Archive for January, 2007

– Richard Olmsted, Professor of Philosophy, Rhode Island College, Providence, RI

I have spent a forty year career in college/university teaching, and it seems to me that the problem this organization is trying to address may have begun in higher education. In colleges and universities, part time professional teaching positions requiring extended education but offering low pay with limited or no benefits have been proliferating since the early Seventies.

Personally, I am very fortunate to have had a reasonably secure professorial career.
I have also benefited from a union contract negotiated by a relatively strong local union (AFT) in a state with favorable organizing laws. However, even under these circumstances our union
has been unable to prevent a substantial portion of the teaching at my state supported institution (Rhode Island College) from being shifted to part-time faculty who receive punishingly low pay and no benefits. I have colleagues whose work I admire who have suffered
such conditions for years, for decades. The result has been the weakening of our union and terrible injustice for our colleagues.

–Marianne Mueller, Palo Alto, CA

I was laid off on November 4, 2001, unexpectedly, after returning to work from a health-related disability leave. My health problems were/are related to my erstwhile profession, computer scientist. I held a high-paying job with great benefits at a prominent Silicon Valley company, Sun Microsystems, for 13 years. For one year before that, I worked at a Silicon Valley startup, which was a fun but bizarre experience. I am now trying to retool myself as a writer.

I think writing is the hardest thing I have ever tried to do. It is also satisfying. I heard Barbara Ehrenreich on Cambridge Forum and cried. After I was laid off, I was depressed and after 8 months tried repeatedly to kill myself. The past few years have been a good time of recovery. I am lucky in that Sun laid me off illegally while I was still on disability, so I qualified for their long-term disability insurance. I use the word insurance on purpose; it is an insurance program, not some weird handout for people who win a sort of lottery. My friends for the most part see it as some sort of lottery; some are jealous, most simply discredit me in some way, without meaning to be unkind. I want to be self-sufficient, whole, a contributor. I am not sure how to get there.

I have a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Washington, a respected school with a respected program in that field. I am currently working on a master’s of liberal arts at Stanford and don’t know where that might take me, or help to get me someplace. I think it’s a good thing for me to be doing now. I identify with the set of people this organization is for: the unemployed and the anxious. I think Barbara Ehrenreich is a compassionate genius in her understanding of the surreal world of the corporate life.

– Name Withheld by Request

Way back in the sixties, when I started teaching, we teachers were told that if you got your Masters, you’d have a job for life. So I earned mine. I loved teaching and I will immodestly say that I was good at it. When I got married and became pregnant, I chose the Mommy Track, thinking that I would return to teaching when my children were older. Ten years later, when I tried to return to teaching, I was shocked to learn that I was “over-qualified!” After several years of being riffed from part-time and full time positions, I wound up teaching extension classes for colleges that offered degrees for non-traditional students who hoped to better their economic position by earning a college degree. How ironic is that! I wish that your organization had been around when I was floundering around. I’m retired now but I’m paying dues to you anyway because I’ve been there and hope that you can spare others the —- that I went through!

– Eric Rambo, Madison, WI

I am a former faculty member (sociologist), now a well-employed but perennially insecure consultant. I’m about to turn 50 and worry what would become of me if I were unemployed once again. Last time I was only 40. Moreover, I think I see the promise of an organization such as this as a counter-weight to economic forces in the society working against the interests of every working and non-working person — professional and otherwise. It may not be a union you are creating but I imagine it serving some of the same purposes. AARP is an excellent model.

– Pseudonym N=1

This N=1 will attempt to bring patient advocacy (that’s all of us) information, health policy news (Bush SOTU commentary, HR676 progress, and highlights from the health policy powerhouses such as the Kaiser Network and the Commonwealth Foundation), while inserting some healthcare quality and patient safety information here and there. But professional nursing will also be highlighted so that patients understand how nursing is the driver and the facilitator of health and health services.

N=1 frequently asserts that “as the health of nursing goes, so goes the health of the nation.”

Yesterday, George W. Bush, in the State of the Union (SOTU) address, that he would propose to essentially tax some of the middle-class employer-based health benefits in order to redistribute the monies to allow a small, but significant, percentage of the uninsured population to be able to purchase health insurance.

