed and based on careful research. But it really isn’t careful at all, and it’s misguided,” Reich said. “It has a lot of incorrect assumptions. A lot of studies she draws on are useless or kind of misleading and don’t agree with well-accepted economic research…. They’re making promises that cannot be fulfilled.”

Reich said Whitman’s Democratic rival, Jerry Brown, had released too few policy documents to conduct a similar review, and he hopes to complete an assessment once Brown announces more plans.

Whitman has said California is suffering because its residents are overtaxed, businesses are over-regulated and the state’s bureaucracy is bloated.

Reich writes that each of those suppositions is not based on fact and that Whitman relies on suspect science to overstate the problems. The study and the letter quote two economists who say that one of the studies she cites is “schlock science.”

For instance, in saying that California has nearly the worst tax climate of any state in the United States, Whitman relies on a study that looked at the state’s highest income d failed to consider its property taxes, which tend to be lower than in other places.

When property levies are included, California’s overall taxes are slightly higher than the average for all states, and during recessionary times, state taxes are lower than average, he writes.

Whitman fails to understand that the real foundation of the state’s problems are the national economic downturn, the housing bubble’s burst, which hit California particularly hard, and the lack of a state “rainy day” fund that can be used during downturns, Reich writes.

Reich takes issue with many of her proposals to improve the state’s economic viability.

The swollen size of state government is a favorite talking point for the candidate, and she has pledged to reduce its ranks by 40,000 workers.

Reich writes that California ranks 48th out of the 50 states in the number of employees compared to population. Her plans to trim the state workforce exclude the University of California system, prison guards and police. That means the other areas — education, health, foster care, and the Department of Motor Vehicles — would see one-quarter of their ranks cut, resulting in severe tolls on state services that directly affect Californians’ lives.

He says Whitman’s proposal to deal with the state’s $20-billion budget deficit could do the same. The candidate proposes cutting $15 billion from the budget in her first year in office and reducing taxes by billions of dollars.

“Alas, these numbers do not add up to $20 billion,” he writes. “And her plan does not specify where most of the cuts will fall.”

Since most of the state’s general fund is spent on K-12 schools, higher education, health and human services and prisons, Reich writes that much of the cost-cutting must occur in those areas. He argues that such cuts not only would harm the state’s economic recovery and reduce federal matching funds but also would harm the state’s long-term productivity.

“Cuts in these programs will therefore reduce the state’s potential to grow in the future,” he writes.

Check out You Are Your Own Gym in our NT Must Read Bookstore

ARE YOU READY FOR THIS? YOU ARE  YOUR OWN GYM! That’s right you can be your own gym according to super trainer Mark Lauren who has just written the “bible” on sensible low impact workouts that you can do at home, with no equipment and relative calm. If you are anything like we are …this sounds like a good alternative to “macho man” at the gym. Mark has some great tips and workouts and you can pick up his book by going to the Nurse Talk Must Read Bookstore.

AND DON’T forget….Boston here we come! Nurse Talk will make its debut in Boston ( one of our favorite cities) after Labor Day on 50K watt station WWZN 1510 AM. A big thank you to our friends at the Massachusetts Nurses Association and of course California Nurses Association and NNU for making it possible to bring you Nurse Talk in expanded markets.

And coming up next week a very compelling discussion on workplace violence in hospitals and other health care facilities. We are joined by RN’s Karen Coughlin and Linda Conlin for a very compelling look at what is happening in our hospitals.

Remember you can listen…to Nurse Talk every Sunday at 2PM PST on Green 960AM or live stream at green960.com. You can also download and listen anytime on iTunes, or stream at NurseTalkSite.com and TheRadioFactory.com.

Until next time remember “laughter is the best medicine!”

A Celebration of the 90th Anniversary of  Women’s Suffrage and a Protest of Meg Whitman Whose Voting Record Dishonors that Tradition

“I was not as engaged in the political process [voting]
as I should have been. I was doing lots of other
things…building companies [and laying off workers].”

— Meg Whitman, March 15, 2010

Join our special celebration of a woman’s Right to Vote and protest billionaire CEO Meg Whitman’s record of rarely voting for nearly three decades — except now that she is on the ballot.  Join Us — Thursday, August 26, Sacramento

Hop on board to join us for a very special celebration of the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment legalizing the right of women to vote in the U.S.  Thousands of women, and men, fought for decades to secure this basic democratic right.

