our life & times | december 2015

1 November/December 2015 • Our Life And Times

20 A JOURNAL OF 1199SEIUNovember/December 2015

THE YEAROF THELIVING WAGE

15WHY I DO WHAT I DO

1199 SUPPORTS CLINTON ENDORSEMENT

THE LAST WORD 117

15 $

2November/December 2015 • Our Life And Times

3President’s Column

2015 has been remarkable, but rest up because we’ve got work to do in 2016.

4In The Regions

NYC members get flu shots; historic march for healthcare justice in Puerto Rico; new film

features an 1199SEIU family’s struggle for justice; Buffalo nursing home members fight pay cuts.

71199SEIU Backs Hillary Clinton’s Run

1199SEIU is standing with our International in its support of Hillary Clinton

in the 2016 presidential race.

8Our Year In Review

In 2015, 1199ers won some decisive victories, led major struggles and continued to exemplify

our proud history of justice and dignity for all working people.

10The Fight For $15

On Nov. 10’s National Day of Action, 1199SEIU members showed up and showed out at Fight

For $15 events across the union’s regions.

11Why I Do What I Do

Tia Price is a mental health tech at LIJ-Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

12Ms. Eula’s Story

Washington, D.C. homecare worker Eula Sheffey stayed with clients even when agencies

charged with their care abandoned them. She deserves $15 an hour.

14Reducing Workplace Violence

New NYS law will help deter attacks on direct care workers.

15The Last Word

Rabbi Michael Feinberg is the Executive Director of the Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition.

This is the last Our Life And Times for 2015. For previous year-enders, the entire magazine has been devoted to the year’s highlights: contract victories, organizing, flexing our political muscle and the fight for social justice. For sure, 1199ers in 2015 often won at the bargaining table and the ballot box; members were unfailing in their dedication to racial and economic justice, but this year, one issue was our driving force and the underlying theme for just about every struggle and action in every region of the Union: The Fight For $15.

Pushed by the ever-widening gap in this country between the rich and the rest of us, the Fight For $15 exploded beyond the bounds of fast-food workers to include tens of thousands of healthcare workers who

are taking to the streets to fight for respectable wages. The year saw two National Days of Action on which 1199ers came out in force. These mass mobilizations sent a message to politicians and employers: we must ensure that no working person lives in poverty.

On Nov. 10, thousands of members in every region were on the streets and in the statehouses from dawn until dusk. Among them was Abigal Kwasi, a CNA at Majestic Rehab and Nursing Center in Jersey City, NJ. “I had to tell my children that we can’t afford Christmas gifts this year,” said Kwasi. “It breaks my heart that my children can’t have more, but it’s impossible to make ends meet on such low wages. That’s why I’m here to Fight for $15.”

THE YEAR OF LIVING THE LIVING WAGE.

Our Life and Times November/December 2015

Our Life And Times, November/December

2015 Vol 33, No 6

Published by 1199SEIU, United

Healthcare Workers East

310 West 43rd St. New York, NY 10036

Telephone (212) 582-1890

www.1199seiu.org

president George Gresham

secretary treasurer

Maria Castaneda

executive vice presidents

Norma Amsterdam Yvonne Armstrong Lisa Brown-Beloch

Angela Doyle George Kennedy

Maria KercadoSteve Kramer

Joyce NeilBruce Richard

Mike Rifkin Monica RussoRona Shapiro

Neva ShillingfordMilly Silva

Veronica TurnerLaurie ValloneEstela Vazquez

editor Patricia Kenney

director ofphotography

Jim Tynanphotographer

Belinda Gallegosart direction

& design Maiarelli Studio

cover illustration Maiarelli Studio

cover photograph Jim Tynan

contributors Mindy H. Berman

JJ Johnson

Our Life And Times is published six times

a year – January/February, March/

April, May/June, July/August, September/October, November/

December – for $15.00 per year by 1199SEIU, United

Healthcare Workers East, 310 W.43 St,

New York, NY 10036. Periodicals postage

paid at New York, NY and at additional

mailing offices. POSTMASTER: send address changes to Our Life And Times, 301 W.43 St., New

York, NY 10036.

@1199seiuwww.1199seiu.org

LUBA LUKOVA

Editorial

The Fight For $15 Exploded in 2015.


ENCOURAGING OTHERS TO STAY THE COURSE

I’m writing to share some things with our sisters and brothers who may be at the bargaining table right now or who may have just won their first organizing victory. I work at Mid-Hudson

Regional Hospital in Poughkeepsie, NY and we tried to organize three times before we were successful. This last time it took us two years to win our organizing drive and our contract. It was a struggle but we never gave up. We got great support from 1199 members at Vassar Brothers Hospital near us and we knew that if we wanted to win what they have we had to stay the course. We decided we were going to make it work and rallied our co-workers. This is just the beginning. Everything is a process. For me, it was about my two sons and making sure they have a future with good jobs and advancement. They both work here at starting pay that’s higher than what I made. That makes me so proud. All I wanted for them was a decent wage and a chance for a better life, and now we have it. I will tell all of our brothers and sisters in healthcare who are right now trying to do what we did, stay with it. It’s worth it. If your employer is making you feel grateful for a job or you’re not worthy of dignity and respect, then you have every reason to keep up the struggle. Winning a union is about being treated like a human being. And at the end of the day, because we can all work together now, everyone is a lot happier.

JEANELLA DUNKLEY Mid-Hudson Regional Hospital Poughkeepsie, NY

PLEASE DON’T FEED THE TROLLS

Editor’s Note: Everyone who’s ever spent time using social media has probably encountered a troll. No, not those cute little guys with the brightly-colored, wild hair; the online

kind who are there to anonymously spread hate, lies, and make disparaging remarks about the Union, its mission and even its members. Those who use Facebook or Twitter with any regularity, have seen plenty of them. Here are some tips for dealing effectively with online trolls:

• Call out trolls in a matter-of-fact way. Your voice is a powerful weapon. • Be respectful. Keep your tone firm, but polite. • Don’t engage in an argument. Tell your own story to refute whatever they’re saying. Let your truth speak for itself. • Never use profanity.

