From Washington City Paper:

The department had been pushed to assess its mental health centers for a while. This past summer, it hired KPMG to study whether the centers should go private. The departmental back story is referenced in a report released earlier this month.

The conclusion of the study, Baron says is simple: If DMH privatizes its centers, it will save a lot of money and have a chance to increase the number of residents it helps. The department would save between $11 and $14 million.

The savings would come from an obvious source. “I think frankly it comes down to labor costs and the benefits,” says Phyllis Jones, DMH’s spokesperson. “The private providers tend to have cheaper labor costs.”

A number of years ago I worked in the mental health "industry". I was a member of SEIU and I ran a small work site used to help people with severe mental illness to transition back to work.

They were a very unique bunch from some who heard voices to those who were depressed with severe rage issues and there were also the ones that were quiet, just struggling to make it through the day. All in all, they are some of my best memories of working.

Then, Ohio privatized mental health care. I was replaced by what was then known as a SOS worker, or a State Operated Service worker. A few displaced by the issues related to the privatization and closure efforts coudln't just be "fired" they were protected by their union, AFSCME. Because the SOS worker would be free (I was told for 1 to 2 years), I was replaced by them. My agency could utilize the worker and then consider hiring them down the road, but in the meantime, they'd get a free year, maybe 2.

So, when I read about the privatization efforts, I began to wonder if DC will offer something similar. The workers and their unions have fought for a very long time to bring up the rate of pay and benefits for city service organizations and the services provided to the mentally ill are not small. Working with the mentally ill takes a very patient and very dedicated person. I'm not sure that privitization for mental health services will be good or bad for the city at this point. I do know that for the 200+ workers currently doing this job, looking for new employment in the middle of a recession is not going to be welcome news.

One additional note, I hope SEIU and CNA are looking to unionize the private mental health service organizations not currently unionized. These workers deserve a hand up to pay them more for the hard work that they do, and more importantly, to provide good benefits for that work. After you've had to restrain one client, you'd better understand what I mean about having better benefits.

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Recently, in DC, Republican incumbent Carol Schwartz has come under fire for her advocacy of and vote for the paid sick leave bill that made its way through Council. Although the bill was extraordinarily weak and pathetic, it’s still a step in the right direction. Her opponent in the Republican primary has been out bashing her for the endorsements she’s received from labor, while he’s also been intimating that Republicans and unions don’t mix (um, does he remember the 80’s and the unfortunate Teamsters’ endorsements? Or IAFF’s endorsement of DeWine in Ohio over Sherrod Brown?), clearly, he’s an idiot who can raise money and thereby threaten an entrenched Republican (I’m yawning here), good for him, even if he's an idiot.

Now, it appears that this little race, and more specifically the issue of paid sick leave, has some very interesting national implications that the AP (I know, the dreaded AP which seems to be cleaning up their act) actually reported today (not the local race, the implication of it on the nation):

Some 46 million U.S. workers lack paid sick days, but lawmakers in 12 states — including California, Connecticut, Minnesota and West Virginia — have proposed legislation in the past year that would require businesses to provide them.

Snip

The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 43 percent of the private industry labor force worked in 2007 without paid sick time, a group primarily made up of low-paid employees at small businesses.

That means that the waitresses at your table, the cooks in your kitchens and the school bus drivers (who aren’t yet unionized through the Teamsters' efforts) are helping you to a nice heaping serving of whatever they are carrying from viruses to bacteria. They’re treating you to more and more sickness. I know, it’s sweet, isn’t it?

But fear not, if you live in DC, and don’t work in the food industry or health care industry, are on the job for at least a year, you might be able to qualify for prorated sick days depending on how many hours you work up to a maximum number of days. I know complicated, I prefer how San Francisco did it:

Paid sick days are already law in Washington, D.C., where employees earn days off based on the number of hours worked and the size of the business, and in San Francisco, which requires one hour sick leave for every 30 hours worked.

The Golden Gate Restaurant Association, which represents 900 restaurants, did not endorse or oppose the ballot measure that enacted the local ordinance, but won several changes, such as allowing employers to require a worker give "reasonable notice" when calling in sick, said Kevin Westlye, executive director. The law has been successful, he said.

"There's been some concern that employees are abusing the ordinance. There's been a little bit of that, but not as widespread as people thought at the beginning," Westlye said.

Interesting, no abuse and the association didn't bother to step into it, sweet.

But what you should pay attention to is who currently supports such measures on the national level, because if we’re fortunate enough to elect him President:

Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, supports the legislation.

