UPDATE Houston Janitor With Breast Cancer (dying no health care) Finalist

[Omaha Steve]

http://208.185.252.177/laborradio/node/4407

Houston Janitor With Breast Cancer Is Finalist For Glamour Magazine Woman of The Year - 10/13/06

By Doug Cunningham

Ercilia Sandoval is a Houston janitor - a mother of two with breast cancer fighting for justice for janitors. She’s also a finalist for Glamour Magazine’s “Woman of The Year”. Sandoval says she’s dying of cancer because she had no health care on the job, no early detection or other treatment.
SEIU | Posted 10/12/2006 - 8:32pm


You can vote for Ercilia here: http://www.glamour.com/news/polls/woty/woty_2006



THE ADVOCATE
Ercilia Sandoval

Nominated by Amber Goodwin: “Ercilia Sandoval is my hero. I work for the Justice for Janitors Campaign in Houston, and Ercilia is a janitor at an office building. Along with thousands of her coworkers (predominately women), Ercilia worked all of last year to form a union with SEIU, and is now in the midst of a contract campaign with her employers. Ercilia and the other 8,000 office-building janitors in Houston make $5.15 an hour for part-time work, with no benefits and no health care. Health care is important to all of us, but especially to Ercilia, who was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple of months ago and is the mother of two children. She still fights on a day-to-day basis to help her coworkers so that they can win their contract and make Houston a better place for all working people. Please check out her story at www.houstonjanitors.org.”

[aquart]

1. Done.

Another valuable citizen we will lose because we don't see that healthcare IS a national security issue.

[Hav]

7. .

Yes, it's tragic. 2 young kids will lose a good mother soon, too.

And then there are those idiots who say that they don't need it because nothing happens anyway...morons.

[xchrom]

2. i voted -- so kicking.

[FrenchieCat]

3. Wonderful!

And yes, Health is a security issue.....one of the most important!

[Deja Q]

4. The cost of life in the culture of life.

No doubt her corporate masters would prefer to bring in somebody from elsewhere, via legal or not-quite-legal means...

[pooja]

5. welcome to America, land of the hopeless, desperate, and unwanted.

[OzarkDem]

6. Runner up

The woman from our city who lost her home after going into the hospital for a mastectomy. They found her sleeping under a bridge downtown in her hospital gown with her jp drain tubes still connected.

Next up - chemo at the homeless shelter. Come in and get your treatment in the morning with your coffee and be back out on the streets by lunchtime.

Yet look at all the billion dollar corporations selling crap to "raise money for breast cancer". Ercilia Sandoval sure won't see any of it. Sadly, I talk to women like her nearly every week. If we had universal health care in this country you would see the cancer mortality rate drop drastically.

http://www.thinkbeforeyoupink.org/