Our Life & Times

A JOURNAL OF 1199SEIU January/February 2011

Creating A Cleaner

GREENER Workplace Iris Garcia is among the environmental service workers at Maryland’s Laurel Regional Medical Center who are training to initiate sustainability efforts at the institution.

See pages 8-9.

Contents 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 11 12 14 15 15

OUR PLANET IS IN CRISIS And our health is at stake.

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN 2011 will be the year of the contract.

WE BEGIN STATE BUDGET BATTLES Fight to save Medicaid.

“WE CONSUMERS NEED TO BE AWARE OF WHAT WE’RE USING” Many toxins are hidden in products around our homes.

“THEY KNOW WE’RE TRYING TO MAKE THE WORLD BETTER” 1199ers are on the cutting edge of efforts to “green” health care.

THE WORK WE DO Going “green” at Maryland’s Laurel Regional Medical Center.

OUR DWINDLING WATER SUPPLY Thirst for corporate profits threatens us all.

CHANGE STARTS WITH PERSON IN THE MIRROR The personal is political.

CLIMATE CHANGE IS A LABOR ISSUE An interview with director of Cornell’s Global Labor Institute.

NYS HOMECARE SYSTEM IS BROKEN We launch campaign to fix it.

PEOPLE Always time for his art.

AROUND OUR UNION Organizing express rolls on in Florida.

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p.7 Our Life And Times, January/February 2011, Vol 29, No 1 Published by 1199SEIU, United Healthcare Workers East 310 West 43rd St. New York, NY 10036 Telephone (212) 582-1890 www.1199seiu.org

E DITOR :

J.J. Johnson STAFF WRITE R :

Patricia Kenney PHOTOG RAPH E R :

Jim Tynan PHOTOG RAPHY ASS ISTANT :

Belinda Gallegos ART DI RECTION & DES IG N :

Maiarelli Studio PRES I DE NT :

COVE R PHOTO :

George Gresham

Jim Tynan

S EC RETARY TREASURE R :

Maria Castaneda EXEC UTIVE VIC E PRES I DE NTS :

Norma Amsterdam Yvonne Armstrong Angela Doyle Aida Garcia George Kennedy Steve Kramer Patrick Lindsay Joyce Neil John Reid Bruce Richard Mike Rifkin Neva Shillingford Milly Silva Veronica Turner Estela Vazquez

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Montefiore Medical Center engineer YomTov Cohen is a sculptor.

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EDITORIAL

Our Planet Is In

CRISIS And our health is at stake.

Every reputable scientific body in the world agrees that the Earth is warming. 2010 and the past decade are the warmest on record. As the mercury continues to rise, glaciers are retreating, sea levels are rising, forests are dying and thousands of species are threatened with extinction.

Since heat is the energy that drives weather systems, more heat will cause more severe weather of all kinds. Scientists say that climate change also will increase the frequency of droughts and floods.

The current cycle of global warming is changing the rhythms of climate that all living things have come to rely upon. It is upsetting the Earth’s delicate balance.

Our livelihoods, as well as our lives, depend on our addressing this crisis.

Unfortunately, an obstacle in our way is the wellfinanced group of climate-change deniers, virtually all funded by the fossil-fuel industry. The deniers—in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence—recall the experts several decades back who vehemently denied the connection between cigarette smoking and cancer.

They are represented by Congress members such as Republicans Tom Price of Georgia, Michele Bachman of Minnesota, and Joe Barton of Texas, who accused Pres. Obama of a “Chicago style political shakedown” for demanding that BP set up a $20 billion escrow account to compensate the immediate victims of the Gulf Oil contamination.

The destruction wrought by BP, while unprecedented in the U.S., is what energy-industry giants do routinely elsewhere, particularly in developing countries and the global south. Those of us in low-income and working-class communities have disproportionately borne the toxic burden of fossil fuel extraction, transportation and production.

For example, an 1199SEIU National Benefit Fund survey several years ago found that 40,000 New York 1199ers and their family members suffered from asthma. A large percentage of these members live in the

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January/February • Our Life And Times

South Bronx, where the asthma hospitalization rate is seven times the national average because of the heavy concentration of diesel trucks, industrial sewage and power plants.

Climate change can severely affect our health through heat waves, severe storms, ailments caused or worsened by pollution and airborne allergens, and many climate-sensitive infectious diseases.

We all have a stake in protecting our environment, and those of us in the healthcare industry and the labor movement are in a unique position to help protect the climate by limiting the increase in global warming and moving our nation towards environmental sustainability.

