WORKING PEOPLE GET STIFFED LEFT AND RIGHT

People are always accusing me of being a conservative, and I counter by
citing my support for progressive taxes, labor unions, and a national
health-care system. The first of those positions led me to oppose most of
the Bush tax cuts, and the other two to conclude that the nurses at Albany
Medical Center would be wise to vote to unionize on June 20 and 21.

We are constantly told about the shortage of nurses, and the relatively low
pay and poor conditions of employment they labor under. The obvious answer
is for them to join a union. We're also told that America's health system
is the best in the world, as well as the most expensive, but I have serious
reservations about the first of those propositions, in considerable part
based upon recent experiences at Albany Med.

A close relative of mine spent some time there, including a couple of days
in the emergency center (some of it in a hallway) while they waited for a
regular room to open up, and later a couple of days in the recovery room
while they waited for a spare bed in the intensive care unit. An emergency
operation saved his life, and he is on the road to recovery. But, despite
the very good job most of the staff members did, I have grave reservations
about aspects of his treatment.

As I wandered around the hospital, I picked up a couple of its
publications, and discovered headlines such as: " `Albany Med Prize,'
largest in USA, goes to Dr. Levine," "Albany Med to head up $4 million
pharmacogenomics center," and "Silverman funds Pataki Chair." Despite
claims of poverty, there appears to be a fair amount of money sloshing
around the hospital's coffers.

When Sen. Chuck Schumer dropped by the Gazette last week, he said he
favored putting more money into Medicare, and providing health coverage for
all children, but didn't know what the "big answer" was to fixing the
system. I say this liberal Democrat isn't liberal enough on the issue, and
the answer is a government insurance system providing basic care to
everyone, which most other advanced countries have. That would help control
costs and redirect resources to improve pay and conditions for nurses and
others at the lower end of the medical pay scale.

In the meantime, nurses, like most other workers, would be better off in
than out of a union, and their patients would benefit, too. Higher wages
and benefits, and an end to forced overtime, would require and enable the
hospital to hire more nurses. And I'd be highly dubious about anything said
in these circumstances by management, which has not impressed me on the
managing front. Somehow, I think the hospital will survive a unionization vote.

Flip-flop on police

OK, so that's the left-wing rant. But when it comes to the men and women
who police our streets, and the labor unions that represent them, it's the
left - the Democrats and the Greens, the American/New York Civil Liberties
Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
and assorted committeepeople and media fellow travelers - who are their
enemies. That's certainly the case in Schenectady, where the federal
investigation into the police force, which has resulted in the indictment
of three officers (one of whom has pleaded guilty) has been the excuse for
an endless orgy of police bashing.

The most recent of these indictments, of Lt. Mike Hamilton, seems the
flimsiest. Hamilton was generally recognized as an exemplary cop, making
more arrests, getting more convictions, doing more to combat crime, than
anyone else on the force. Yet he faces a ridiculous 34 years of prison time
if convicted of tipping off an informant about an impending drug raid.

A source close to Hamilton tells me he will absolutely deny the charge,
that Hamilton went by coincidence to the informant's house, which he did
not know was under police and Drug Enforcement Administration surveillance.
Well, you say, he would deny it. But I am not at all sure he is less
credible than the U.S. attorney's office, which implausibly denies that it
offered Hamilton a misdemeanor plea bargain, and, under the recently
departed Democratic U.S. attorney, seemed to be picking a fight with
Schenectady's Republican mayor. This investigation has taken too long for
too little result, despite the heavy-handed tactics used.

Under the law, Hamilton is innocent until proven guilty. That is
emphatically how I regard him.

Bob Conner is an editorial writer for the Gazette.