The truth is there’s no way to completely avoid trolls, but don’t feed them—like most pests—it discourages them from coming back.

Let’s hear from you. Send your letters to: 1199SEIU’s Our Life And Times, 330 W. 42nd St, 7th Fl., New York, NY 10036 Attn: Patricia Kenney, Editor, or email to [email protected], and please put Letters in the subject of your email.

Letters

This has been some year. I can’t remember a time when so many 1199ers have been so active in so many arenas on behalf of our families and our communities. We all have good reason to feel proud.

From our upstate New York members along the Canadian border to our sisters and brothers in southern Florida, we’ve marched for justice alongside our Black Lives Matter partners. Our actions on behalf of climate justice were part of the great wave that helped President Obama cancel the XL Pipeline; otherwise, it would have brought the dirtiest tar sands oil into the heartland of our country. And of course—whether in Maryland or New Jersey or Massachusetts—we led the fight to save our hospitals, to secure and enforce our contracts and protect our jobs and quality care for our patients.

Perhaps no achievement is greater than our Fight For $15 to raise the minimum wage for low-income workers. What started a couple of years ago as a campaign of fast-food workers began to produce pledges from elected officials to raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour, maybe even $12 an hour, maybe not this year but gradually over the next six or eight years.

But those pledges were insufficient in one of the wealthiest countries on earth. So the “Fight For $15” emerged and exploded way beyond fast-food workers. Healthcare workers provide a more essential service than fast-food workers, and certainly a healthier one. Yet millions of healthcare workers—including tens of thousands of our members, especially homecare workers—earn poverty-level wages. This is a disgrace that we are determined to end.

1199 set the standard when last year our sisters and brothers at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore won a $15 an hour minimum for veteran workers. And this year in a landmark agreement, our 36,000 Massachusetts personal care attendants secured a $15 an hour minimum —the first homecare workers in the country to do so. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo just gave state workers the $15 minimum and pledged to fight for it for all New York workers. So this is the new 1199SEIU standard and nothing less will do.

We have our work cut out for us in the 2016 national elections—not just for President—for every member of the House of Representatives, one third of the Senate and the members of most state legislatures. Best get ready to bring the Fight For $15 into the electoral arena. And not just the Fight For $15. It is an article of faith among the Republican candidates that the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, should be abolished, which would take away health care from 17 million newly insured Americans. Add to this their attacks on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. None of the Republican candidates want to raise the federal minimum wage above its current scandalously low $7.25 an hour; some want to abolish minimum wages altogether.

Their stances on immigrant workers range from deportation of 11 million folks, to building walls along the Mexican and Canadian borders, to using armed drones to patrol the borders. Each candidate is more vulgar than the next as they disparage women, people of color, people of faiths other than their own, gays and other minorities. They don’t even make a pretense of George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism.” You can picture what kind of country they want us to live in.

We 1199 members cannot under any circumstances let anti-worker politicians gain control of the White House, in addition to the Senate, Congress and the Supreme Court. That consolidation of power by the extreme right-wing would be disastrous.

Last month, the SEIU Executive Board voted to endorse Hillary Clinton for President. We 1199ers admire and respect Sen. Bernie Sanders, and applaud his message of fairness and economic justice. But we must above all prevent a Republican victory next year.

We believe Sec. Clinton has the most effective strategy to win the Presidency. All of us, whatever our political affiliation, faith, gender, color, sexual orientation or national origin, have to remain united, and join with our partners in the labor movement and in our communities. Solidarity is required to successfully defend our families against those who would eliminate our hard-won gains and union protections. They also want to strip essential funding for our healthcare system, destroy our public schools, militarize our police, poison our air and our water, and force our immigrant sisters and brothers into the shadows. All that is on the table in next year’s elections. We know that we can count on you to do your part.

In the meantime, we wish you and your loved ones happy and peaceful holidays. Please rest up. We face the fight of our lives in the New Year.

Wishes for Joyous and Peaceful Holiday Season And rest up, because we have the fight of our lives ahead in 2016.

THE PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

George Gresham

REGINA HEIMBRUCH ILLUSTRATION


InTheRegions

Flu Shots Can Save Lives Maggie Courtney Tierney, an RN at Montefiore Medical Center’s Wakefield Campus in the Bronx, was among the 1199SEIU members at Montefiore who rolled up their sleeves Oct. 7 to receive their protective flu vaccines. The vaccinations were given during press conference held jointly by 1199SEIU, Montefiore and the Greater New York Healthcare Facilities Association to stress the importance of flu vaccinations for healthcare workers. 1199SEIU supports New York State’s law, which encourages all healthcare workers to get a flu shot and mandates a protective mask if they choose not to get vaccinated. For more information about influenza and how to protect against it, log on to www.cdc.gov/flu.

One year after the historic People’s Climate March, 1199SEIU members

participated in actions in New York City and Washington, D.C. on Oct. 14 to demand that elected officials and leaders take action against climate change. The events were part of the National Day of Action, which included 180 different events in 100 U.S. cities.

In Washington, D.C. 1199SEIU members joined numerous faith-based, environmental, labor and community groups at a “die-in” outside the American Petroleum Institute. The action sought to call attention to big oil’s influence on major trade agreements and global climate policy.

New York 1199ers joined two actions: they rallied at noon outside Chase Manhattan Bank’s midtown headquarters and at 5 p.m. at the Harlem State Office Building.

“I came out because I think this is a very important issue for people in their homes in their communities and on the job,” said Beatrice Whitehead, a home health aide at New York City’s All Metro Health. Whitehead attended the Harlem rally. She held an 1199SEIU placard that read “Quality Care and Good Jobs for All.”

“It’s so good that our Union is here standing together with 32BJ (SEIU) and the other unions and organizations because problems of the climate affect everyone.”

The day’s protests brought to the fore a number of issues related to the climate crisis. Chase Manhattan was targeted for its substantial investments in fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas, as well as its investments in private prisons. Demonstrators also cited Chase’s role in the 2008 financial and home foreclosure crises. Housing and

the environment became even greater issues in the region since Hurricane Sandy, the 2012 super-storm that displaced thousands of residents, many of whom have not been able to return to their homes.

