High Officials’ Salaries Open California Nurses Union Up to GOP Attacks

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6244/gop_attacks_california_nurse_association_over_fat_cat_union_salaries/

Tuesday July 20 10:05 am

By Mike Elk


Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman waves to supporters at the Universal Hilton Hotel on June 8, 2010, in Los Angeles, Calif. (Photo by Michal Czerwonka/Getty Images)


Editor's note: This article has been updated with corrections (see below)

The California Nurses Association (CNA) is known as one of the most progressive unions in the country. It endorsed Ralph Nader in 2000 and campaigned steadily for single-payer healthcare when other unions were advocating for the watered down public option. It created a powerful base in California through democratic rank-and-file trade unionism and refused to give into concessionary deals when other nurses unions in California were.

And the CNA hasn't shied away from the state's November gubernatorial election, spending about $300,000 since last year to oppose GOP California Gubentorial Candidate Meg Whitman and support Democratic candidate Jerry Brown, the AP reports.

So perhaps we shouldn't surprised that Whitman has now put the CNA on the defensive for alleged nepotism and excessive union salaries. Last week, Whitman sent out a four-page flyer to all of California’s nearly 300,000 nurses blasting CNA/National Nurses Organizing Committee Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro for earning more than $293,000 per year, nearly five times more than the median salary of a nurse in the United States. And DeMoro’s husband Robert, who heads the union's research arm, is paid nearly $142,254 each year. (You can find all these details at the Whitman campaign's "Truth for Nurses" website.)

The flyer points to state records showing that there are 99 staffers at the CNA who make more than $100,000 a year, while the average salary of nurses in the United States is only $62,400. (The average Cailfornia RN salary in 2009 was $85,080, according to the Labor Department.)

Responding in the LA Times, DeMoro said: "It's again this corporate boss telling the nurses how much they should pay their executive director. She thinks that she should be able to tell nurses what they should pay their staff."

Regardless of why CNA's 86,000 members decided to pay their leaders high salaries, by doing so they open themselves up to right-wing attacks.

FULL story at link.

[rucky]

1. Only CEO's deserve to be making that kind of money.

In a week.

[Make7]

2. Excessive salaries? Doesn't Whitman make over $2 million a year...

... with just her salary (not total compensation) to basically run a website that allows people to buy and sell useless stuff to each other?

Not to mention the completely reasonable salaries that the health insurance CEO's make:

Ins. Co. & CEO With 2008 Total CEO Compensation

• Aetna, Ronald A. Williams: $24,300,112
  
• Cigna, H. Edward Hanway: $12,236,740
  
• Coventry, Dale Wolf: $9,047,469
  
• Health Net, Jay Gellert: $4,425,355
  
• Humana, Michael McCallister: $4,764,309
  
• U. Health Group, Stephen J. Hemsley: $3,241,042
  
• Wellpoint, Angela Braly: $9,844,212

http://www.healthreformwatch.com/2009/05/20/health-insurance-ceos-total-compensation-in-2008/

[truedelphi]

3. the thing is, Calif. prison guards commonly make more than $ 100K

Without spending three to six years taking classes.

And just how much has Meg Whitman made in one year?