I suppose the real thing to think about here is why vote for anyone other than Obama? But in DC... you have a choice as a Republican in the primary on September 9th, supporting an incumbent concerned with some citizen’s services and a guy who seems to think just like John McCain. Hmm, which should DC voters chose? Hmm, they both kind of suck.

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So, I’m surfing the tubes and wandered over to one of my favorite sites and found out Uniongal has been TAGGED. Yep, they got us!!

Don’t know what that means, well, let me give it up to Fire on The Mountain for just a minute:

[I've just been "tagged" by "Celtic Fire" with a "meme." (For your sake, I hope you don't know what that means--if you do, you are probably spending altogether too much time on teh Intertubes.)

Translation: a fellow blogger has listed me with some other bloggers and requests that we continue the circulation of a participatory email resembling a chain-letter that he got suckered into earlier. Because, lately, I've been thinking about how the blogosphere works--and how it doesn't--and because I like CF, I've decided to give his request a play, the first time I've ever chosen not to simply shitcan one of these things.]


Having been tagged by Celtic Fire, I take the liberty of presenting the rules:

The Rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Optional: 5. Present an image of martial discord from whatever period or situation you'd like.

Okay, so, I’m game.

Here Are My 7 Things:

1. I can’t keep track of all my blogs and the sites I contribute to!
2. People think my e-mail address is spam porn.
3. I volunteered on a suicide helpline at 16.
4. There are 3 of us on this blog, did you notice?
5. Puhun suomea. Puhutko suomea?
6. I dream of running my own union bakery.
7. I turned down a dream job with an international union, and I still have no idea why I did it.

So, here goes, with the tagging:
(um, sorry)

Faboomama
Obama4UnityBeatsMcCain
Anacostia Diaries
Congress Heights on The Rise
unionreview
Joe’s Union Review
Unbossed

Aren’t you all lucky?

My optional "image of martial discord."American Axle: Detroit Police Violence at Rally I don’t even think I need to say more about my dismay over that one or the 11 week strike and the result of Dauch getting millions in a bonus from the board. Bastard.

I’d have tagged Washington City Paper or DCist or even Mike Panetta, but I doubt they’d really have cared if I’d tagged them. Now that I’ve mentioned it, I doubt any of my 7 will either.

Okay, Fire On The Mountain, I’ve complied with the rules. Oh and BTW, still love your blog even if you think it’s cool to tag uniongal!!

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From the Washington Post:

A second baby who was the subject of a neglect case by the District's Child and Family Services Agency died yesterday -- the same day that the long-troubled agency tried to explain a 2,000-case backlog at a D.C. Council hearing called to address the recent death of a 6-month-old boy.

2000 case backlog. In the last installment of the Adrianism of the “buck stops at front line workers” we learned that the Mayor is not shy about firing people who he forces into having workloads that aren’t even manageable. Today we learn that not only are those case loads not manageable and that social workers can’t get to the investigational parts of their jobs, but that there are 2000 cases sitting.

Now, when I say “case” I mean children at risk. These are people, human beings and it just doesn’t seem as if the Mayor takes these people seriously. If he did, there’d be more social workers, more investigation, more case workers and there wouldn’t be a backlog of 2000 people. If he really took it seriously, we wouldn’t have to read about 15 year old mothers rolling on top of their babies, smothering:

Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), chairman of the Committee on Human Services, said it was his understanding that the child's 15-year-old mother "rolled over and slept on him." No official cause of death had been released.
Wells also said that the 4-month-old's case was part of the "backlog," the catchall term for cases in which investigations have not been completed within 30 days.

But 2000 cases? That’s beyond belief and as the mayor continues to fire social workers, he isn’t replacing them quick enough to staunch the tied of cases being reported.

The unnamed social worker in Isiah's case went from carrying four cases in January to juggling 50 and hadn't seen children in 17 of those cases at the time of Isiah's death.

So, she’s fired, her supervisor suspended and two children dead. There is no such thing as a back log, these are people and they need help, and I’m not talking about the children in crisis, I’m talking about the front line workers who want to be effective in their jobs. I can’t imagine any of them want to think about the lives they weren’t able to save because of resources they didn’t have in the office. So, Mr. Mayor, how many more children need to die before resources are allocated to social workers? How many more kids will die before they get the staff and case loads that can save lives? How much are these kids lives worth to you Mr. Mayor?

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So, the job market is tough, it’s tough on everyone. But one group I hadn’t even considered seems to be even harder hit than the rest of us, it’s teens.

Job losses for teens over the past eight years have been severe for nearly all major demographic, socioeconomic and geographic subgroups. Younger teens (16-17), males, blacks and Hispanics, and those in low-income households are most at-risk of joblessness this summer.

