Recent News in the 13th District

Sacramento - Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) announced Mary Magee as his 2012 Woman of the Year.

“I am thrilled to announce Mary Magee as the Woman of the Year for Assembly District 17”, said Ammiano. “Mary is the epitome of a dedicated nurse – she is compassionate, caring and committed to the public health of those who need it most. She is a champion for the rights of her fellow workers and is an example of the best of what San Francisco’s healthcare system has to offer.”

Mary Magee has been a registered nurse with the San Francisco Department of Public Health for the past 25 years. In 1987, while working at the HIV/AIDS inpatient ward at San Francisco General Hospital, she sustained a needle stick. Six weeks later, she learned that she had acquired HIV. While dealing privately with what was then a life-threatening diagnosis, she fought as Nurse Jane Doe and won groundbreaking workers compensation rules. Together with fellow healthcare workers and her union, SEIU, she advocated for regulations and practices that would require the use of engineered safety devices in healthcare settings. After the passage of AB 1208, Mary served on the SF Department of Public Health Safe Devices Committee, which evaluating and selected safety devices with healthcare worker input, creating guidelines for device training and safe work practices, and maintaining and evaluating sharps injury data. The Committee has developed what are now recognized as universal safety standards to protect healthcare workers from occupational exposure.

After 16 years as a nurse at San Francisco General Hospital’s Labor and Delivery unit, Mary now works at a DPH run supportive housing residence for formerly homeless people. She is proud to count herself among other HIV positive grandmothers who hope for a safer and healthier world for their grandchildren.

Sacramento - The award winning movie “The Help” is not only a tale of days gone by it’s also the story of today’s domestic workers. Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) has introduced Assembly Bill 889 to protect the rights of California's domestic workers. AB 889, the California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, would provide the over 200,000 domestic workers in California with overtime protections, inclusion in workers’ compensation coverage and the right to meal and rest breaks – givens for almost every other worker in California. Labor leaders AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and California Labor Federation Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski are in full support of the measure. Learn what AB 889 will mean to domestic workers in this Assembly Web Report.

Sacramento - Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) is joining with Asssembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) in a bold, new effort to make college more affordable for middle class students and their families. Assemblymember Ammiano is a co-author with Speaker Pérez of the Middle Class Scholarship Act (www.MiddleClassScholarship.com), which would cut the cost of attending a CSU or UC by two-thirds and dramatically reduce the cost of attending a California community college for any qualifying student whose family income is below $150,000. The program would be paid for by closing a tax loophole that only benefits out-of-state corporations. Assemblymember Ammiano says the program is practical and visionary. Here’s more in this Assembly Access video.