<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;"><BR><BR>--- On <B>Fri, 9/18/09, shane que hee <I><squehee@ucla.edu></I></B> wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px"><BR>From: shane que hee <squehee@ucla.edu><BR>Subject: HMOs:--- Death Panels<BR>To: <BR>Date: Friday, September 18, 2009, 5:14 AM<BR><BR>
<DIV>
<DL>
<DD>
<DD>> Subject: Real 'Norma Rae' dies of cancer after insurer delayed treatment </DD></DL></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DL>
<DD>> Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2009, 12:06 AM
<DD>> Real 'Norma Rae' dies of cancer after
<DD>> insurer delayed
<DD>> treatment
<DD>>
<DD>> Facing South - Sept. 15, 2009
<DD>> The Institute for Southern Studies
<DD>> "A New Voice for a Changing South"
<DD>>
<DD>> The North Carolina union organizer who was the
<DD>> inspiration for the movie "Norma Rae" died on Friday of
<DD>> brain cancer after a battle with her insurance company,
<DD>> which delayed her treatment. She was 68.
<DD>>
<DD>> Crystal Lee Sutton, formerly Crystal Lee Jordan, was
<DD>> fired from her job folding towels at the J.P. Stevens
<DD>> textile plant in her hometown of Roanoke Rapids, N.C.
<DD>> for trying to organize a union in the early 1970s. Her
<DD>> last action at the plant -- writing the word "UNION" on
<DD>> a piece of cardboard and standing on her work table,
<DD>> leading her co-workers to turn off their machines in
<DD>> solidarity -- was memorialized in the 1979 film by
<DD>> actress Sally Field. The police physically removed
<DD>> Sutton from the plant for her action.
<DD>>
<DD>> But her efforts ultimately succeeded, as the
<DD>> Amalgamated Clothing Workers won the right to represent
<DD>> the plant's employees on Aug. 28, 1974. Sutton later
<DD>> became a paid organizer for the union, which through a
<DD>> series of mergers became part of UNITE HERE before
<DD>> splitting off this year to form Workers United, which
<DD>> is affiliated with the Service Employees International
<DD>> Union.
<DD>>
<DD>> Several years ago, Sutton was diagnosed with
<DD>> meningioma, a type of cancer of the nervous system.
<DD>> While such cancers are typically slow-growing, Sutton's
<DD>> was not -- and she went two months without potentially
<DD>> life-saving medication because her insurance wouldn't
<DD>> cover it initially. Sutton told the Burlington (N.C.)
<DD>> Times-News last year that the insurer's behavior was an
<DD>> example of abuse of the working poor:
<DD>>
<DD>> "How in the world can it take so long to find
<DD>> out
<DD>> [whether they would cover the medicine or
<DD>> not] when
<DD>> it could be a matter of life or death," she
<DD>> said.
<DD>> "It is almost like, in a way, committing
<DD>> murder."
<DD>>
<DD>> Though Sutton eventually received the medication, the
<DD>> cancer had already taken hold. She passed away on
<DD>> Friday, Sept. 11 in a Burlington, N.C. hospice.
<DD>>
<DD>> "Crystal Lee Sutton was a remarkable woman whose brave
<DD>> struggles have left a lasting impact on this country
<DD>> and without doubt, on me personally," Field said in a
<DD>> statement released Friday. "Portraying Crystal Lee in
<DD>> 'Norma Rae,' however loosely based, not only elevated
<DD>> me as an actress, but as a human being."
<DD>>
<DD>> Field won an Oscar, a Golden Globe and the Best Actress
<DD>> award at the Cannes Film Festival for her portrayal of
<DD>> the character based on Sutton. The film in turn was
<DD>> based on the 1975 book "Crystal Lee: A Woman of
<DD>> Inheritance" by New York Times reporter Henry P. "Hank"
<DD>> Leiferman.
<DD>>
<DD>> Sutton was only 17 when she began working at the J.P.
<DD>> Stevens plant in northeastern North Carolina, where
<DD>> conditions were poor and the pay was low. A
<DD>> Massachusetts-based company that for many years was
<DD>> listed on the Fortune 500, J.P. Stevens is now part of
<DD>> the WestPoint Home conglomerate.
<DD>>
<DD>> In 1973, Sutton, by then a mother of three, was earning
<DD>> only $2.65 an hour. That same year, Eli Zivkovich, a
<DD>> former coal miner from West Virginia, came to Roanoke
<DD>> Rapids to organize the plant and began working with
<DD>> Sutton, who was fired after she copied a flyer posted
<DD>> by management warning that blacks would run the union.
<DD>> It was that incident which led Sutton to stand up with
<DD>> her "UNION" sign.
<DD>>
<DD>> "It is not necessary I be remembered as anything, but I
<DD>> would like to be remembered as a woman who deeply cared
<DD>> for the working poor and the poor people of the U.S.
<DD>> and the world," she said in a newspaper interview last
<DD>> year. "That my family and children and children like
<DD>> mine will have a fair share and equality."
<DD>>
<DD>> For more on Sutton's life and work, visit the website
<DD>> of the Alamance Community College's Crystal Sutton
<DD>> Collection.
<DD>>
<DD>> _____________________________________________
<DD>>
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