Late last week SEIU indefinitely postponed a planned unionization vote for over 8,000 nurses within the Catholic Healthcare Partners (CHP) hospital system in several states including Ohio and Kentucky. The vote for unionization was expected to pass and nurses in these extremely anti-union areas would have won a victory for on-the-job representation and for the entire progressive movement.  So what happened? A rival union decided they knew what was best for these workers before the vote occurred and sabotaged the whole thing. Why? That's what these nurses are trying to figure out now...and the answers are enough to make any progressive's blood boil. More below the fold.

Welcome to tonight's Edwards Evening News. Today, the Edwards campaign unveiled the America Belongs to Us campaign with a goal of getting one million voters to sign a pledge not to vote or caucus for any candidate who takes money from lobbyists and PACs. America belongs to all of us, and we're taking our country back! Click the image to sign the pledge.

Welcome to your Saturday night Edwards Evening News. Tonight we focus on 10 reasons why Edwards is the most progressive candidate, and why the other Democratic candidates can't touch this.

Yesterday, John Edwards spoke to a rowdy, roaring crowd of SEIU leaders at their political action conference in Washington, DC.  I was there, and it was fabulous!  This was the wildest, most exuberant reception I've ever seen him receive, and I've been to quite a few events where he has received exuberant receptions.  We won't know for sure until the SEIU decides on an endorsement, but if I had to guess, my guess is he gets it.

I am not an SEIU member, but I contacted their press contact in advance and signed up to receive a press pass as a blogger.  I love the fact that so many organizations now see the value of citizen journalists!  We help them get more attention for their events, and they let us into the events, which is pretty cool.

Many of you have probably already heard about the Supreme Court ruling on home care professionals today. It basically said they were not eligible for minimum wage or overtime rights.

Now much has been said on here and in other places by Edwards supporters like me that John Edwards supports the working poor and the rights of Americans who work to do so at a fair wage. Well, the proof is in the pudding. Here is a release from Edwards today:

http://www.johnedwards.com/news/headline s/20070611-home-care-workers/

Can't my fellow Democrats across this nation see that the American worker has not had a friend in many moons? Even under Bill Clinton we had NAFTA shoved down our throats. We never achieved the Progressive change many of us dreamed of because of all the scandal, which completely negated his second term.

I like Bill Clinton. I was born in 1970 and he is the best President we have had in my lifetime. That being said, I really don't want to go back down that road with Hillary Clinton. I don't want scandal, and whos doing Bill, and this and that and the other, and all of it piling up all the time. I admit it will all be 98% BS but it will just have to be dealt with.

I recall Bill Clinton and Al Gore being very persuasive in the early days of the administration in support of NAFTA.  Organized Labor had been very weakened from the Reagan Administrations Union busting of the Air Traffic Controllers and other anti union activity throughout the 80's.  

Clinton/Gore were most convincing at selling NAFTA on the point that we had entered a new economic era.  The Agriculture economy gave way to merchantilism and that gave way to the Industrial Revolution and now Clinton argued that we were in a new Information Age Economy.  Satelite, Telcom, Computer and Biotech were the new economic engines.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters should be ashamed of itself for the kind of activities that take place in San Francisco's  Teamster local 85, the oldest Teamster local West of the Mississippi.

Contracts are negotiated by it's principal officer, Van Bean and teamsters who must work under those contracts are denied any say in them, or the opportunity to ratify them by a vote. It's "take it or leave it" in Van Bean's local 85. Often contracts are negotiated by just the employer and Van Bean.

Local hiring hall participants recently requested to local union officials that they be allowed to participate in the San Francisco Food Bank, their average incomes are well below the poverty level.

Most hiring hall participants are unable to achieve the minimum 60 hour per month eligibility to have their Health and Welfare benefits, and they and their families are forced to go without health coverage.Some, including most recently 24 year teamster henry hall have even died from this abuse neglect!

The local union hall doesn't even have a water fountain for it's member participants. The water dispensor is in a locked room, and only union officials are allowed to drink from it. the members of local 85 are forced to drink by bending over to use the water from a bathroom sink. Although these hiring hall participants pay 90 dollars a month in dues, they are routinely harassed and treated with contempt by officials. Secretaries in the local are rude to member's spouses over the telephone, they flip local members off when they arrive at work sometimes, and they commit federal offenses during the local union elections to make sure their boss wins.
Disagree with local officials-- they will send letters to employers accussing you of wrongdoing-- without even having been afforded the opportunity to defend yourself of these charges. Or expel you from membership meetings, humiliate and embarass you and falesly tell all those assembled "the department of labor is requiring that we do this".

Cronyism and nepotism run through the hiring hall rampantly. Often 20 and 30 year teamsters, more qualified, will watch someone's neice, nephew, son, or daughter waltz into the hiring hall and go to the top of the list, obtaining work before anyone else, and more frequently than anyone else!

Today Gore Vidal turns 81. Gore Vidal was interviewed on C-SPAN on April 29, 2006, relative to his new memoir, Point-to-Point Navigation, which will be out soon and can be ordered now online. In the interview, he described himself very simply as "an ancestral voice prophesying war."
Below the flip is some of what he had to say in the interview about the media, Iran, George W. Bush, and other topics. (The transcription is mine, as are any errors.)