The following comes from a June 17 story in the Sacramento Bee. 

…The growth [of the California Nurses Association] came as the union made its name in politics by mau-mauing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, after he sided with hospitals and tried to roll back a law signed by Gov. Gray Davis that guaranteed nurse staffing levels.

In the 2010 campaign, the union aimed its guerrilla theater tactics at “Queen” Meg Whitman, viewing her as a Schwarzenegger clone.

Operating behind the scenes, the union orchestrated the emergence of Nicky Diaz Santillan, Whitman’s spurned illegal immigrant housekeeper. Diaz sent the Whitman campaign for a loop five weeks before the election by holding a weepy press conference in the Los Angeles offices of her celebrity attorney, Gloria Allred, recalling how billionaire Whitman fired her.

Three weeks after Jerry Brown trounced Whitman, the San Francisco Chronicle disclosed the union’s role in the Diaz matter. Unknown at that time, the union had paid Diaz’s immigration attorney $25,000 a week before the election, its Labor Department report shows.

For all its success, however, the union has been taking positions that leave allies in the Capitol scratching their heads. The union insists it defends the interests of patients in its lobbying efforts, not solely the interests of its union members.

“Our prime directive as a board of directors is making sure that any legislation protects the patients,” said Deborah Burger, president of California Nurses Association and a nurse at Kaiser-Santa Rosa.

But some of its stands run counter to public health. There is, for example, legislation that would permit registered nurses to dispense birth control pills in community clinics.

Earlier this year, there was legislation that sought to expand a program by which nurse practitioners and nurse-midwives provide nonsurgical abortions.

The California Nurses Association contends that the measures could leave poor women with lesser care than people of means. Health care advocates viewed those claims as bogus, and believe the issue comes down to union representation.

Planned Parenthood is the main proponent of both bills. As it happens, Planned Parenthood clinics are not union shops.

Assemblywoman Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, the author of the birth control legislation, is hardly antagonistic toward labor and has spent a career focused on issues related to poor women and children….

“It is a basic woman’s reproductive health issue,” Mitchell said of her bill, Assembly Bill 2348, which awaits a Senate vote. “I am deeply disappointed that the opposition comes from a female-dominated health care profession, at a time when we are experiencing attacks in public policy settings on women’s health choices….”

“It is our mission to increase access to birth control,” said Kathy Kneer, the longtime head of Planned Parenthood in California. “We have something we know is safe. The issue is, how do we remove barriers to obtaining birth control?”

To read entire story, Click here.

 

READER COMMENTS

Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2012 12:10 AM By charlio
It would be interesting to see the pro-life vs. pro-abortion stats on the rank & file nurses. In other industries, the aberrant behavior can be explained by how out of touch from the membership the leadership is.

Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2012 3:32 AM By Gordon Campbell
My dear Wormwood, when harvesting souls create division amongst the potentially damned by fostering diversive situations so that the reality and the moral reognance to say,MURDER,becomes secondary,and diluted.It will become not “why”,but “how”. But do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys. Screwtape

Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2012 4:24 AM By 4unborn
“It is a basic woman’s reproductive health issue,” Mitchell said of her bill, Assembly Bill 2348. What about the unborn babies who are being killed?

Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2012 7:13 AM By MacDonald
If everyone on the planet (especially the men, who don’t face the same consequences when it comes to pregnancy) behaved as the Catholic Church teaches…wow! No abortions, no birth control, no messing around with sex, nothing but fidelity in marriage, no AIDS, so STDS at all, no abuse, rape or incest. I keep dreaming and hoping and praying…

Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2012 7:50 AM By JLS
A view of the wart on the devil’s nose.

Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2012 11:24 AM By goodcause
When organizations are too successful they turn canibal and eat their own, believing turf wars are more important than policy achievements. Unions are wrecking California on many different levels. Sad that the unborn are victims of this nonsense.

Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2012 11:40 AM By Abeca Christian
Mr. editor I don’t know if you have read that here in San Diego, The Rock has had a porn star as one of their speakers, they were saying that God loves porn stars too. I don’t know if you could report on this, I know they are not Catholic but a lot of their members are fallen away Catholics, I have a few family relatives that go there. I don’t know what became of the that story but I wanted to know more in detail. What I’m saying is even the protestants have heretical speakers too.

Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2012 1:05 PM By max
“God loves porn stars,” abeca? who would havle thunk? thanks for clearing that up. (just don’t tell JLS or he’ll be running after ’em with his six guns…)

Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2012 3:30 PM By Delilah
I am a Registered Nurse and believe me the CNA doesn’t speak for me. I have refused to join that union. If they thought the patient’s are the most important, the union members wouldn’t strike. I loathe seeing RNs carrying picket signs and not caring for their patient’s.

Posted Wednesday, June 20, 2012 8:16 AM By JMJ
Thankfully God loves ALL OF US SINNERS; it is the SIN that he hates, as each and every one of us will find out when we take our very last breath. The only time that I wouldn’t mind see RNs carrying signs, is when they are protesting bad hospital and/or government regulations, unless, of course, they are suppose to be in he hospital taking care of the patients. God Bless all of you pro-life nurses. I don’t trust doctors, but, I do have a deep respect for the nurses that take care of their patients. +JMJ+

Posted Wednesday, June 20, 2012 11:41 AM By Tracy
Delilah, in response your June 19, 3:30 PM post; from what I understand the only way you can avoid joining the CNA is either to never work for one of the many hospitals they represent or to work in management for one of these hospitals. It is an injustice when someone with the desire to work must avoid many places of employment, as is your case, just because the condition for working there forces one to join and support an evil labor union. I wish all Catholic leaders would see this. I encourage everyone to go to the “Stop Special Interest Money Now” and learn how this ballot initiative is a first step at setting us free from the tyranny of labor unions. It will be interesting to see how the various California diocese side with this issue.

Posted Thursday, June 21, 2012 12:29 PM By Abeca Christian
wait a minute max, I was just exposing that Protestant sects also have dissenter speakers and we are not the only ones. But I guess with the protestant mentality anything goes. Many of them are fallen away Catholics and they judge the church yet they join other churches that are having many of the same issues sinners make!