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SEIU Runs Letter To Obama From Pauline Beck In Los Angeles Times

The SEIU's bid to get Barack Obama back on board their campaign to prevent the state of California from slashing home health workers wages continues today in the Los Angeles Times.

The group has purchased ad space in the paper, and used it to run a letter from Pauline Beck to President Barack Obama. "Mr. President, I had hoped your stimulus bill, which is bringing billions of dollars to California, would help protect home care," the letter reads. "Unfortunately, it seems that the money is being used for other things."

Beck has become the figurehead of SEIU's campaign. During the Democratic primary, Obama held an event at Beck's home, and later invited her to speak at the party's convention in Denver, CO. Now, she's become the face of California's home health workers who are facing a significant pay cut as the state deals with catastrophic fiscal issues.

The White House originally said it would withhold billions of dollars in stimulus funds if Sacramento went through with its plans, but ultimately backed off the threat. That angered the SEIU, which has responded with a series of attacks on the California legislature and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and some fairly gentle public relations events aimed at getting the administration back in the game. Today's letter slightly raises the temperature on Obama, who will appear at a DNC fundraiser in Los Angeles tonight.

SEIU is a key Obama ally on issues like health reform, but will need the administration on its side as it works to usher it's flagship issue--Employee Free Choice--through some hostile opposition in Congress.


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I'm glad someone's still on this issue. A good friend is the sole caretaker for her 27 year old profoundly impaired, non-verbal son who requires 24-7 care. IHSS (In Home Supportive Service) pays her a little over minimum wage for 7 hours a day of care. Some years she also gets a few hours a week of respite care. If this young man was placed in a group home, he would cost the state a whole lot more for care than paying his mother to care for him. Unless, of course, he died in State care because they don't lavish the attention to his diet, dental, and general health that his mother does. His termination would definitely be cheaper. I do wonder sometimes if that is the plan.

As it is, their combined income including IHSS and SS is around $1500 a month before taxes. In CA, their rent of $1125 a month is minimal. That leaves less than $400 for all other expenses. As an IHSS worker, she doesn't earn SS credits for herself, so there is no safety net for her own old age.

It's amazing that the state looks to people like this to start pinching State pennies. And yet they always do: the disabled, the old, the poor.

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