It is in labor’s interest to support high-quality “green” jobs and support renewable energy. Upgrading our nation’s homes and workplaces, for example, would cut fuel costs by maximizing energy efficiency. It also would help keep housing affordable for owners and renters.

SEIU, our parent union, is among those unions that strongly support climate protection policies as well as “green” jobs. Working with SEIU in New York City and the Baltimore/D.C. region, 1199SEIU environmental service workers are developing new ways to “green” health care. Together with hospital management, they are redesigning the work to reduce waste and segregate infectious waste to improve cleaning and minimize the use of toxic cleaning chemicals.

Political office seekers can no longer expect our support if they do not support the protection of our environment. Members are learning how to identify and remove toxins and pollutants from their homes.

Others are working within their communities to help protect the air, food, soil and water. Some, even in urban areas, are growing their own food.

Only by safeguarding our environment can we safeguard our health and our future.

“The current cycle of global warming is changing the rhythms of climate that all living things have come to rely upon. It is upsetting the Earth’s delicate balance. Our livelihoods, as well as our lives, depend on our addressing this crisis.”

New York City 1199ers participated in a “green” healthcare training at the Union’s Manhattan headquarters in December.

THE PRESIDENT’S COLUMN George Gresham

2011 Will Be the Year of the Contract Solidarity is our watchword.

Throughout our union, from Massachusetts and New York’s North Country and all the way south to Dade County, Florida, we are covered by over 1,000 collective bargaining agreements. This year, 400 of those will expire or have already expired.

Altogether we will be bargaining new contracts for nearly 80,000 of our Union sisters and brothers, in every region and every sector of the health industry in which we work—hospitals, nursing homes, home care, registered nurses, freestanding clinics, etc.

Fortunately, we were able last year to reopen and successfully bargain our master contract with the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes of Greater New York, covering 160,000 of our members. That contract was originally set to expire this year, but we were able to extend it to 2013.

When a contract expires, of course, everything is on the table—wages, benefits, working conditions, job security— everything. So it is not being dramatic to say that we will be fighting for our future, for our jobs, for our families as each contract negotiation unfolds.

And it is not only the jobs and futures of our members whose contracts expire that are at stake. Each one of our contracts sets standards for the rest of us. An injury to one is an injury to all, a defeat for some is a defeat for all, and a victory for some is a victory for all of us. This is an important concept for all of us to grasp—it is the very meaning of belonging to our Union—because all of us need to be in solidarity with those on the bargaining frontlines this year.

For the most part, these are not going to be easy negotiations. Despite what we are being told in Washington and on Wall Street, the recession is far from over for working people.

The combined unemployment and underemployment rate is close to 20 percent. All of us have family, friends or neighbors who need jobs; many of them are even in danger of losing their homes. So our employers will be even more resistant to maintaining our standards, let alone raising them.

The political environment is toxic, with an aggressive new Republican majority in the House of Representatives that is hostile to working families. Ever more billions of federal dollars are going to give tax breaks to billionaires and to feed the insatiable war machine. And our states are all operating in deficits and looking to make cuts to vital healthcare funding, threatening additional hospitals and nursing homes with having to close their doors.

In this Year of the Contract, we will be fighting to defend and improve our wages, our retirement security, and our benefits while tens of millions of non-union workers look at us with envy as they struggle to make ends meet, many without healthcare coverage and without pensions.

We will of course bring every bit of strength we have to bear in these upcoming battles. We will be calling upon our political friends to come to our side. We will be organizing in our communities and asking our many partners to join with us. Our entire 1199SEIU staff, organizers and officers will do whatever it takes to defend our contracts, our livelihoods and our families.

Our biggest strength, however, is you, the 350,000-plus 1199SEIU sisters and brothers.

We have accomplished—and continue to accomplish— great things when we are united and we are mobilized. Never has our unity been more important than it is today. Let’s go to work.

Letters SAVE SOCIAL SECURITY ocial Security is protected by the original 1935 law.

It is funded jointly by a six percent tax on workers (FICA) and six percent on employers. Actuaries estimate that workers and employers have paid enough into the system to pay full benefits to beneficiaries through at least 2037.

The fund currently has a surplus of $2.5 trillion. That surplus, the Social Security Trust Fund, has long been a source for the national government to borrow from, and an object of greed for the Republicans who have just come into power in the House.

Republicans have set their sights on gutting Social Security and Medicare. Presently their goal is to raise the retirement age once more (it has gone from 65 to 67) and eventually phase it out entirely as they are doing with pensions and attempting to do with unions. We have defeated such efforts to weaken and privatize Social Security before, most recently under Pres. George W. Bush.

