[lbo-talk] SMART on the SEIU

[joseph noonan]

On Tue, 26 Feb 2008, Mark Rickling wrote:
>
> Again, what is your basis for continuing to assert that homecare
> workers haven't made material gains by organizing? Bob Fitch? As Lisa
> Frank's response two years ago makes clear, he doesn't know what the
> fuck he's talking about. Besides being factually incorrect, the
> "SMART" "history" Steve Robinson forwards isn't even internally
> consistent -- it states that the "majority of the Los Angeles homecare
> workers still make barely over minimum wage" as well as claiming "tens
> of thousands of homecare workers in Los Angeles . . .still make
> $9 an hour" ($9 is over 50% greater than the current federal minimum
> wage of $5.85, btw).

That is pathetically disingenuous; do you live in California?  If you do, 
you should know the minimum wage in CA is $8.00/hr, since January this 
year.  It was 7-something -- almost two bucks over Federal last year.  It 
hasn't been 5.85/hr in CA since 1998.

<http://www.dir.ca.gov/Iwc/MinimumWageHistory.htm>

For what it's worth, in Houston, TX with a considerably lower cost of 
living than anywhere in CA, entry level clerical positions start at 11/hr 
where I work and I don't work for a big rich oil company (and this is NOT
a union shop and TX is an at-will, right to work state).

9/hr for caring for people's health and medical needs is disgraceful and 
trying make excuses for it is repugnant.

-- 
"Humanity will not be free until the last king is strangled with the
entrails of the last priest."

 				(Voltaire)