Carl Davidson is a longtime Left social media guru and director of the Online University of the Left. Carl is a member of the CCDS national coordinating committee and Local 3657 of the United Steelworkers; in the 1960s he was a national leader of SDS.

Rafael Pizarro manages the social media for Bristol County, MA for Correctional Justice. The media's use in organizing demonstrations and pressuring ICE has been praised by the ACLU and local coalitions. Rafael also edits the local DSA Facebook page.

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Fourth Monday in September, watch here: IDEOLOGICAL HEGEMONY AND HIGHER EDUCATION

My colleague Carl Davidson has suggested, for several years, that it is critical that we understand the absence of a two-party system in the USA. Rather, he posits the existence of a six-party system, with at least three “parties” within each camp—Republican and Democratic. With regard to the Democratic Party, this certainly remains the case. That said, the broader implications of this need to be clarified.

sponsored by the CCDS Peace & Solidarity Committee,

It will feature panelists Sara Kozameh, Danielle Pilar Clealand and Lisa Brock, all of whom authored an article on the topic of race and Cuba in the Summer 2020 issue of Souls magazine, commemorating the publication’s 20^th anniversary. 

Souls was founded in 1999 by historian and scholar Manning Marable who was chair of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies and the Center for the Study of Contemporary Black History at Columbia University until his untimely death at the age of 60 in 2011.

Importantly, the second edition of Souls for Spring 1999 was dedicated to the subject of race and Cuba with articles by Lisa Brock among several others. Manning was a founding national co-chair of CCDS and a leading light for our organization. Links to suggested readings authored by each of the panelists will be sent with the flyer announcement for the November 15th discussion.

We are a small publisher of books with big ideas. We specialize in works that show us how a better world is possible and needed. Click Gramsci below for our list.

This is a good start to what we hope will become a quarterly update. If you know folks who would like to be invited to these Zoom events, ask them to email us at m4aupdategroup@gmail.com.

The next Zoom meeting of the Improved Medicare for All Update Group will be held on November 17th 5pm Pacific, 7pm Central, and 8pm Eastern Times. To get the Zoom link, please email m4aupdategroup@gmail.com.

Saint Vincent Nurses' Strike, Worcester, Massachusetts"

by Sandy Eaton

July 21, 2021

Twenty-one years ago, these Worcester nurses faced off against the Tenet Corporation. Newly organized, they struck for forty-nine days to win a first contract. Then, as now, money wasn’t the main issue. The safety of patients and staff in a profit-driven healthcare system was the nurses’ main goal, while Tenet executives demanded cruel working conditions that threatened patients’ safety and lives. It was all about control of the assembly line into which the delivery of care had been transformed.

Then, as now, a strategy of escalating pressure, finally threatening to go national and mobilizing not only the nurses directly involved but union members and community folks far beyond Worcester, is the winning formula. In 2000, it took forty-nine days for Tenet executives to realize they were beaten. Now this strike, which began on March 8th, has gone on much longer than that. The strikers have remained solid. Labor in the Worcester area and the community at large is supportive.

Progressive groups and elected officials have come to the picket line and organized rallies. So a few weeks ago Tenet escalated the fight, clearly pushing to break the strike and smash the union by threatening to replace the striking nurses permanently. Alarm bells should have gone off throughout Labor circles nationally. But it took the activists and unions of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer to see the issues and recognize the threat.

The pressure on Tenet is mounting as it will try to justify its siphoning off hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for pandemic relief to fatten its own coffers and those of its shareholders. But Tenet may not be afraid of elected officials and the threat of Congressional inquiries. The logical and essential next step in Labor’s escalation in order to win this strike, beat back union busting, push President Biden and Congress to enact the Medicarefor-All bill and fundamental labor-law reform is the full mobilization of the labor movement and our communities.

Labor leadership at all levels, but particularly at the national, must use its resources to mobilize the force needed to turn back Tenet’s union-busting drive and reverse not only the forty years of attacks since PATCO but the crippling provisions of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. Rich Trumka, the AFL-CIO Executive Council and all union leadership bodies must see both the urgency of this moment and the opportunity. Tenet will not back down without it. The President and Congress will not act without it. Like a mighty wave, we must roll over this seventy-two-year pattern of being beaten down. Our new normal in this post-pandemic era must include solidarity strong enough to shift the balance of power in this country.

