Guaranteed Healthcare

Photos, video, and graceful writing are coming from others, but I wanted to give a quick report on today’s Ohio barnstorming.  We are a troupe of 12 nurses or so travelling Ohio making sure RNs have a voice in this historic moment our nation is staring at.

Of course we had to begin the day with a photo op in front of the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.  We’re America’s RN Union, so we need iconic photos across the country.

After that we hit the road, back to Akron, in search of healthcare voters, and education opportunities.  We did a short rah-rah to the walkers at the Akron labor hall, pumping up folks in the midst of doing the hard work of community organizing. 

We stopped by a healthcare community forum in the small town of Stow, where we picked up Bill O’Neill, a member of ours running for Congress, and took him to the local paper to demand some coverage.  Unfortunately, Akron’s paper has been hit as hard as the rest of the region, and they don’t have staff on the weekend. 

It was spooky standing in the middle of downtown Akron—formerly known as “Rubber City” now as the birthplace of Lebron James—pounding on the doors of a shuttered newspaper within sight of a skyline full of abandoned construction projects and abandoned factories.

Next up: Kent, yep, that Kent, as in Kent State University, where an earlier generation of protestors was mowed down by government bullets.  A very different kind of power was on display today as John Conyers—healthcare hero and Congressional conscience—held a rally for a very energized crowd of local volunteers.  He spent a great deal of time visiting with the nurses, and our allies from the Professional Democrats of America, as well as thanking everyone for their work, and exhorting them, “10 more days to change the world!”  It was an honor for us—and for him, he insisted—to be with him in front of the bus emblazoned with his bill HR 676 for guaranteed healthcare for every American.

After that it was time to roll us our scrub sleeves and pitch in.  We swung by a USW hall in Niles, Ohio (near Youngstown) that was staffed by folks from CWA and UPWA-postal.  RNs from AFSCME greeted us and told us how proud they were of us for stopping SEIU at Catholic Healthcare Partners.

The stories the labor folks told were heartbreaking.  30 plants closed in recent months and years in the surrounding area, with most of the jobs moved to China thanks to Bill Clinton’s heartless trade bills.  CEO’s spending lavishly on plant-closing dinners—“factory funerals”—and telling workers “Hold your head high as you walk out of here, because you worked hard every day.” 

And still we called through AFL CIO and Working America members, to find about half voting for McCain—going down with the ship.

But our friends at the labor hall warned us this was a conservative, battered-down, hurting, depressed, bleeding part of the state—and further behind the rest of Ohio, which is ready for hope, change, and healthcare.

Tomorrow, we have two events with Congressional candidates who are about to push corrupt incumbents out of office, and highlight their support of HR 676 and safe nurse ratios.