Demonstrators represented a number of New York City housing organizations at the march to the midtown office of the Blackstone Group, a Wall Street real-estate giant whom organizers say promotes subprime mortgages and other anti-tenant policies around the world. Demonstrators in Spain also marched on Blackstone on the 14th.

Speakers at the evening rally in Harlem pointed out those front-line communities of color are hardest hit by the climate crisis. They called for divestment from fossil fuels and prison construction and investments in clean energy, housing and good jobs.

NEW YORK

1199ers @ National Day of Climate Justice

MEMBERS OF 1199SEIU’S ASIAN American and Pacific Islander Caucus (AAPIC) gathered in the penthouse of 330 W. 42nd St. Oct. 30 for an evening of dance, music and food to celebrate the culture of Southern Asia. The occasion marked the Diwali holiday—the Festival of Lights—which this year falls on Nov. 10.

Hindus, Jains and Sikhs throughout South Asia celebrate the holiday. Represented at the event were cultures of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and other nations from the region. The evening’s key note speaker was Dr. Hemant Sindhu, president of 1199SEIU’s sister union SEIU’s Committee of Interns and Residents. In his remarks, Dr. Sindhu spoke of the reflective nature of this time of year and his gratitude for being able to celebrate the holiday with his union brothers and sisters.

“It’s wonderful to see everyone

together like this. We used to have celebrations and then we stopped. I’m so glad we have begun them again and are celebrating our culture,” said retired RN Susheela Desai. “Diwali is a wonderful holiday of togetherness.”

South Asian Celebration Lights Up Union HQ

• The flu is highly contagious; you can infect someone for at least a day before symptoms develop and between five and seven days afterward. • The flu can be mild, but it can also be fatal for some people. • Older people, senior citizens and pregnant women are at greater risk for complications when they get the flu. • So are those with compromised immune systems and certain health conditions, including asthma, diabetes and heart disease. • Complications of the flu can include bacterial pneumonia, ear and sinus infections and the worsening of chronic medical conditions. • Flu seasonal severity is unpredictable: —between 1976 and 2006 estimates of flu—associated deaths in the U.S. range from a low of 3,000 to a high of about 49,000. *Statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Controland Prevention

Flu Facts*

Climate justice is among 1199’s top priorities in 2016. These Baltimore members were among the hundreds who marched with people in NYC in Aug. 2014’s People’s Climate March.

Celebrating South Asian Culture: Retired RN Susheela Desai, center, with daughter Sunita Woodchachke, left, and Mina Desai (no relation), right, a blood bank tech at NY Presbyterian Hospital.


MORE THAN 40 workers at Newfane Rehabilitation

Center in Newfane, NY held an informational picket on Nov. 10 to protest a plan by the home’s new management to cut their salaries. The Nov. 10 demonstration was among the hundreds nationwide on the Fight For $15 day of action in which tens of thousands took to the streets to demand livable wages for the nation’s working people. The 175-bed facility near Buffalo was recently purchased by New Jersey-based Maximus Healthcare.

With the purchase, Maximus announced plans to cut workers’ pay back close to minimum wage. Workers say they barely make enough as it is. “I’ve worked here for 7 years and I make $9.72 an hour. That’s not right. Something needs to be done to help nursing home workers earn a decent wage. I have to take care of my family too,” says Sherry Coder, a housekeeper at Newfane. “We work hard—Newfane is the residents’ home and they deserve to have it kept clean —it’s important they live in a healthy environment, and we do that for them.”

Newfane Rehab 1199ers Protest Pay Cut Plan

Members from Newfane Rehab in Newfane, NY at a Nov. 10 protest of management’s plan to cut their pay.

The late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once asked, “What good is having the right to sit at

a lunch counter if you can’t afford to buy a hamburger?”

The intersection of the social and economic rights that Dr. King stressed was the subject of an Oct. 19 forum at Manhattan’s Murphy Institute of the City University of New York. 1199ers were among audience members at the fully booked forum.

The meeting explored specifically the relationship between the Black Lives Matter (BLM) and the Fight For $15 movements.

“My mother’s exploitation as a women, as a Black person and as a domestic were not separate, but woven together,” said panel chair Jelani Cobb, journalist and director of Connecticut University’s Africana Studies Institute.

We must recognize the racism permeates every aspect of our society,” said Alicia Garza, special projects director of the Domestic Worker’s Alliance and a founder of BLM.

She noted that most people associate BLM only with struggles against police excesses and the unfairness of the U.S. criminal justice system, “BLM is also about fighting for the dignity, humanity and respect for all people.”

Another panelist, Kendall Fells, organizing director of the Fight For $15, stressed that low-paid fast-food workers not only want a higher minimum wage, they also want the dignity that comes with a union.

Fells and Garza noted that several leaders in the Fight For $15 applied lessons from that movement to help build BLM movements in Ferguson, MO, after the killing of Michael Brown and on Staten Island in New York After Eric Garner’s death. One panel attendee noted that racial and economic oppression are different forms of violence.

“Both the Fight For $15 and Black Lives Matter are about the future of our families,” says Jasmine Casado, an environmental services worker at Brooklyn’s Wyckoff Hospital.

“They are tied together,” she adds. “People of color suffer violence on a daily basis. And that needs to come to an end. And so does poverty wages.”

CUNY Hosts Panel on Race & Economic Justice

Massive March to Save Puerto Rico’s Healthcare SystemA Nov. 5 demonstration in San Juan drew tens of thousands of marchers demanding equal funding from the U.S. government for Puerto Rico’s overburdened healthcare system. Puerto Rico’s fiscal crisis has triggered what many are calling a humanitarian disaster on the island, with physicians leaving the commonwealth for the mainland or refusing to accept Medicaid and Medicare because of their low reimbursement rates. Puerto Rico pays the same Medicare tax as U.S. states but receives less that half the reimbursement. Among those who marched demanding equity for Puerto Rico was 1199SEIU Pres. George Gresham, New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Unidos Por La Salud


InTheRegions

Members from 1199SEIU in the Buffalo, NY

area joined a peace rally and cookout on Oct. 3 to celebrate the one-year anniversary of a major coalition partner in the fight against gun violence. SNUG, or guns spelled backwards, is an initiative that seeks to reverse trends of gun and gang violence in neighborhoods where they are prevalent through intervention and education. SNUG outreach “interrupters” work with young people most at risk for involvement in gangs and violence. Among the attendees were 1199SEIU members, SNUG members and Buffalo-area elected officials, including Buffalo State Sen. Tim Kennedy, who praised the program and its efforts.