The Nursing Revolution Has Only Just Begun --June 2000

Sandy Eaton, RN, PeaceWork, June 2000

By the time the 49-day strike against Tenet Healthcare Corporation by 615 Worcester, Massachusetts, nurses ended, not only were the lives of the participants changed forever, but also the consciousness of nurses throughout Massachusetts, across the United States and in other countries as well. At 4:50 PM on May 19th, Anne Spellane, co-chair of the Saint Vincent Hospital/Worcester Medical Center bargaining unit of the Massachusetts Nurses Association announced the result of the balloting by the rank-and-file on their first contract. Predictably, ratification was achieved by the lopsided vote of 358 to 5.

The picketers marched one last time around the sprawling new WMC campus, laid down their picket signs and started to celebrate. The story begins in 1997 when the Catholic Saint Vincent Hospital was sold to OrNda, a for-profit hospital chain, which was then bought up to help create the Tenet Healthcare Corporation, the second largest for-profit acute-care hospital chain in the United States (and in the world, since no one else does health care like the US). In the 90s, changes in the way health care was financed were passed as the state government strove to become 'entrepreneurial.'

For the first time, for-profit hospital chains found Massachusetts a fertile field. New battle lines were drawn. Sensing danger to her patients and to her license to practice nursing safely, Anne Spellane gathered a handful of colleagues together and approached MNA for help in organizing. In 1998, the nurses of Saint Vincent voted in their new union and bargaining began for a first contract. After two slow years of negotiating, almost all issues had been settled, except Tenet's insistence on the right to impose mandatory overtime, a practice that had not been part of the work life of these nurses up to that point.

Construction of the new $215 million edifice in downtown Worcester called the Worcester Medical Center neared completion, thanks to significant tax breaks and other incentives from the City, with April 1st as the target date for a grand opening. The nurses realized that Tenet's plan was to staff the newly configured units minimally, to be staffed 'flexibly' with mandatory overtime of those already on duty if the patient census jumped up on a given day, and with staff sent home without pay if the census fell.

Managed care has heavily penetrated Massachusetts, and such wide swings in patient census are now typical. Nurses around the country have been battling the scourge of mandatory overtime with increasing passion, as they realized that this practice spawned a far higher rate of possibly fatal medication and other errors, and a far higher rate of staff illness and accidents, as well as disrupted family life and risks of abandonment of children by single parents. Sandy Ellis, speaking on behalf of the striking nurses and the Massachusetts Nurses Association, offered the following as part of her testimony before the Joint Committee on Health Care of the Massachusetts legislature in its April 18th hearing on the binding ballot initiative for fundamental health care reform being pushed by the Coalition for Health Care. "For them (Tenet Corporation) it is much more cost effective to pay nurses overtime pay, mandate tired and fatigued nurses to care for very ill patients, rather than to keep the appropriate number of nurses on the payroll - even if it places patients' safety at risk."

Throughout the two years of protracted negotiations, the nurses worked to build bridges and organize the community around the issues of patient safety and workers' rights in the face of Santa Barbara-based Tenet Corporation. At the prestrike rally on March 30th, almost the entire political leadership of the Worcester area came to speak on behalf of the nurses, pledging their unwavering support.

For years nurse leader Sandy Ellis had effectively focused on relations with this group. None of them would attend the gala celebrations marking the opening of the new hospital, so these celebrations had to be canceled. Many of these political leaders returned time and again to the picket line. The entire Massachusetts congressional delegation signed a letter to Tenet in support of the nurses' position.

In mid-March, the nurses voted three to one to strike over patient safety, gave Tenet the required ten-day notice of intent to strike and so, the day before the grand opening, the strike began. The night shift turned the narcotic keys for each unit over to their supervisors and gathered in the main lobby of the old Saint Vincent Hospital at 6:30. They marched out the front door and set up picket lines at both campuses. The scabs arrived at 7:00, consisting of the hundred or so nurses who had voted against the strike and about 125 professional scabs flown in by US Nursing Corporation, based in Denver. The situation was most chaotic, so the move into the new hospital was delayed until April 3rd.

The local media gave thorough coverage to the strike, thanks in great measure to Sandy Ellis' articulation of the issues and the tireless efforts of MNA's public communications department. Letters to the editor reflected overwhelming support from the community and its appreciation of the overriding issue of patient safety. Although there tended to be spotty coverage of the strike beyond Massachusetts in the established media, news spread rapidly by 'word of mouse.' Daily strike bulletins spread from email list to email list, crossing both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Nurse-oriented and -run chat rooms buzzed with the news from Worcester. The MNA web page received over a half million hits in the month of April.

