Labor & Employment Law

CNA?s ?Queen Meg? Draws National Attention

By Mike Hall

The California Nurses Association?s (CNA’s) satirical imperial ?Queen Meg,? a parody of free-spending billionaire Meg Whitman and her bid to buy California?s governorship, caught the attention of Time.com today.

According to the lead feature on the site?s Politics section, ?the former eBay CEO is willing to spend a mind-boggling $150 million of her own money? to move into the governor?s mansion in Sacramento. Of course that?s likely a step or two down from her palatial Silicon Valley digs.

Whitman, says Time, ?promises she will cut the state government payroll by 40,000 jobs.? She also pledges to dramatically reduce public employee pensions, deregulate industry and cut the social safety net. She has painted the state?s public employee unions as the villains in California financial trouble. As Time goes on to note:

The unions, of course, have taken notice of Whitman’s attack and are fighting back. Led by the feisty California Nurses Association, they are challenging Whitman on the campaign trail and backing the candidacy of Democrat Jerry Brown. And so in one corner, the nurses engage in street theater that entertains and provokes as they take on Whitman.

In satire meant to resonate with people suffering in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, the nurses’ union has shadowed Whitman at campaign events with an actress dressed as “Queen Meg.”

CNA Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro told Time the Queen Meg   parody campaign, complete with a bus and supporting actors, mocks Whitman’s assumption that

her vast personal wealth of $1.3 billion and record spending in the Republican primary entitles her to be anointed governor and carry out her corporate agenda of eroding public and workplace protections, slashing safety-net programs and muffling the voice of working people and their unions.

Click here to read the full article. Click here to join Queen Meg?s Facebook page and here for Queen Meg videos. Be sure and visit the California Labor Federation?s Wall Street Whitman website for more information.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on July 20, 2010 (boomark / email).