Posted on 04/13/2008 1:37:45 PM PDT by gracie1
The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee tonight condemned a brutal assault by busloads of purple cloaked staff of the Service Employees International Union who smashed into a conference of union members Saturday night in Dearborn, Mi. and physically assaulted women and union members who stood in their path.
"I am deeply concerned about this heightened attack on women and nurses, directed by SEIU President Andrew Stern," said CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro, who was scheduled to speak about the campaign for genuine healthcare reform at the banquet.
DeMoro cancelled her appearance at the event to coordinate support for CNA/NNOC leaders in California after Stern and SEIU began sending roving bands of staff to the homes of CNA/NNOC RN board members in California Thursday and Friday, stalking and harassing them.
"There is an ugly pattern here of physical abuse and tactics of intimidation that have no place in either our labor movement or a civilized society," DeMoro said.
SEIU staff attacking union members in Dearborn Saturday night. (Jim West photo)
In Dearborn Saturday night, at least seven busloads, carrying up to 500 SEIU staff in purple jackets and T-shirts drove up to the Hyatt Regency Hotel where the banquet was being hosted by the magazine Labor Notes culminating a weekend conference on topics including union democracy, health care reform, and encouraging the resurgent growth of labor.
Upon unloading from the buses, the hundreds of picket-sign wielding staff stormed the hotel and pushed their way through doors to break into the ballroom where the event was being held.
While breaking in the building, the SEIU staff, now joined by SEIU staff inside the building, physically assaulted a group of union members and activists at the door.
At least one woman, a retired auto worker and former business manager for Labor Notes, was injured and went to the hospital after being pushed to the floor and hitting her head on a table.
As the SEIU staff broke into the hall, some three dozen CNA/NNOC nurses and leaders, there to attend the conference, including Malinda Markowitz, RN, a member of CNA/NNOC's Council of Presidents, who was scheduled to speak in DeMoro's place, were whisked out the back of the hall for their safety, leaving in vans. The atmosphere was so tense that hotel cooks tried to climb into the vans to join them for fear of their own safety.
The evening assault at Labor Notes followed a day of disruption by SEIU staff at workshops throughout the day at which various CNA/NNOC members were on panels or participants.
"I am disgusted with the tactics of SEIU and their total disrespect for what was going on here -- members from multiple unions who were discussing an agenda to fight the increased corporate attacks on working people," said Markowitz. "It's clear their only agenda here was to disrupt and try to divide labor and workers. Physical violence is absolutely unacceptable."
"I am absolutely appalled, to have a union coming in here with tons of people ramming down doors. If they have these kind of resources, why aren't they using them to help people in the trenches rather than attacking nurses and other working people," said Danielle Magana, RN, an NNOC member from San Antonio, Tex.
"If I were a nurse here I would not join such an aggressive union," said Prudencia Mweemba, an RN from Zambia who is a PhD candidate at Kent State who was attending the conference. "What they did today showed me they are irresponsible. I don't see how they can represent people with such an attitude."
"Had I not seen this with my own eyes I would not have believed it," said Kimberly Helmick, an Ohio RN. "SEIU did a big injustice to all the labor movement people who were here."
DeMoro noted that irony of the attack on a conference, in which union democracy was a major topic, coinciding with growing efforts by Stern and SEIU International to suppress dissent in his own union and signing contracts with employers that limit the voice of SEIU members at the workplace.
SEIU contracts with nursing home chains, for example, have limited the ability of caregivers to protest and report unsafe conditions. Within SEIU, Stern has been engaged in targeting dissenters and seeking to limit participation at his international convention in June. Another example, she noted, was SEIU's pact with a Catholic hospital chain in Ohio where SEIU had the employer file for an election to impose SEIU as its handpicked union for RNs and other staff. The deal also barred employees from discussing the election or the union. Ultimately, Stern and the employer cancelled the election when the deal was exposed in part because of CNA/NNOC criticism of the deal, the pretext of the Michigan attack Saturday night.
Who would have ever thought that Purpleshirts would have replaced Brownshirts as the color of thuggery.
The SEIU is nothing more than morons who use violence to get what they want. The Goverment should use RICO to shut down these mouthbreathers.
Obama and Hillary supporters. No wonder the Democrats court the unions. They are the brownshirt wing of the party.
Unions are Marxist and Marxism is all about violence, this should come as a surprise to no one.
They are the brownshirt wing of the party.
Yeah, you never know when you might need some muscle.
CNA is not slacker in that department. They were the union responsible for the massive protests against GOV. Schwartzenegger during the special election.
It’s pretty much a ‘what goes around, comes around’ kind of thing...
Right. There's no place for violence in organized labor.
I suspect that there wasn't so much physical violence as there was menacing and heavy-handed intimidation. That's only a step away however and I agree with the others who characterize the SEIU as brownshirts and thugs. There is definately at trend in the modern American left towards thuggish behavior, and I believe it's going to get worse.
It does smell fishy.
Which one is the bigger contributor to the dem party? That’s the one that will get a free pass, and the other one will be blamed for it all.
Ma'am, may I suggest to you that had you not seen it yourself, the MSM will bury this story so deeply that chances are you have never even had heard that this happened.
Hornets’ nests, like unions and terror cells, tend to get even more furious when they feel threatened and are under attack.
If McCain gets in expect more union thuggery.
“Otherwise, why weren’t the police involved?”
If I remember it was ruled by the judges that a union could do what they wanted to do.
I disagree and think most unions should be in jail but that is just me against the anti-American Communist. Or is it al-Qaeda now?????
How do you explain the pro America, anti-communist positoins of George Meany, his successors, and many of his followers in the construction trades?
Maybe union workers have some valid points. The Chinese workers could use some unions about now.
An example is CNA. I believe they deliberately wish to drive private hospitals out, so that “health care reform” (socialist medicine) can be instituted.
He’s the exception that proves the rule. And in spite of him and his efforts, the AFL-CIO is today basically a far leftist organization.
Of course there are times when unions are useful, but useful or not, they will inevitably evolve into a Marxist organization.
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