Members of 1199SEIU’s Massachussets Region celebrated 10 years as part of 1199 with a party at the Union’s Dorchester headquarters on Nov. 21. In the region’s decade since joining 1199, it’s grown 500%, with a membership of 52,000 workers from Cape Cod to the Berkshires. Hundreds of members joined the fete as did numerous elected officials including Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy, III.

Buffalo 1199ers Stand Up Against Gun Violence

Documentary filmmaker Viko Nicci has crafted a touching

documentary about a wrongly convicted Bronx man’s struggle to exonerate himself and repair his strained relationship with his teenage daughter.

Three years ago Our Life And Times (Dec. 2012—Jan. 2013) featured 1199er Michelle Cordero’s campaign to win exoneration for her husband, Angel Cordero, who had recently been paroled after serving 13 years in a maximum-security prison for a crime he did not commit. Three years later, Angel Cordero’s record is yet to be wiped clean, but he and Michelle, a clinical social worker at the Guidance Center of Brooklyn, hope Nicci’s film, “Coming Home,” will help, in Angel’s words, “to finally to clear my name and expunge my record.”

Angel, a member of Local 3 of the United Electrical Workers

Union, and Michelle are moving forward with their lives. They have a young son with another child on the way. But Angel’s journey to justice is not complete.

1199ers who gathered in November at Manhattan’s Village East Cinema for a showing of the film were deeply moved and equally troubled that Angel still bears the label felon although his innocence is obvious to anyone with knowledge of his case.

“Coming Home,” though, is far more than the recounting of a miscarriage of justice. It’s an indictment of the entire criminal justice system that ensnares young men like Cordero who is Puerto Rican. It’s also about a courageous and committed man’s struggle to make his way with family and friends in the 21st century. Angel is unrelentingly committed to mending his relationship with his teenage daughter, who was just three when she was separated from her dad.

The girl’s mother has remarried and she considers her mom’s husband her dad. She scolds Angel for not being there while she was growing up and wrestles with just where he fits in her life. The scenes between father and daughter are heart wrenching, but you never stop cheering for Angel whose love and commitment light up the screen.

In another deeply moving scene, Angel’s questions the person who committed the crime for which Angel was convicted.

Viewers might come away from the film disappointed that Angel’s concerns are not fully resolved. Those feeling would be tempered, though, because you cannot come away without an enormous amount of respect for a man who will not accept defeat, and who we are confident will eventually make it all the way back home.

Follow the conversation about “Coming Home” on Twitter @welcomepictures.

NEW YORK

Gripping Film Traces the Long Road Back After Wrongful Imprisonment

MASSACHUSSETS

Ten Years Together

Poster for “Coming Home,” Welcome Pictures’ documentary about Angel and Michelle Cordero’s attempt to get their life back after Angel’s wrongful conviction and imprisonment.

REGINA HEIMBRUCH ILLUSTRATION

WELCOM

E PICTURES


Sec. Clinton at Oct. 13 Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, NV.

Politics

1199SEIU Backs Our International in Endorsing

Hillary Clinton Union endorses decision by Service Employees International Union’s Executive Board to support Hillary Clinton 2016 Presidential election.

On Nov. 17, at a meeting of the Executive Board of the Service Employees International Union in Washington, D.C., the elected leaders of 1199SEIU voted to support the International’s endorsement of Sec. Hillary Clinton in next year’s Presidential election.

The decision came after months of discussion among 1199 members about the issues most important to the Union and working families. 1199ers also filled out a survey, which was returned by over 22,000 members and provided the framework for the creation of the Union’s Action Platform, the recently-released statement of 1199SEIU’s top priorities.

“This decision is about what’s good for the whole union. The Fight For $15 is a big issue, keeping health care in place, Medicaid and Medicare—we have to make sure we have Democrats and people in office who will be able to protect those things,” said 1199SEIU delegate Maurice Mintz, a housekeeper at Haven Manor Healthcare in Far Rockaway, NY. “The Republicans are trying to destroy unions and everything we work for.”

Mintz, a long-time delegate and campaign veteran, said members need to do their part to ensure that every candidate stands with

the Union when fighting for issues important to working families. Clinton supports the Fight For $15 at the state and local levels and other Union priorities, including protecting healthcare, women’s equality and reversing climate change.

1199SEIU executive leaders met in November with Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders and engaged with both candidates in broad-ranging conversations about the Union, working people and the issues most important to members. It was decided after those discussions was that Sec. Clinton had the clearest, most effective strategy for winning the 2016 general election.

In a statement announcing support for the Clinton endorsement, 1199SEIU Pres. George Gresham praised Sen. Sanders’ dedication to fairness and justice, but went on to frame support for Clinton as vital in the face of a right-wing Republican onslaught in the 2016 elections.

“…We cannot under any circumstances let anti-worker, right-wing politicians gain control of the White House, in addition to controlling the Senate, Congress and the Supreme Court. That consolidation of power by the extreme right-wing would be a catastrophe for working

people, women, people of color, immigrants, youth, seniors, the LGBTQ community, and for America’s standing in the world. The right-wing agenda is focused on accumulating more wealth and power for the top 1%, while leaving everyone else behind,” Gresham wrote in a Nov. 17 email to members. “Secretary Clinton has the commitment, skills and experience to move our country forward, and the most effective strategy to win the presidency. Therefore, we support SEIU’s decision to endorse Hillary Clinton, and we will ensure the priority issues of healthcare workers, our patients, our families and our communities are heard loud and clear. Together, we will fight for a country that works for working people, with security, opportunity and dignity for all.”

