Doug Moore, UDW Executive Director and AFSCME IVP has a message for California politicians: “The status quo is over.”

The future of California is at stake and nobody knows this better than public workers in the Golden State. That’s why AFSCME members are stepping out to raise awareness of the vital services state and local employees provide to keep their communities strong.

UDW, The Homecare Providers Union, and AFSCME Local 625 member Irene González are spearheading a 260-mile march from Bakersfield to Sacramento.

González, a senior investigator aide for Los Angeles County, was recently joined by AFSCME members, other public employees, and hundreds of supporters, well-wishers and members of the media to launch the March for California’s Future in Bakersfield, Calif.

Their message was clear: For too long, legislators have tried to balance the state budget on the backs of working families. Not anymore.

“To those politicians in Sacramento who like the status quo and who resist change, we have a message: ‘The status quo is over,’” said Doug Moore, executive director of UDW and an International vice-president of AFSCME. “You either deliver on your promises and meet the needs of your constituents, or we will put you in the unemployment line so you can see how the other half lives!”

AFSCME, the California Federation of Teachers, and a coalition of labor, education, and civil society groups are leading the march with rallies along the way to highlight the struggles communities are experiencing and the need to fund public services.

The core marchers working to support public services and dedicated to walking 260 miles include a Los Angeles probation officer, a San Diego community college professor, a teacher and community organizer from Watsonville, a retired Berkeley adult educator, and two Los Angeles teachers. They have been joined along the way by hundreds of others.

After 63 miles of marching, participants, AFSCME members and allies held a major rally Wednesday at Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park to highlight how budget cuts have forced the closure of state parks and severely curtailed services and operating hours. The park is located at the site of a town once founded and governed by African-Americans. It was established to commemorate the achievements and contributions of African-Americans to the development of California.

Californians want and deserve a public education; they want and deserve safe streets and workplaces; they want and deserve affordable, accessible health care; they want and deserve access to public parks and libraries; and they want and deserve clean water. Unfortunately, community services are slashed year after year. Elected officials need to fight for the public’s interest now.

Polls routinely show that a majority of California voters support public services and want to see programs like education, environmental protections, child care, health care, job training, and mental health services adequately funded. Californians are marching want to promote fairness and equality in our public policies.

“California has always been seen as a place where anything was possible, if you worked hard enough. Unfortunately, equality of opportunity in the Golden State has diminished,” said González. “We want fair taxes. We want better education. We want to be able to live the American Dream for not only ourselves but for the future for our kids.”

Watch television coverage of the March kick-off in Bakersfield:

AFSCME members at the March 9th “mass citizens’ arrest” of health insurance executives. (Photo by D.W. Matthews Studios, LLC)

Thousands of demonstrators, including hundreds of AFSCME members, participated in a “mass citizens’ arrest” of health insurance executives as they met in our nation’s capital on Tuesday to plan their continued efforts to defeat health care reform.

AFSCME activists from Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania joined the protest in front of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Washington, D.C. where the health insurance lobbying group, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), was holding its annual policy conference.

“We’re doing something that we should have done a while ago,” AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee told the Los Angeles Times. “Whatever it takes, we’ll do.”

Speaking to the Huffington Post, McEntee let our elected representatives know they are on notice:

“I hope this sends a message to Congress. I think we have to demonstrate that we are not going to stand aside, that we are going to take them out if they don’t help us at all.”

George Estright, a member of AFSCME Local 2162, told the AFL-CIO Now Blog why he traveled from Harrisburg, PA, for the rally:

“We support health care reform to control insurance company profits. It’s not right for working Americans to pay for 200 percent profits for insurance companies. We need something that is fair and equitable.”

Press coverage included stories in McClatchy Newspapers, the Wall Street Journal, MedPage Today, the Baltimore Sun, Huffington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

See photos from the event on Flickr:

Read more about the March 9th action in this AFSCME WORKS Online Xtra and in posts on the AFL-CIO Now and Health Care for America NOW! blogs.

This ad in today’s issues of Politico, Roll Call and The Hill, urges Congress to pass President Obama’s health care reform plan now.

As the leaders of America’s health insurance industry meet today at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, DC, thousands of working men and women are urging Congress to take a stand against the insurance companies and their efforts to kill health care reform.

Busloads of AFSCME activists from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland have come to the nation’s capitol to confront insurance company executives who drop coverage for sick people and jack up rates to create unconscionable profits.

AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee, joining more than 3,000 protesters outside the hotel where insurance company CEO’s and lobbyists are attending their annual policy conference, urged Congress to stand up to the insurance companies.

“For them, the bottom line is making money,” McEntee said. “They are paid millions to fight something every American should have – quality, affordable health care.”

AFSCME took out full-page ads in the three key Capitol Hill newspapers – Politico, Roll Call and The Hill – today urging Congress to pass President Obama’s health care reform plan now.

In a smart opinion piece posted this week, Harry J. Holzer, professor of public policy at Georgetown University and a former chief economist at the U.S. Labor Department, says it’s time to stop trying to blame unions for what’s wrong with the economy:

Conservatives are attacking labor unions and President Barack Obama’s relationship with them. …. As an economist, I don’t always agree with America’s union movement, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, and I wouldn’t argue that union actions are always beneficial or costless. But a sensible discussion requires a careful, dispassionate look at the theory and evidence on unions — rather than right-wing ideology and stereotypes dressed up as analysis.

Read the full article.