Global awareness grew, with messages to Tenet and to the Worcester nurses coming in from Abu Dhabi to Australia. Co-chair Debbie Rigiero had become an integral part of the central labor council, even though MNA is not part of the AFL-CIO. Organized labor in the Worcester area, and then throughout the state, understood the issue and what was at stake. Teachers and teamsters, carpenters and counselors massed on the picket line, contributed to the strike fund and contacted Tenet with the demand to listen to the nurses and settle immediately.

The Worcester firefighters, who had lost six of their number in a tragic warehouse fire a few months before, were especially fervent in their support, not only marching on the line but opening their adjacent fire station for the nurses' respite. This labor solidarity peaked when the three largest unions in Worcester approached Fallon HMO, the largest managed care company in that part of the state, which has an exclusive contract with Tenet, to pressure Tenet to negotiate with the nurses or they would take their members elsewhere. Fallon publicly called for the Tenet CEO to fly out from California to enter negotiations directly.

When no response came, Fallon began referring its surgical day patients to an off-campus surgicenter independent of Tenet. Agencies of the state government which held the mandate for public safety came under scrutiny. The Department of Public Health routinely reported that no serious violations of standards of care were to be found within the struck facility, until its written report was made public revealing that three scabs had been fired for serious lapses in nursing judgment which threatened patient safety.

The Board of Registration in Nursing was publicly excoriated by a legislative oversight committee both for its tendency to scapegoat staff nurses for systemic health facility problems and for its apparent double standard in swiftly granting licenses to practice nursing to imported scabs while other candidates had to wait weeks before being able to secure employment in Massachusetts.

Groups of organized nurses from across Massachusetts regularly came to Worcester to picket. The United Nurses and Allied Professionals sent large contingents from Rhode Island, seeing this struggle as part of their own campaign for safe patient care. Both the California Nurses Association, which has had extensive dealings with Tenet, and the American Nurses Association took out ads in the local press critical of Tenet and supportive of the nurses' issue of safe care.

Immense logistical support and suggestions for effective action came from CNA. ANA organized a picket at the Denver headquarters of US Nursing Corporation. Magazines such as Nursing Spectrum which carry ads for agencies that recruit scabs were targeted, and their job fairs picketed. On May 5th, 1500 delegates to the annual convention of the Massachusetts Teachers Association left the nearby convention center and rallied with the nurses in front of WMC. Senator Ted Kennedy, who had been to Worcester to address the teachers, came out as well to stand with the nurses and proclaim the justice of their cause.

National Nurses Day was celebrated on the sidewalk outside the Worcester Medical Center on May 7th, as elected officials, community activists, labor leaders, representatives of organized nursing from one end of Massachusetts to the other, from California, from Michigan, from Rhode Island and New Hampshire took the microphone and spoke of their undying commitment to safe patient care. Plans for a national corporate campaign directed at Tenet and calls for turning Santa Barbara into Seattle were put forth.

On May 10th, intense telephone conversations heated the lines between Santa Barbara and Washington, and between Washington and Worcester. On the morning of May 11th, the seventeen members of the nurses' negotiating committee, with their attorney and staff, flew to Washington to sit across the table from Tenet executives from California in the offices of Senator Ted Kennedy, assisted by Representative Jim McGovern. They received from Tenet an offer almost identical to the last one the nurses themselves had put forth in negotiations: no full-shift mandated overtime and severe limits on required overtime up to four hours, with the individual nurse's right to refuse if too tired or ill. When the team arrived back at Logan International Airport in Boston that evening, throngs of nurses and other supported were there, hailing them as conquering heroes, with as much joy and enthusiasm as has ever been received by any winning sports team.

Worcester Tenet CEO Bob Maher, despite repeated accusations of lying to the press during the period of protracted negotiations, probably hit the nail on the head when he told the press, after the tentative agreement had been reached, that "we are right at the beginning of a revolution in nursing, and we're at the front end of it. ... We believe nurses throughout the United States are willing to work long and hard to fight mandatory overtime. We could have fought back and let this drag out, but that's not good for anybody. ... We needed to recognize that this is a national trend, and move on." - from Worcester Telegram & Gazette, 5/12/00

While it's probably too soon to do an exhaustive analysis of this strike, I think a few lessons jump out. First of all, the Worcester nurses themselves and their elected leadership are committed, principled and organized. The central issue, the nurses' mandate to provide safe patient care, was clear and widely supported. Organized efforts to reach out to the whole community and to its organized components were systematically undertaken. Effective work with the media and political leaders was necessary, and made possible by the prior work.

Having access to an organization able to focus its resources and priorities, such as the Massachusetts Nurses Association, is invaluable. Local, regional, national and international connectedness multiplies one's strength immensely. And being at the right moment in history, with growing revulsion of corporate health care and corporate priorities in general, maximizes the potential of the moment.

