Grassroots Legislative Organizer's Blog #6
Sunday, February 14
Rally for Respect
On Monday, I went to Tacoma for a rally to help stand up in support for home care workers with the Korean Women’s Association. The negotiations for their contract are not going so great. I went to the rally knowing that I was there to give my voice and support to the workers. In times like this numbers are more important than ever. We all need to stand behind KWA home care workers and urge management to support workers - because next time it could be my employer that doesn’t want to do the right thing. The rally went great - we had KWA workers there, several other members from other agencies and a lot of community supporters.
Click here to see a video about the rally and click on this Web site to see more information about the effort to win respect for KWA home care workers.
Prep Work
Wednesday was prep day for Purple Presence. An important part of my job is to get the most accurate materials possible. When our bills go thru the process we want the message to get to the members as soon as possible. One of the ways we do this is the Member to Member Legislative Conference Calls, every Tuesday night at 6pm. For more information on how to join, call our Member Resource Center toll-free at 1 (866) 371-3200. Last week’s call went very well. The next one is on Tuesday, February 16, at 6pm.
Nursing Home Purple Presence
This week’s Purple Presence is for nursing home workers. Over the past several weeks, nursing home workers from across the state have written messages on scrubs to give to their legislators. These messages focus on how the budget cuts affect the quality of care in nursing homes, affect the workers and residents. Some of the messages focus on the need for better equipment.
We had 24 members in town today – 19 of them were nursing home workers. The House and Senate were on the floor today so we did a training session on how to pull someone off the floor. This is different from pulling them out of committee. There are four different kinds of request sheets based on where they are located on the floor. The request is given to the guard at the door, and then he delivers it to the legislator on the floor. The legislator is not always able to come out because they might be voting or reading a bill. It was easier at the end of the day. At that point, we were able to pull several of the senators and representatives off the floor. We got several positive responses to the scrubs. At lunch time, we stood out at the sundial and changed “Revenue - no cuts” and “What do we want? Revenue. When do we want it? Now”
Floor Action on the Space Shuttle
Listening to the representatives and senators can be fun. I had a chance to listen to the debate on the floor for a bit. There was one bill in the House to bring the space shuttle to Seattle. The representative talking about it was pretty funny. He even got everyone to agree with him – 100% of the vote. This was so cool. I also learned today while I was listening to the Senate that when they read a bill, they start reading it until the Speaker says, “Last line.” They do this to save time. Everyone has the bills on their computer so they can read it themselves. If you want to read about any bill, you can go to http://www.leg.wa.gov.
Personal News
On the home front, I would like to wish everyone a wonderful Valentine’s Day. I’m taking my self to a movie and finding the biggest piece of chocolate cake I can find. Do something for yourself . You deserve it.