The 48-day “March for California’s Future” begins today. Learn more at http://www.fight4cafuture.com/.

A diverse group of Californians, including a San Diego community college professor, two Los Angeles probation officers, a Watsonville teacher, a retired Berkeley adult educator, and a retired L.A. teacher begin a 48-day “March for California’s Future” today.

The march, sponsored by the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) and a coalition of labor, education, and civil society groups including the American Federation of State County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME), will begin with a rally at Mount Moriah Baptist Church in L.A., after which marchers will travel to Bakersfield to begin their walk.

Following in Cesar Chavez’s footsteps, hundreds of firefighters, nurses, in-home care workers, students, and police officers will join the marchers for parts of their 260-mile trek from Bakersfield to Sacramento.

“We want to restore quality public education and public services, rebuild a government that serves all Californians, and create a fair tax system to fund our state’s future,” said Irene Gonzalez, a Los Angeles County probation officer and executive board member of AFSCME Local 685.

Hear more from Irene in this story from Workers Independent News (1 min. 28 sec. audio file):

More coverage here:
New America Media
KION-TV 46
The Bakersfield Californian
Talon Marks (Cerritos College)
The Guardsman (San Francisco City College)

Via the Rachel Maddow Show blog comes this graph from Econbrowser:

From Maddow:

Consider three bills — two of them passed under budget reconciliation, the third heading for budget reconciliation. Each had an effect on the fiscal health of the nation, calculated by the Congressional Budget Office. The first two, the tax cuts pushed by President George W. Bush, blew a hole in the budget. The third, the Senate’s health reform bill? As you can see from the CBO projections, that’s a different story.

From our friends at Americans United for Change:

This morning, in yet another slap to the face of struggling,
out-of-work Americans, miserly GOP Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky again roadblocked measures in the Senate to extend unemployment benefits to 400,000 Americans and subsidies for affordable health care for thousands more. 

Senator Bunning’s “tough s—t” message to millions of struggling Americans, including 119,230 in Kentucky, was enthusiastically approved by Republican leaders.

It’s a sad new low for a party that believes they can gain politically keeping Washington in gridlock – drawing a line in the sand on virtually every issue, no matter how uncontroversial from creating jobs to financial regulatory reform to funding for our troops to health insurance reform and now unemployment and health care assistance for their constituents who need it most.

FYI – check out this new web video below on what the Lexington Herald-Leader calls Senator Bunning’s “callous grandstanding,”:

Not satisfied with record-breaking profits of $12.5 billion last year – a whooping 56 percent spike from 2008 – the nation’s five largest insurance companies have the audacity to raise their premiums on thousands of families who are still struggling in these tough economic times. One California insurer, Anthem Blue Cross, has threatened to increase premiums by up to 39 percent this year. It made an enormous profit of $4.7 billion in 2009.

As U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein puts it, these insurers “have gotten very greedy.”

She’s right. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), these companies raked in profits of 250 percent between 2000 and 2009. Now they want even larger premium hikes: 56 percent in Michigan, 24 percent in Connecticut, 23 percent in Maine, 20 percent in Oregon, and 16 percent in Rhode island.

These are “disturbing examples of the problems that make reforming our health insurance system more important than ever,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius points out. “Thousands of struggling families are left with an unpleasant choice between fewer benefits, higher insurance rates, or having no insurance at all.”

It’s time to pass real health care reform and stop health insurance premiums from soaring even higher.

Participants in AFSCME’s 2009 Alternative Spring Break in Missouri. Learn more and apply at www.unionbreak.org.

This spring, student activists are organizing conferences on college campuses throughout the country, taking on some of the most critical issues of our time. Students in Knoxville, TN, are focused on the issue of solidarity with campus workers and raising consciousness about the transition from student to young workers in the labor force. At the beginning of March, students will be converging in Washington, DC, to urge our nation’s elected leaders to support sound education policy.

Even in this tough political and economic climate, student activists continue to make a stand and fight for issues that are critical to their experience.

At AFSCME, we are committed to providing a space for these activists to continue their work long after they have left campus. Many of our programs are geared towards college seniors who are passionate about grassroots organizing and progressive social change — student activists who are anxious to continue the fight for social justice and workers’ rights once they’ve graduated.

More importantly, we are looking for students who believe that a strong labor movement is vital to fighting back against the attacks on working families, on health care, and the very fabric of what makes our communities vibrant.

If you are ready to take on these challenges, then consider fighting for social and economic justice as a union organizer for one of the most progressive unions in today labor movement. Go to www.unionbreak.org to apply for AFSCME’s Alternative Union Break, a program for college seniors interested in making a difference and pursuing a career in union organizing.

The deadline for applications is March 1, 2010.

While the Senate is seeking agreement on jobs legislation, states will need to start reprogramming their unemployment insurance (UI) computers before the current federal benefit extensions and COBRA subsidies are scheduled to end on February 28.

Senate Majority Leader Reid attempted to get unanimous consent to move a stop-gap extension of the programs through March 7 while negotiations continue, but Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) objected.

Without timely congressional action, workers losing jobs after February 28 will only be eligible for 26 weeks of basic state benefits, and those participating in the federal extension programs will only be able to complete the extension in which they are participating, possibly losing months of assistance.

While most observers believe an extension ultimately will pass, the delay will cause mass confusion among the over 10 million unemployed workers receiving unemployment checks and cause states to spend unnecessary time and resources shutting down the extension software, responding to calls from UI claimants, and then starting up the programs again.