Margaret Passley, a home health aide with New York City’s Personal Touch Agency, praised the decision. Passley, an 1199 delegate for 16 years, says in today’s environment there’s no room for division among 1199ers.

“We really need to be united when it comes to this election. Hillary Clinton is the strongest candidate and she’s the one who will continue the legacy and work of Barack Obama,” says Passley.

We need to look forward with her. She’s strong on immigration. She’s strong when it comes to protecting Social Security. She believes in a strong healthcare system. I believe she will look out for our country.

“There’s so much he wanted to be able to do, and he had Congress working against him. She has the experience to do it. She was First Lady. She was Secretary of State. We need to look forward with her. She’s strong on immigration. She’s strong when it comes to protecting Social Security. She believes in a strong healthcare system. I believe she will look out for our country.”

8November/December 2015 • Our Life And Times 8November/December 2015 • Our Life And Times

2015

1. Eric Garner March: The one-year anniversary in July 2015 of Eric Garner’s killing by New York City police brought out hundreds of 1199SEIU members for marches and rallies. At a July 18 rally in downtown Brooklyn, scores of

1199SEIU members were undeterred by the threat of rain and joined Garner’s mother Gwenn Carr along with several other mothers whose sons were killed by the police, including Trayvon Martin’s mother Sybrina Fulton and 1199SEIU

member Constance Malcolm. Malcolm’s son Ramarley Graham was shot to death in 2013 by NYPD officer Richard Haste in front of Graham’s younger brother and grandmother.2. Fight For $15: Thousands of 1199ers took to the streets of New York City April 15 in a National Day of Action in the Fight For $15. The event was one of hundreds nationwide.1199ers rallied on Central Park West then marched down Broadway. The Union’s contingent was among the hundreds of labor, community and progressive groups at the event.3. Diana Richardson Victory: 1199ers flexed their political muscle to help Diana Richardson win a May special election representing Brooklyn’s 43rd electoral district in the New York State Assembly. Richardson is a Brooklyn native and former healthcare worker who is raising her son in the district. She handily defeated several opponents in the contest.

In 2015, 1199ers in every region won decisive victories in organizing and at the bargaining table. They continued in the long struggle for racial and economic justice, never letting America forget that how much work there is still to be done on those fronts. 1199ers stood with immigrants, women, the LGBTQ community and Planet Earth against continued attempts to poison our ability to live freely and safely in the world. And perhaps, most important, 1199 members in all of their work continued to embody the Union’s core principles of respect and justice for all working people.

A Look Back NEW YORK CITY

1. Mid Hudson Valley Regional Hospital: After fighting for nearly two years, healthcare workers at Poughkeepsie, NY’s Mid-Hudson Valley Regional Hospital (formerly St. Francis Hospital) in September won union representation and a collective bargaining agreement. For many of the 900 workers at Mid-Hudson Regional it was the first time they’d been represented by a union.

2. Michael Malotz: Workers at Michael Malotz Rehabilitation Center in Westchester County in August settled a collective bargaining agreement after several tumultuous months that included the threat of layoffs, arbitration and court proceedings, an informational picket and public outcry. The concern began when St. John’s Riverside announced that almost 140 caregivers, some who have been at the nursing home for decades, would be laid

off. In order to work at the Adira-run facility, workers were required to reapply for their jobs, this time with minimal or no benefits and at a significantly lower rate of pay. Workers fought back and won.

NEW YORK STATE

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RAIMUNDO VALDEZ PHOTO

9 November/December 2015 • Our Life And Times9 November/December 2015 • Our Life And Times

1. PCA Victory: Massachusetts made history again in June when the state that sparked the American Revolution and more recently paved the way for The Affordable Care Act and Marriage Equality was the site of another big win for the people. On June 26, some 35,000 Massachusetts Personal Care Attendants (PCAs) chalked up a major victory in the Fight For $15 campaign and became the nation’s first homecare workers2. Fight For $15/ April 14: 1199SEIU members in the Bay State kicked on the April 15 National Day of Action with statewide Fight For $15 events from Boston to Cape Cod. Thousands marched in Boston with the 1199-founded #WageAction Coalition.

1. Genesis: Genesis Contract Victory: In January, 1,300 1199 SEIU caregivers from thirteen nursing homes owned by Genesis HealthCare in New Jersey settlement a new contract which included significant wage increases in each year of the contract. The settlement came at a time when many non-union workers across the state are accepting wage freezes. Members also won additional contributions to protect their health and pension funds, which have faced rising health care costs. Workers will also continue to have access to training and education opportunities

funded by Genesis.2. Staffing Legislation: 1199ers are supporting legislation that requires a minimum staffing ratio for CNA’s in NJ nursing homes. Workers held a Sept. Town Hall in Union City and spoke at the State Capital in Trenton in support of the bill. NJ Civilian Complaint Review Board (Not Shown): 1199NJ members also helped establish a Civilian Complaint Review Board this year through the work of Newark Communities for Accountable Policing (N-CAP). The board was cited it as one of the most progressive in the country.

MASSACHUSETTS NEW JERSEY

Burying Poverty Pay: 1199ers from the Maryland/DC area held a lively funeral for poverty pay on Sept. 28 that included a Second Line. The celebration was part of the area’s

ongoing Fight For $15 and was joined by workers from Johns Hopkins, where last year veteran members made history by winning a $15 an hour wage.

MARYLAND/DC

1. Plaza Nursing Homes: Workers at Florida’s Plaza Nursing Homes held funerals in November to bury their poverty wages. At Jackson Plaza in Miami workers with more than 40 years of service still don’t make $11 an hour.2. Consulate NH, Ft. Myers: Workers at Consulate NH in Ft. Myers pushed back against management’s refusal to settle a fair contract with an April strike. Last year, Consulate settled with 17 other homes, but refused to settle with workers at the Ft. Myers facility after they joined the Union in July 2014.Tenet Contract (Not Shown): By working together and staying the course during challenging union contract negotiations, nurses and healthcare workers at five Tenet Healthcare-affiliated hospitals in South Florida recently secured their first union contracts between their employer, Tenet Healthcare Corporation and 1199SEIU. The contracts cover 4,500 workers.