On August 26, we will honor the achievements of the suffrage movement, and the women who were imprisoned and abused in the fight. We will also continue our protest of Meg Whitman, who has disgraced the suffragists’ legacy, and now thinks she is entitled to be governor because of her wealth and privilege as a billionaire corporate CEO.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Gather for March
3:00 pm
Convention Center, Sacramento

March and Rally
4:00 – 6:00 pm
Capitol West Steps, Sacramento

Join us for this special occasion. Hosted by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United with other community and labor organizations. You’re encouraged to wear historic clothing of the era or black and white attire. Friends and family are invited to join the march and rally. Celebrate the 90th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment

For more information and to RSVP, please contact Bonnie Castillo, RN or Deanna Furman (916) 446-5019

Download a PDF of the flyer to print or email to share with your friends.

Share the flyer with your colleagues!

Hear this week’s show

WE ARE PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THAT AFTER LABOR DAY NURSE TALK COMES TO BOSTON station WWZN. Thank you to our friends at the Massachusetts Nurses Association as they join the ranks of sister organizations California Nurses Association and National Nurses United…Hello Boston!

COMING UP THIS WEEK ON NURSE TALK…..Whole lotta shakin’ going on! Casey and Dan talk to RN Kathy Carder about earthquake safety (or the lack thereof) in hospitals. Kathy resides in Venice, California and is a Nursing Practice Representative for Cal Nurses. She explains that there are literally hundreds of California hospitals that were build in the 1950s (and some before that) that are at extreme risk when another large earthquake hits. NOW, PLEASE DO NOT PUT OFF THOSE SCHEDULED SURGERIES BECAUSE YOU ARE NOW MORE AFRAID OF AN EARTHQUAKE WHILE YOU ARE IN THE HOSPITAL…do listen to what Kathy has to say and then take action by calling your local representatives to help hospitals see the light.

Listen to Casey's earthquake story

Neica Goldberg, MD

AND she’s back! Our friend Dr. Nieca Goldberg, the author of the best selling book, Dr. Nieca Goldberg’s Complete Guide To Women’s Health. The good doctor has some great advice on what you should do before taking you vacation. YES—we’re talking to you. Dr. Goldberg says you would be shocked to find out how people suffer from a lapse of common sense prior to and during their vacations when it comes to their health and well being. Check it out it’s really good advice.

Dan sings the blues, Casey reads the news and they both laugh themselves into better health.

Oh, and you won’t want to miss hearing about the new “fall lineup” of Flus and Other Viruses.

Coming this fall. What a relief.

AND later this month California Attorney General Jerry Brown joins us, Senator Barbara Boxer will be with us and we’re going to reveal a sure fire way to “cure constipation now“!

Remember you can listen…to Nurse Talk every Sunday at 2PM PST on Green 960AM or live stream at green960.com. You can also download and listen anytime on iTunes, or stream at NurseTalkSite.com and TheRadioFactory.com.

Until next time remember “laughter is the best medicine!”

According to campaign finance reports filed yesterday, Whitman has spent $99.7 million the past two years, a figure that the Associated Press notes climbs to $100.3 million when including donated services.

Those numbers, which shatter campaign spending records in California and believed to exceed the amount any candidate running for any office in the U.S. other than President has spent, signal a campaign that is out of control and that shows little regard for the real life of most Californians.

With more than 2.2 million Californians are out of work (Employment Development Department, July 16, 2010), at least 6.4 million are uninsured (U.S. Census Bureau as of 2007), and California ranks 41st in the U.S. in per capita spending per pupil (National Education Association rankings), such massive resources could surely be put to better use.

Those are just three of the many signs of crisis in California that show the appalling contrast with the disgraceful spending spree by one billionaire candidate who seems to be driven by personal ambition and little else.

If Whitman, whose main qualification for office appears to be her unlimited wealth, really wants to help the state, there are many other ways she could use those resources to add real social value to our state, and help Californians who are hurting, who are sick, or to bolster our education system.

(And her profligate spending is another reminder of why we have characterized Whitman as “Queen Meg.” You can check out the latest on Queen Meg at www.QueenMeg2010.com.)

The California Nurses Association, with its research arm, the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy, has some suggestions.

Here’s what Whitman’s $100 million could done:

• Pay monthly unemployment benefits for 82,237 unemployed Californians. (Average unemployment benefit in California is $1,216) Source: Orange County Register, July 19, 2010

• Pay the unemployment benefits for two months for the 40,000 workers she would lay off. (The U.S. Department of Labor calculates that by its broadest measure, the U-6 rate which is defined as total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, California has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, 21.9%.)

