Meg Whitman is a household name, at least among households with habitual readers of the business press, especially those who invest in technology stocks. She is the near-legendary manager of the Internet giant eBay. Under her stewardship eBay grew from a kicky startup Web site where people could sell and buy stuff, but which made no income to speak of, into the stellar success it is today. —Haaretz, 07/28/10 More »
Republican Meg Whitman wants to eliminate the capital gains tax in California if she is elected governor in November, a key part of her plan to boost state employment. Her sales pitch: Cutting taxes for the wealthy will encourage them to create private-sector jobs. —Associated Press, 07/28/10 More »
In her gubernatorial campaign, California billionaire Meg Whitman fancies herself a turnaround artist, not unlike CEOs who take on failing companies and put them in the black. In her analysis of why the nation's most populous state and the world's 12th largest economy has a chronically dysfunctional government, one villain stands out: public-employee unions. —Time, 07/20/10 More »
Hundreds of unionized nurses wearing scrubs held a raucous rally Thursday outside the Silicon Valley home of GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman to protest her proposals for the state, which they say will hurt working people. Dozens of police officers descended on the leafy streets surrounding Whitman's two-story colonial home in Atherton. An estimated 1,100 protesters chanted "We're going to beat back the Whitman attack" as an airplane paid for by the nurses union circled overhead, trailing a banner that read, "Nurses say no to Whitman." —Associated Press, 07/15/10 More »
Atherton police are bracing for the town's quiet streets to be flooded today with hundreds of nurses for a rally outside the home of Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. The California Nurses Association says the noontime rally — which is expected to draw up to 1,000 nurses to the former eBay executive's house on Edge Road near Menlo-Atherton High School — is a "response to a decision by candidate Whitman to mount an offensive attack directly against the" union. —San Jose Mercury News, 07/15/10 More »
Here’s another thing we don’t understand: Why Meg Whitman keeps picking fights with the California Nurses’ Association. Having already erected a new web site exclusively dedicated to brawling with the nurses’ union, and sent a personal letter to every member of the CNA, Her Megness announced yesterday that she is “forming an advisory board of nurses to advise her on issues during the campaign.” —Calbuzz, 07/14/10 More »
The California Nurses Association has taken on powerful people before, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators from both major parties, and has scored resounding wins. In each showdown, the 86,000-person union made full use of its key advantage – the appeal of its members' professions – while pressing hard for policies that benefited nurses. —Sacramento Bee, 07/04/10 More »
The nurses group wants Brown as the next governor, but Whitman is reaching out directly to individual nurses. Meg Whitman is trying her hand at a manner of union busting – and her degree of success will help determine whether she's elected governor in November. —Orange County Register, 07/02/10 More »
With campaigning disappearing and becoming irrelevant as we head into the 4th of July weekend, something remarkable has taken place in the race to replace term-limited Arnold Schwarzenegger as California's governor. We're now essentially one-fifth of the way through the general election. Billionaire Republican wannabe governor Meg Whitman has spent a record-shattering $100 million. Jerry Brown has spent virtually nothing. Yet Whitman's campaign has failed to change anything in the overall dynamic of the race. —Huffington Post, 07/01/10 More »
The Assembly Health Committee today approved the California Universal Health Care Act, authored by Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco). The bill guarantees all Californians comprehensive, universal health care while containing ballooning health care costs and improving the quality of care and delivery of health services statewide. —California Chronicle, 06/30/10 More »
The California Nurses Association said the incident shows how disconnected the GOP gubernatorial nominee is from working people. At a news conference outside its Oakland headquarters that was attended by 150 nurses in red scrubs, the union unveiled a new ad campaign - "Nurses Won't Be Pushed Around" - and released posters showing a heavily jeweled hand adorned with rings that was meant to represent the billionaire candidate. —San Francisco Chronicle, 06/25/10 More »
Remember back in December 2004 when California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger told nurses protesting staffing cuts that they were “special interests,” who “don’t like me in Sacramento because I kick their butt?” The California Nurses Association (CNA) then sued the Governor, and helped defeat all of his ballot measures in the November 2005 special election. —Beyond Chron, 06/24/10 More »
In a radio interview, the Republican said the altercation was a verbal dispute and characterizes the media interest in the story as the 'fascination of the chattering class. After a week of silence, Meg Whitman has spoken out about a report that she shoved a subordinate when she was chief executive of EBay, characterizing the altercation as a verbal dispute and dismissing the uproar about it as "a fascination of the chattering class." —Los Angeles TImes, 06/23/10 More »
It’s been six months after Registered Nurses and the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United filed a complaint with the California Department of Public Health regarding sweeping and pervasive patient care problems at the University of California Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. —California Progress Report, 06/17/10 More »
Dozens of nurses walked picket lines outside the UC Davis Medical Center on Thursday, joining scores of other registered nurses across the state to protest what they decry as chronic violations of the state law requiring minimum staffing levels. University officials, however, insist they are in full compliance with the minimum nurse-to-patient ratios mandated by the 1999 state law at the core of the dispute. —Sacramento Bee, 06/11/10 More »
Santa Barbara received a special visit from Queen Meg on Friday, a comedic performance of a royal pain who claims to be running to be the next governor of California. The farcical impersonation of candidate Meg Whitman was sponsored by the California Nurses Association, who created the guerilla theater at Shoreline Park to illustrate what they claim are Ms. Whitman's unscrupulous defense of business and her attacks on the environment. —Santa Barbara News-Press, 06/05/10 More »
Republicans have yet to formally decide their gubernatorial nominee, but California Democrats are already launching their campaign against the candidate they expect to win: frontrunner Meg Whitman. —Los Angeles TImes, 06/02/10 More »
A new study on nurse staffing levels was hailed by the California Nurses Association on Tuesday as proof that the state's nursing-ratio law is saving lives. If similar laws were enacted in such states as Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the number of patient deaths in those states could be reduced by as much as 14 percent, according to the study conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and published in the journal Health Services Research. —Sacramento Bee, 04/21/10 More »
California’s nurse-to-patient staffing law reduces deaths from common surgeries, allows nurses to spend more time with patients and helps hospitals retain nurses, a study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania concludes. California’s landmark law requires minimum nurse-to-patient ratios for specific units in all general acute-care hospitals. It was signed in 1999, but ratios were phased in from 2004 through 2008 —Sacramento Business Journal, 04/20/10 More »
California's law limiting the number of patients that can be assigned to a nurse has resulted in fewer deaths and a belief among the state's nurses that they were able to provide better care, according to the first comprehensive evaluation of the landmark legislation. The study by the University of Pennsylvania, published today in the policy journal Health Services Research, compared deaths from common surgeries in California in 2006, two years after the law was enacted, to surgical deaths in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. —San Francisco Chronicle, 04/20/10 More »