FLORIDA

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Fight For $15

3. NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio joined 1199ers and scores of other workers for a pre-dawn rally at a downtown Brooklyn McDonald’s. The action snarled traffic for several hours. 4&5. Members of 1199SEIU’s Florida region joined actions throughout the state, including rallies in Miami, Tampa and the state’s capital, Tallahassee.

1. Members from the Buffalo area in upstate New York joined fast food workers joined workers at a McDonald’s in one ofseveral Fight For $15 demonstrations in the region. 2. Hundreds of 1199ers were among those who marched and rallied in downtown Manhattan. A rally at Foley Square kicked off a march to Wall Street. Hundreds of homecare workers raised their voices, calling for justice and a living wage. “The roof, the roof! The roof is on fire! We need $15 now ‘cause our bills are getting higher!”

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National Day of the Living Wage

Nov. 10: The Fight For $15’s

In cities across the United States on Nov. 10 workers from every sector joined together in demonstrations large and small to demand justice, equality and a $15 living wage. Shows of solidarity came from around the world, as workers flooded social media with images from #FightFor15 demonstrations in cities on just about every continent. In the U.S. 1199SEIU members, undaunted by a blanket of grey clouds that brought heavy showers much of the day in some areas mobilized in every region. New York City members rallied before dawn in downtown Brooklyn, where they were joined by NYC Mayor, Bill de Blasio. Maryland/DC members demonstrated at a Baltimore fulfillment center owned by online megaretailer Amazon.com. Florida members joined more than 10 actions in their state. Massachusetts members 1199SEIU

members were loud and proud in Boston as they marched with the 1199-backed #WageAction coalition. And in New Jersey, members held pickets at three nursing homes to call for $15 an hour minimum wage for all healthcare workers. Despite the drenching rain, workers in Jersey City, Perth Amboy, and Neptune City made a powerful statement. “I have four children and every month I struggle to put food on their plates making just $11 an hour,” said Abigail Kwasi, Certified Nursing Assistant at Majestic Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Jersey City. “I had to tell my children that we can’t afford Christmas gifts this year. It breaks my heart that my children can’t have more, but it’s impossible to make ends meet on such low wages. That’s why I’m here to fight for $15.”

“ I have four children and every month I struggle to put food on their plates making just $11 an hour.”

Tens of thousands took to the streets demanding $15 an hour for working people.

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Mental health technician Tia Price wanted to be a journalist when she graduated from college, but she landed in New York City’s Rikers Island Correctional Facility. It wasn’t the plan, but she needed a job.

“I was about to finish school, so I started in Rikers’ mental health clinic as a clerk. It was a new experience for me. I’d never worked with mentally ill people or worked in a jail. All of my pre-conceptions were based on what I saw on television,” she says. Price rolls her eyes when she thinks back to her naiveté.

“After a year I transferred to the Manhattan Detention Center (MDC) in Chinatown and that’s where my eyes were really opened. It was one big clinic, and everyone was in there working together—psychiatrists, dentists, doctors. Even though it was still jail, that’s when I really began to understand that there are people who are mentally ill, but they are people who are just like you and me,” she says. She was laid off when Corizon Health took over MDC.

“It was such a heartbreaking experience. I cried. My boss wasn’t a boss. He was a big brother who really cared about making a difference and cared about making the environment different,” she says.

Shortly afterward, she began

her current job as a mental health tech at LIJ-Lenox Hill Hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where she helps to care for patients with a broad range of psychiatric conditions. Her patients at Lenox Hill are very different from Rikers, but she learned a lot there about being a caregiver, she says. A year-and-

a-half into her Lenox Hill job, Price was in a major car crash. For several months she needed help doing the basic things to take care for herself.

“Being a patient and having to depend on the staff of the hospital completely changed me,” she says. “It made me feel like I needed to do more for my patients. I always had that caregiver in me, but now it was stronger.”

In her daily work Price cares for her patients, making sure they are emotionally and physically safe. She talks with them, makes sure they take their medications, helps with mealtimes, bathing, safety and other activities of daily living.

“In this work it’s not just a physical thing with how people are functioning, there is also an emotional component,” says Price. “You always have to remember you are never that far away from someone who has had a traumatic event or who is severely depressed. You can never judge someone and say, ‘Oh, that would never be me.’ It’s for that reason I try to find out a little bit from everybody I have to take care of; everyone has a story. And really what it is many times is that people just want to talk.”

“There’s so much work to be done around mental illness. People are treated like outcasts and don’t seek help because there is still stigma around it. We need to do something about this ASAP. We see all the time what happens with shootings and the people we see every day on the subways in New York City. I know it sounds cliché, but I feel like if I can help just one person I can help make society a little better or help make one family’s life a little better.”

Tia Price is a mental health technician at LIJ-Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

WHY I DO WHAT I DO:

Our Members

“ There’s so much work to be done around mental illness … because there is still stigma…”

Tia Price began her career in mental health at the Rikers Island Correctional Facility in the Bronx.

Nov. 10: The Fight For $15’s

Tens of thousands took to the streets demanding $15 an hour for working people.

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T HE W OR K W E D O

Ms. Eula Sheffey Is Leading D.C. Homecare Workers in the Fight for Justice

Eula Sheffey has been a homecare worker in Washington, D.C. for more than 30 years. She works for the Capital Care agency. During her entire career, Ms. Eula has never made more than her current wage, $13.80 an hour. She’s a leader in the struggle for justice for D.C. homecare workers—to organize in the Fight For $15 and to win back wages owed to hundreds of the region’s home health aides. Ms. Eula is 71. Only her dedication to her patients and to the welfare of other homecare workers exceed her warmth and humility. Widowed as a young woman with three small children, she supported her family by doing hair. When her kids were grown and able to take care of themselves, Ms. Eula followed her calling and did the work she’d always wanted to do: home care.