• Pay yearly health insurance premiums for 7,477 families. (Average yearly health insurance for family coverage $13,375) Source: Employer Health Benefits, Annual Survey 2009, Kaiser Family Foundation

• Fund 18,018 students at the Pell Grant maximum. (Pell Grant maximum for school year 2010-2011 is $5,550.) Source: United States Department of Education.

• Pay for 11,447 pupils in California K-12. (Average expenditure per pupil in 2008-2009 school year was $8,736) Source:
California Department of Education

• Pay the “fees” for 10,770 students to attend one of the University of California campuses for academic year 2009-2010. (Fees to attend UC are $9,285.) Source: University of California, Fees and Financial Aid

• By our calculations, help as many as 5,714 households avoid foreclosure The California Housing Finance Agency, the state’s affordable housing bank, estimates it will help 40,000 or more households avoid foreclosure with principal write downs and other plans unveiled Wednesday. In all, the agency received $700 million for the relief programs. Source: James Wasserman, “California to help pay down homeowners’ mortgage debt.” Four out of the Top ten cities for housing foreclosures are in the Central Valley. Source: Realty Trac.

o Modesto is ranked second in the nation with 5,138 homes or 2.93 percent of all housing units in foreclosure in the first quarter
o Stockton is ranked fifth, with 6,327 homes in foreclosure, or 2.77 percent of the city’s homes.
o Merced is sixth. It had 2,307 homes in foreclosure in Q1 or 2.76 of all homes.
o And Bakersfield is ninth in the nation, with 6,343 homes in foreclosure or 2.33 percent of all housing units]

• Hire as many as 1,755 new grad RNs in California for a year. Source: United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2008 Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates

Like your hospital CEO or Chief Nursing Officer, billionaire Meg Whitman thinks she knows what is best for California nurses and patients.

So, after CNA refused Whitman’s demand that we give her every CNA member’s home address and other personal information — and after Whitman rejected our offer to have her speak directly to RNs in forums where nurses could ask unscripted questions — Whitman decided to bombard RNs with campaign mailings, and a misleading phone survey to nurses. And, she created a website to attack CNA, and the gains RNs have made, just as hospital attorneys and anti-union consultants have done before her. Don’t be deceived.

Whitman poses a threat to our patients, our standards, and our voice.

1) Protect Our Patients and Our Ratios. In the primary, Whitman wouldn’t support our ratios. Now, when she wants our votes in November, she claims she does. Gov. Schwarzenegger said he supported ratios, too. Then he issued an executive order to roll back the ratios, and severely weakened ratio enforcement by the Department of Public Health. Can we trust Whitman, who employs the same anti-regulation rhetoric and whose campaign chair, ex-Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed a prior ratio bill, not to follow in Schwarzenegger’s footsteps?

2)Protect Our Pensions. Whitman denounces “gold-plated retirement benefits” of UC and other public nurses, and says she will raise the retirement age, extend vesting periods, require RNs to contribute more to pension plans, and replace defined benefit plans with more risky 401(k) plans. We can not allow Whitman to seek to divide RNs. Her plan to cut public RN retirement will only encourage all hospital employers to demand huge cuts in the pension and retiree health benefits all California RNs have worked so hard to win.

3) Protect Meal Breaks and Overtime. Whitman wants to eliminate guaranteed meal and rest break laws and overtime pay. If she succeeds every employer will be demanding more mandatory overtime and abusing break relief.

4) Protect the Public’s Health. Whitman wants a “moratorium” on all new consumer requirements, including workplace health and safety rules and consumer protections against polluted air, water and food toxins. Whitman also will continue to cut funding for California’s public health safety net, which impacts the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our society, especially children.

5) Protect Our Union. Whitman’s assault on CNA could have been scripted by hospital management, and is intended to silence nurses by weakening our collective ability to fight to improve patient care and RN standards, and to protect our voice at the bedside and in the public arena.

Download the PDF from the California Nurses Association

Meg Whitman is a household name, at least among households with habitual readers of the business press, especially those who invest in technology stocks. She is the near-legendary manager of the Internet giant eBay. Under her stewardship eBay grew from a kicky startup Web site where people could sell and buy stuff, but which made no income to speak of, into the stellar success it is today.

Whitman’s resume is fairly typical for a top American manager. She’s a graduate of Harvard Business School. Her career stops include a stint as senior vice president at Disney Consumer Products, CEO of Florists Transworld Delivery and head of Hasbro’s Preschool Division, where she managed Playskool and Mr. Potato Head. Then, in 1998, she came to eBay.