There’s been a rise in teen violence this year in DC. Teens have been mugging District residence at an alarming rate in just about every ward of the city. Sometimes, the crimes are not even motivated by money, but rather, just to beat the crap out of someone.

In fact, the police chief has been trying some really controversial measures to curb the violence. For instance, police have been granted the authority to knock on residents doors in Ward 8 (my old neighborhood) to ask if they can search the home for guns or drugs and then there’s the new measure, “safe zones” which the Washington CityPaper complained that…

… it strains the mind to imagine how this will do anything other than displace crime, and send a very clear message to kids growing up in D.C. that the police already think they’re criminals.

Of course, if you live in Hill East, Trinidad, Congress Heights, or on the Southwest Waterfront, maybe you’re hoping that you’ll be in one of these “safe zones.” But, I digress. The issue here seems to be kids, just hanging around. And it’s kids of all ages. This has been a problem before, but now, we’ve added to the mix high gas prices, high food prices, and now, little to no summer employment. And this isn’t a uniquely DC problem (we do have a summer jobs program for teens), it’s happening all over.

Take for instance a friend of mine back home who owns an ice cream shop that’s attached to her family owned restaurant. She wanted to give teens a chance at employment with a summer job at their ice cream store. But, she noted to my mother that over the last couple of years almost everyone that she’s hired has ended up stealing from the shop or directly from the register. And, according to the Post article , her issues don’t seem to be isolated

SnagAJob also found that managers who do plan on hiring are less than impressed with teens' work ethic. More than half of those surveyed (56 percent) agreed with the statement that "today's youth do not have the same work ethic as previous generations have had."

I don’t have a solution to the problems here, I just know that I have a teen who walks dogs and for her, it’s employment, I’m just wondering lately what kind of world she and her generation is inheriting from us. As of right now, it’s looking more and more like one they’ll need to fix with universal health care, stronger employment laws and one that has to take a really determined look at the global market and how it shapes all of our lives, especially how Free-for corporations-Trade. Sure seems like it’s a big mess to clean up.

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Today is a sad day. Not only is the NAFTA queen being called the comeback kid, but DC City Council voted on Tuesday to say Fuck You to waitresses and Health Care workers in the city.

Yep, that's right, please remember to thank

Harry Thomas Jr. (Ward 5)
Mary Cheh (Ward 3)
Kwame Brown (At-Large, I guess I should expect this from a former Wal-Mart executive)
Yvette Alexander (Ward 7, WTF Yvette?)
Vincent Gray (Council Chair)
Jack Evans (Ward 2)
David Catania (At-Large-Independent former Republican)

For Voting their Fuck You to DC workers.

From DC's Metro Washington Labor Council:

With an estimated 200,000 workers in DC who do not currently get paid sick time, with high concentrations in low-wage food service, retail, and construction -- including part-time workers and workers in seasonal positions - sick leave advocates say many DC workers may now never meet the one-year full-time minimum to access paid sick and safe time.

I do taxes as a volunteer in DC. I sit across from the table and look at the financial picture of worker after worker after worker. What is the most disgusting part of yesterday's vote is that they could have included servers and still did the ridiculous 12 months full time requirement and still taken them out of the mix, but Health Care workers? That's one aimed directly at single moms. It's aimed at the visiting nurses who aren't represented by a union, the certified nursing assistants, homehealth aides, mental health aides, etc... These are the lowest paid health workers out there. And I do their taxes. They make less than $30k a year working full time when they do work full time. Most do not. Most work multiple jobs and all of them are part time.

So, thank you Carol Schwartz for pushing this measure (I can't believe I'm thanking a Republican), but to the unanimous support the final bill recieved, shame on DC Council. Shame on each and every one of you for voting the Fuck You to DC workers.

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So, I'm popping out of the pool yesterday in the building and this knock on the window starts, scaring the crap out of me. Yep, it someone I know. Surprise, Surprise!

So, he goes on to say that we're having a State-wide convention on May 3rd and that my name has come up in relation to having a Labor/Union Caucus along with someone else (a guy I know and respect as he's a brother in the Teamsters).

Well, that's cool. I know that I'd heard about the talk in relation to this convention, but I have to ask myself, how the hell is this being organized. We're two months out and I'm being asked now, at the Pool window?

And after thinking about all of this, I realize that I'm living in a Will Rogers quote, "I don't belong to any organized Party, I'm a Democrat."

Will, I'm with you. And apparently so is the party I belong to, your party.

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