Over her career she’s cared for the terminally ill, seniors and disabled people; she’s also dealt with the abuse and ill treatment many homecare workers face daily: shorted checks, cut hours and out-of-the-blue agency closures. Ms. Eula is pragmatic about her role as a leader. She is, in her view, just doing what’s right. And encouraging others to do the same. “I tell them one voice don’t go, so we have to march,” she says. “My grandchildren have marched with me. They told me ‘Grandma, you’re going to end up in jail, and we’re not going with you.’ I said that’s fine as long as they come and get me out.”

November/December 2015 • Our Life And Times

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1. “I can count the clients I’ve had on one hand. I stay with people. Milton says thank you, but this is what I want to do. When I was doing hair I told my children, ‘You’re grown now. I’m going to get something I want to do.’ They said ‘what’s that?’ and I said home care.”

2. “When they terminated my wife from Medicaid and terminated Eula, she stayed with my wife for two months without pay,” says Milton Cunningham. “I didn’t realize for a week that she was using her own money to come here. I would have paid her wages, if I could have afforded it. That woman was a blessing to me and my wife.”

3. Ms. Eula has custody of one of her granddaughters—Sade—and helps put her through Delaware State University. “When I got my first check from Social Security I gave it to her to get her stuff and get her into college.”

4. “Since I’ve been doing this job home health aides have been low income. Families have been living together because they just can’t afford to go out and get an apartment.”

5. Ms. Eula moves Lois Cunningham out of her wheelchair. “If you ask me, $15 an hour for what homecare workers do and for living in D.C. is not enough. Where are families supposed to live? How are people supposed to survive?” asks her daughter Linda Sheffey.

6. “I think what they are trying to do with the Union is a good thing and it may not happen overnight, but it’s going to be because of people like Eula standing up I tell her just to keep going and good things will happen” says Milton Cunningham.

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Justice

Direct care healthcare workers won a major victory in November when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law a bill to expand the current protection of law to all workers who care for patients in healthcare institutions. Assaulting a caregiver can now be prosecuted as a Class D felony, punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Previously, the provision applied only to nurses, EMTs, some other medical personnel and workers in law enforcement, traffic control and other occupations. The new law acknowledges that workers with different titles and different levels of pay are exposed to the same level of violence.

U.S. healthcare workers experience more non-fatal workplace violence than workers in other professions by a wide margin. These workers experience almost 70 percent of all non-fatal workplace assaults which cause time away from work, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The signing of the New York State bill comes after months of lobbying, testimony and support from the healthcare and labor communities.

“My co-workers will be ecstatic when they hear that the bill’s been passed,” says Reginald Taylor, an 1199SEIU delegate and a psychiatric nursing assistant at Syosset Hospital on Long Island, NY. Taylor, a Vietnam War veteran, has been attacked more than once on the job.

“Everyone in my department, at least 10 or 11 workers, has been out on workers’ comp,” he says.

Taylor went out on compensation once when a patient snuck up behind him, pulled a pillowcase over his head and attempted to strangle him.

“It’s constantly in my head, so now every time someone walks behind me, I watch them,” he says.

He acknowledges that the law’s expansion isn’t the full solution to the violence problem.

“One reason we’re getting brutalized is because we’re short staffed,” he says. “For example, nurses and other workers can get slammed to the floor and seriously hurt before security arrives.”

Nor is violence confined to the psychiatric ward, Taylor notes.

“I get called to all floors of the hospital,” he says. “Anything can happen, especially when you’re dealing with drugs or alcohol. You also have patients’ relatives who can be abusive to aides.”

In addition to adequate staffing and greater legal safeguards, adequate training is among the other concerns of workers. Such training, Taylor says, should take into account the setting, and include a variety of methods, such as hands on practice, simulation and mock drills.

“We also should be given greater respect for what we do,” he says. “And we should be given titles that reflect the difficult work we do.”

Stephanie Alleyne, a veteran

mental health associate at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan is among the 1199ers that have testified before state legislators about violence at her workplace. More than 10 years ago she escorted a patient to a court hearing. When the patient lost her case, she turned on Alleyne.

“She said I should have helped her,” Alleyne recounts. “She started to attack me. She beat me badly in the courtroom… I was out for several days. My eyes were swollen shut. It took the hospital a year to settle my workers’ compensation claim.”

Alleyne was attacked by another patient last year. She was hit in the face and had her eyeglasses broken. The patient struck Alleyne on her head and back and didn’t stop until security arrived.

1199ers stress that the new law is not just in the workers’ interest, but also is in the interest of management, and, most important, it will help workers provide the quality care their patients deserve.

Says Reginald Taylor of the bill, “I can’t wait to post the information at the hospital.”

“ Anything can happen, especially when you’re dealing with drugs or alcohol. You also have patients’ relatives who can be abusive to aides.”

NEW NYS LAW EXPANDS PROTECTIONS AGAINST WORKPLACE VIOLENCE Legislation will deter attacks on direct care staff.

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How did the Labor-Religion Coalition come about? It’s been around for about 30 years, although in the beginning it was more a support circle of activists, friends and colleagues from the labor and religious world. It grew out of the activity and organizing on the late 1980s, including the movement against the military involvement of the U.S. government in Central America. The purpose is building an enduring partnership between the faith community and the labor movement to work on questions of workers’ right —particularly low-wage and immigrant workers—and economic justice. Those are areas that labor and faith really do have a deep concern for, both out of pragmatism and principle, so they’re natural partners. At times in history, the relationship between the labor and faith community has frayed, but the idea that labor and faith could and should be allies has really come to the fore lately.

Please talk about the significance of your work as the conversation about income inequality has opened up and the Fight For $15 movement has moved to a new level.We owe a debt of gratitude to Occupy Wall Street for changing the national dialogue about work and income inequality. Our work is building solidarity among the faith community for organizing efforts—particularly among low-wage workers like carwash workers, airport workers, home health aides, janitors, security guards and fast-food workers. But the context has been around raising the minimum wage and more importantly for us, moving past a minimum wage to what constitutes a living wage. That’s what we’re after. Every faith tradition speaks about the necessity for rights for workers, the poor and the marginalized. It’s a point of remarkable convergence of ideals and religions’ ethics. I’m encouraged that more and more faith communities are taking this issue as a central part of their work. People realize that this is among the important civil rights issues of our time.