And for years she served as a director on Goldman Sachs’ board. During that period she, like other directors, won priority to participate in offerings the investment bank led, on which she made a pretty penny.

Upon leaving the management of eBay in January 2008 (though she remained on the board another year ), having made a fortune from generous pay and a massive exercising of stock options, Whitman turned to politics. Now she is running in the California governor’s race, which will be decided in November.

While Whitman is a household name, not many have heard of Rose Ann DeMoro. Nor is the organization she heads, the California Nurses Association, as well known around the world as eBay.

DeMoro is not a nurse by trade. Her career track is very different from Whitman’s. Her career stops include working as a cashier in St Louis and mainly, political activity in trade unions.

Yet the careers of the two women are on collision track because of Whitman’s plans for California.

Whitman, who stands a good chance of winning the November poll, plans to slash California’s budget, which is in no better shape than Greece’s. Most of the cut will be in public-sector wages and pensions. That will affect people such as policemen, teachers, firemen – and nurses – the ones led by the indefatigable DeMoro.

Getting personal

Under DeMoro’s stewardship, California’s nurses have begun a well-publicized campaign in which they call the candidate “Queen Meg” and portray her as a callous billionaire detached from the lives of ordinary folk. They depict her as someone using her fortune to buy power – Whitman is expected to spend about $150 million of her own money on the campaign.

The claws are out. Nurses demonstrate outside Whitman’s home and have thrown their support behind the Democratic candidate Jerry Brown. Their attacks have also taken a personal nature.

Whitman’s campaign isn’t sitting there and taking it: The attacks on DeMoro have also taken a personal bent, revealing her pay, which is a lot higher than the average pay nurses make.

Whitman’s people are constantly driving home that DeMoro isn’t a nurse to begin with.

In general, the campaign for Whitman, a Republican, tries to distinguish between public servants, who are cherished, and trade union leaders, who are not. It’s a classic divide-and-rule tactic.

The clash between Whitman and DeMoro has all the earmarks of a good story: The polarity of the warriors, each representing a totally different agenda; their differences in style and appearance; and the fact that things have turned personal. The stage is set for drama.

Candidate Whitman wears suits and comes armed with a tightly focused economic plan based on steep spending cuts. Her ammunition is a Harvard-style accurate list of the tough steps that need to be taken to save California’s budget. Labor leader DeMoro has her picture taken in union T-shirts. She waves placards, not lists, and delivers her speeches through a megaphone outside Whitman’s house. She tells stories of people’s lives, not numbers and economic data.

I don’t know who will win the gubernatorial race, or which of the two poles will prevail. But the story of the California race is the same story unfolding just about everywhere else in the world, and investors would do well to watch not only the indexes, but this race very closely.

This is not just another story of another local election. The nurses versus Queen Meg represents the growing gap in society, in America and elsewhere. On the one hand you have the high-tech and finance royalty, the white-collar people and businessmen, who are Whitman’s natural constituency. They support balanced budgets and tax cuts.

On the other hand you have public servants and blue-collar workers, whose pay and living standards have been steadily eroding.

It is the perennial battle over the distribution of the pie, and when the pie has been shrinking, as it has been these days, the fight turns bloody.

The cutbacks reach the public sector

Since the global economic crisis began two years ago, the business and consumer sectors in America have been shrinking, while cutting back spending and investment. The number of employees has tumbled.

But the increase in unemployment and wage erosion have been confined to the business sector. Until now the public sector has been immune, at both the federal and state levels. If anything, the public sector increased spending to stimulate the economy and alleviate the symptoms of the recession.

If Whitman is elected, all this is likely to change. She has said 40,000 jobs will be cut from the public sector, and the remaining employees will face wage cuts. Other states are likely to follow suit, including New Jersey, Illinois and Michigan.

If that happens, the United States will be in a strange situation. At the national level, the federal government is adopting Keynesian strategies of spending more and more, increasing its deficit and striving to preserve jobs. But at the state level, governments will do the opposite, adopting a pattern spreading in Europe – tightening their belts and reducing their deficits, despite the danger of a short-term jump in unemployment.

Economists are watching these opposite directions in America and Europe: deficit spending versus discipline. Those two opposing approaches are now arising in America itself: proponents of increasing the deficit versus proponents of budgetary conservatism. It is internal strife that will only get worse as November approaches and the voters have their say.

The writer is the CEO of Psagot Compass.