These nurses became the vanguard of the revolution taking place right now in health care in Massachusetts and across the country. Wherever you live, when you read this, there are groups organized to put patients before profits. For readers, whether in Massachusetts or in any other state, opportunities for effective, timely involvement in the broad movement to make access to quality, affordable health care a right in the United States are available through contacting any of these organizations. Universal Health Care Action Netw

by Jay D. Jurie

I was thinking about an old Robin Hood song written by Woody Guthrie in the 1930s about an Oklahoma legend, Pretty Boy Floyd. According to Woody’s rendition, Pretty Boy Floyd got into a fight with a deputy sheriff and killed him. Floyd was forced to flee and allegedly took up a life of crime. At least authorities and journalists blamed Floyd for every robbery or killing that occurred in the state of Oklahoma. “Every crime in Oklahoma was added to his name.”

“Purdue is one of 11 universities initially selected to join the UPP (University Partnership Program). Establishing strategic partnerships with this select set of nationally renowned universities allows the Space Force to recruit and educate a diverse, high-caliber workforce, offer opportunities to advance research in specific areas of interest, and develop a 21st-century, technology-savvy service” (“Space Force, Purdue partner on STEM education, innovation,” Purdue Today, September 29, 2021).“We are eager to serve the national security interest of this country any way we are asked to do so,” he said. “We’re expanding our capacity. We’re about to do more classified work than Purdue ever has.” Mitch Daniels (https://indianapublicradio.org/news/2021/09/purdue-university-announces-partnership-with-u-s-space-force/)

“The promise of aerospace-related jobs that Purdue President Mitch Daniels for years has insisted the university was ripe to get finally landed on Wednesday...Saab will invest $37 million and  employ up to 300 people at a facility expected to make fuselages for the Boeing T-X, advertised as the U.S. Air Force’s next generation jet trainer…. Holcomb (Governor of Indiana) called it “a proud patriotic day for Indiana and its place in advanced manufacturing in the name of cutting-edge national defense.” (Dave Bangert, “Purdue Lands SAAB Plant,” Journal and Courier, May 9, 2019).

It has become apparent that the United States is no longer guaranteed top dog status on the dance card that is the future of war. To maintain military superiority, the focus must shift from traditional weapons of war to advanced systems that rely on AI-based weaponry...we must call upon the government to weave together academia, government and industry for the greater good.” (Tomas Diaz de la Rubia, (former)Vice President Discovery Park, Purdue University “Academia a Crucial Partner for Pentagon’s AI Push,” National Defense Magazine, February 11, 2019).

“President Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first president to grapple with the effect of space technology on international relations and so began championing what is known as the “sanctuary doctrine” of space. Eisenhower put forth the idea that space should be preserved for use by all mankind, with weapons of mass destruction prohibited.”( Gregory Niguidula, “ Trump’s Space Force is a strategic mistake,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, January 21, 2019).

In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan was instituting a military budget that in total was greater than all US military expenditures from the founding of the nation until the 1980s. Military doctrine, in accordance with the huge increase in military spending, shifted from maintaining a capability to deter aggression from other nations, particularly the former Soviet Union, to the development of a first strike capability, that is to be able to strike an enemy first. This shift in policy was coupled with the president claiming that the former Soviet Union constituted an “evil empire,” one that had to be pushed back, weakened, and destroyed.

Twenty-six years later, President Trump declared that the United States henceforth would recognize that space should be the site for military preparedness to defend national security. To achieve this goal the US Space Force would lead the way (Gregory Niguidula, “Trump’s Space Force is  a Strategic Mistake,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 21, 2019). In the National Defense authorization Act of 2020, Congress approved the idea of establishing a new sixth branch of the military, the United States Space Force.

First, the Purdue arrangement skews the university’s research agenda further in the direction of militarism. It is logical to assume that resources, research and production, related to the militarization of space take away funds that could be used to address issues of health, the environment, human rights and reducing the likelihood of war.

Second, and President Daniels made this clear, the role of the university is being reconceptualized as an institution that serves United States “national security.” University administrators, ever since the onset of the Cold War in the 1940s, justified support for higher education in “national security” rather than educational terms.

Third, and perhaps most dangerous, the university/USSF connection is justified as a necessity because of the “Chinese threat.” In the dark days of the conflict with the Soviet Union trillions of dollars were wasted on both sides in military expenditures, wars were fought all around the globe, and on numerous occasions conflicts almost escalated into nuclear war. The “enemy” was the Soviet Union. Now it is China.

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A NEW NARRATIVE #1.

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