How do we address the faith-based divisions which often push working class people to vote against their own interests at election time? We have to acknowledge that. You talk to most progressive people about religion and understandably the first thing they’re going to think of is the religious right, because that’s been such a determinant force in American politics for 30 years now. They’ve captured the field in terms of morality and family values. It’s part of a concerted effort on the right to do exactly that—to vote and mobilize against their own interests. I think that’s changed quite a bit. There’s been a revival

in some quarters of progressive religious mobilizing. The religious right has lost some ground politically with marriage equality winning as it has. That’s clearly not an issue they’re going to win votes on, but more importantly other issues—particularly poverty and inequality are just becoming obvious to more and more people. Over the last few years we’ve had as our partners in efforts in the living wage campaign evangelical groups that before might have only mobilized around things like abortion or gay rights, but now they’re seeing it clearly as part of their mandate to speak out about injustice, poverty and homelessness. All of our faith traditions have as much to say about those issues as they do about personal morality issues—at least in Judaism or Christianity. It’s about creating an inclusive, just society.

The labor movement is such a broad umbrella in terms of faith and religion. Is it sometimes a challenge to find common ground when doing your work?My organization is a broad umbrella —you’ve got everything from avowed atheists, every stripe of religion and labor unions from very traditional to progressive. We see that it’s the values that bring us together. It’s the social justice values, and it’s a realization that we’re in this together in the most profound way. Also that none of us have the resources or whole vision to do it ourselves. That’s good because we rely on one another. It’s the sad truth that the labor movement can’t go it alone. They need their allies, too. We all need to be in it together in an intentional, long-term strategic way It’s not easy working together even for a common goal. There are differences of culture, lack of understanding sometimes, but changing those things is part of our work. Faith and labor people wear a lot of the same hats. It’s not just “them over there.” It’s a long-term project with common goals. And change doesn’t happen overnight.

What’s the conversation you have with people who say religion and politics are irreconcilable? I encounter fewer and fewer people who say religion should stay out of the political sphere. That isn’t a real understanding of what religion is. If religion is just about something that has no connection to normal life how people work, live and the conditions that they do that under it’s some kind of fossil in a case. It should be in a museum. It’s not a living religion with ethical demands on how we behave and shapes society. Sometimes people say that defensively because they know religion can provide a challenge to the way people live, so they say “stay out of

politics” because they don’t want the challenge religion brings. But I think people understand largely that religion is about all the facets of our lives. There isn’t some big carve-out called politics—that doesn’t mean electoral politics. It can’t or shouldn’t, but politics in the deepest sense of how we construct society. Dr. King called it “the beloved community.” What could be more political than that? Luckily, I think more and more religious communities see themselves as political in terms of organizing and mobilizing and intervening in the policy arena. For the others, I’m tempted to say “by their fruits you shall know them.” It depends on what they’re doing with that motivation. For Dorothy Day, Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. King, their faith was their motivation and you see what they brought into the world as a result. It has to be in the context of creating a just society.

This is time of year when many people look inward, take stock of the year past and look to the future. Can you talk about this in terms of the larger movement? I’m a believer in hope that is grounded. I see hope in movements that have gained a lot of momentum—#Black Lives Matter, Fight For $15—I think people are activated. They’ve got their sights on a broad goal. Now and as ever, the challenge is how to sustain it. It can’t be a flare up. We have to make sure it isn’t. Religion has something to say about sustaining and building it in a day to day way, particularly at the end of the year and around the holidays. They’re all about renewal and bringing light into dark times. We have to stop and pay some attention to that. We should be neither pessimistic nor optimistic. What’s called for is hope grounded in real action and effort to change things. This year has seen a lot of important accomplishment. We’re still riding the wave and we don’t yet know where it’s going. Next year is obviously going to be momentous in terms of changing the political face of this country. I personally hope it brings out people best selves rather than their worst selves. We’ve already seen some of that—manipulating people fears and their worst instincts. That’s where labor and faith need to rise to their best histories; both are about human liberation in the most profound way. Labor is a social justice movement at its heart. Faith is about the possibility of humans living in a divine way or creating a world that mirrors the divine image. We’re called to keep coming back to that. It’s easy to lose those things in the necessary practicalities of the struggle. But we need our best vision and spiritual resources and organizing for the struggle ahead and we’re figuring all of this out together.

The Last Word: Rabbi Michael Feinberg, Executive Director of the Greater New York Labor-Religion CoalitionRabbi Michael Feinberg has been involved with the progressive, peace and labor movement for 40 years. He has worked in labor organizing and fought for an end to apartheid. He was working for a progressive Jewish organization when he was approached 18 years ago to help write a grant for the Labor-Religion Coalition’s first funding. He has led the organization ever since.

“ Every faith tradition speaks about the necessity for rights for workers, the poor and the marginalized.”

THE BACK PAGE

1199ActionPlatform.org

@1199SEIU

We are half a million healthcare workers united to win a better future for our patients, families, communities and our country. Over 22,000 members participated in creating our Platform, which represents the core values we are fighting for, so every candidate hears our voice and we can improve our lives. Together with our allies, we are standing up for a nation that works for working people, with fairness, security and dignity for all.

GOOD JOBS & ECONOMIC JUSTICE • $15, healthcare and a union for all low-wage workers • Affordable childcare and college • Strong contracts for all workers • Paid family and sick leave • Affordable housing and foreclosure protections • Preserving pensions and Social Security • Investing taxpayer dollars in good jobs not war • Making sure the 1% pay their fair share QUALITY HEALTHCARE FOR ALL • Expanding Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act

• Safe staffing for the full healthcare team • Access to community healthcare

RIGHTS & DEMOCRACY • Women’s rights, health services and equal pay

• Justice system reform and civil rights • Workers’ rights to join a union • Immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship • Rights and equality for the LGBTQ community • Protecting voting rights and getting corporations out of elections

A HEALTHY PLANET • Clean air, water and food • Renewable energy, green jobs and solving climate change

#1199ActionPlatform

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our life & times | december 2015

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