This is akin to burdening those not making financial advances in order that those struggling even more can purchase some minimal coverage. It doesn’t take into account those who will continue to be excluded because of pre-existing conditions, high risk, lack of employment, or any of the other situations that exclude the uninsured from the ability to purchase adequate and comprehensive health insurance. Karen Davis of the Commonwealth Fund, wrote a cogent rebuttal, and it’s worth the read to understand the ramifications of Bush’s proposal and the reasoning for rejecting it.

N=1 will keep one eye on the health policy road and one eye on people struggling to maintain their health - with or without insurance.

What N=1 advocates:

Universal healthcare is a basic right of all American citizens and residents.
Professional nursing is the essential foundation of all healthcare services.
All Americans have a right to access and to receive professional nursing.
All Americans deserve to be treated as partners in making their healthcare decisions - both individual and national (policy).
Nurses have an obligation to serve, unrestricted, as patient advocates.
Physicians have an obligation to diagnose and treat illness, injury and disease, unrestricted.
Insurers, hospitals, and other healthcare employers have usurped the practice of medicine and nursing and have imposed policies which have harmed patients and which have interfered with the professional practice of medicine and nursing.
Universal healthcare must have the following attributes:

Provided for everyone
Free from employer-based or employer-controlled enrollment
Free from conditions of participation
Free from insurance-based model of administration
Promotes preventive health care
Promotes patients as full partners in healthcare decisions
Uses a not-for-profit model of administration
Eliminates disparities in quality of and access to health care providers and services

Here’s to healthy debate and discussion here and around the tubes of the internets!

As always, readers may find extensive links resource listings on my blog, http://universalhealth.wordpress.com.

– Name withheld, TN

As I approach the ripe age (or unripe, depending on your perspective) of 30, I am overwhelmed by the vast amount of uncertainty that all of us face in our careers. Not because of competitiveness between employee but mainly because of the uneveness of the corporate landscape and the turbulent economy that is making the upper-elite super rich while the rest of us try to strike some delicate balance between survival and financial ruin.

I’m a young professional with a solid educational background, but with each passing year I don’t see myself building a strong financial base or even saving a great deal for the future. Rather, as costs skyrocket and wages remain stagnant, more and more of our disposable income gets gobbled up by necessities that our family requires. With this in mind, it keeps me ponderous and concerned about the current corporate culture that sees all workers as disposable, regardless of merit.

I believe an organization such as United Professionals will give a much needed boost to those of us who are driven to succeed yet are faced with the cruel realities of todays business world. A networking tool that will reach other likeminded individuals who are looking anxiously at the future will serve to foster dialogue on our own careers and perhaps strengthen our own skills.

– Name witheld, IN

Until summer of 2001 I was teaching at university and writing on politics of Middle East and Central Asia. Before moving to Indiana I and my wife lived in Washington DC area and in addition to writing and teaching I worked with US and non-US NGO’s organizing international events. I lost my job after loss of my wife in 2001 and serious depression that followed. I have been unemployed since then.

– Name withheld, NY

I am a new MA recipient, trying desperately to do the work I love - working as a cultural advocate, teaching college courses in anthropology, working with college students, working with un- and under-represented cultural groups. So far I have worked at a number of lower paying and almost unrelated positions, taught some courses as am adjunct lecturer, but I am SO tired of hearing I am either over-qualified or qualified in areas that aren’t specific enough. Right now I work part-time as a library assistant, no health insurance, no year-round employment. It’s nice to know that there are others out there in my same situation.

– Name witheld, CT

I am being discriminated against at work. I’m not sure why? My age, simply not being liked or reorganization and not wanting to pay unemployment. But I do feel they are making it very difficult to work there and it is causing a great deal of mental stress. I’m feeling vulnerable since I’m 61 years of age. Support for my situation would be most helpful. Thank you for this wonderful website.

– Warner Mendenhall, Akron. OH

I am a labor and employment attorney based in Akron, Ohio. I also represent my clients in bankruptcy and for whistleblowing against their corporations. I constantly encounter talented, smart, well spoken and well trained people discarded by their companies. They are shocked when they get sick, are then fired, and then have no insurance to pay for health needs. The next thing they know they are in my office, sometimes in tears, figuring out what laws have been broken and w/n to file for bankruptcy.