We retired members are reminded of the importance of Social Security every time we go to the grocery store. Without it, many of us would have no retirement income. We are deeply indebted to those Americans who formed the structure 75 years ago that has lifted so many millions out of poverty.

However, we are not the only group that has benefited.

Social Security coverage is provided to workers and their children should the workers become disabled while working.

Spouses and children of disabled workers who die and disabled children also are covered.

How can our Union respond to this dangerous threat to Social Security? One way is to build ties with all working people —the future retirees—and with organizations of the disabled people and their families. We must also unite with unions and the unemployed.

Our Union, which has led so many struggles before, could help build such a movement for our nation’s rightful heritage.

The great Joe Hill was a labor organizer who was framed and executed for his part in a 1915 strike in Utah. His last words must become our mantra. They were, “Don’t mourn for me.

Organize!”

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1199ERS DOWN SOUTH t was wonderful to see my 1199SEIU brothers and sisters at the One Nation rally in Washington on Oct. 2. I came to the rally with a busload of retired 1199ers and their family and friends from North and South Carolina.

1199 retirees from the Carolinas meet once a month in Sumter, S.C. under the leadership of retiree and former 1199 staffer Nonie Perry. I make the two-hour trip from Rockingham, N.C. I’m one of many 1199ers and other union members, including my wife Josephine—a member of the New York State Nurses Association—who have returned to the South. What we’ve found is that things have changed, but not nearly enough. A lot of the old mentality continues.

This is especially true with respect to unions. Working people get their news and information from the mass media that spends most of its time knocking unions. Unlike, New York, which I understand is the most unionized state in the country, labor unions are a lot less common in the South. And bosses have used racism as one of their weapons to block organizing and advancement for workers.

Many workers are afraid to organize or confront their bosses since they don’t have much recourse in so-called “right to work” states. Nor do they have faith in official bodies like the labor boards, which are usually in the pockets of the bosses.

1199 retirees are doing our best to change things. In my town, Rockingham, we recently elected our first black sheriff. I tell my neighbors and colleagues that we were able to do this because we are the majority. But working people also have to understand that they are the majority and that if they unite and organize they can change things.

I believe 1199SEIU and SEIU can make a big difference if they are willing to invest resources in the South. We can inspire, educate and support the progressive struggles and let people know that labor can make a difference in people’s personal lives and in the well-being of our communities.

If we can change the South, we can change our country.

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CLIFTON BROADY, Retiree, Rockingham, North Carolina

MONNIE CALLAN Retiree, New York City

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POLITICAL ACTION

Budget Battles

IN EVERY REGION Medicaid and programs for the poor are under threat again.

With practically every state facing record deficits and governors across the nation demanding more control over Medicaid spending, this year will once again see 1199ers gearing up for budget battles in all their regions. Members will be fighting to keep health care off the chopping block and in some cases keep the doors of our institutions open. They’re preparing for fierce fights for our contracts and to protect already-scarce funding for our institutions.

“I’m ready. Anything that needs to be done I’m willing to do it,” says Mary Padillio, an environmental service worker at Chester River Nursing Home in Chesterton, MD. “They’re saying things are getting better.

They’re not getting better. This recession is going to hit us again. Non-union nursing home workers around here are having their hours cut. They can’t do that to us because we have a union.”

In New York State members are getting ready to fend off deep Medicaid cuts to home care in particular. Homecare workers barely make a living wage and over the years have consistently borne the brunt of the budget axe. The Union has launched a campaign to repair the inequities in New York State’s homecare system. (See story on p. 14.) At press time, newly-elected Gov. Andrew Cuomo wasn’t scheduled to release a budget until February, but the state was bracing for severe reductions. Gov. Cuomo has promised not to raise taxes, while zeroing in on public employees and their pensions as a drain on the public coffers. 1199SEIU has firmly stood by its position that we won’t be pitted against our Union brothers and sisters in other sectors in a battle for the state’s resources.

In early January, Gov. Cuomo announced the formation of the Medicaid Redesign Committee that will include 1199SEIU Pres. George Gresham and will be co-chaired by former 1199SEIU Pres. Dennis Rivera.

In Florida, Tea Party favorite Gov. Rick Scott – who came to power in the midterm elections along with Sen. Mark Rubio and a Republican supermajority in the state’s legislature – supports dismantling the state’s current Medicaid system and moving to a voucher system.

The state is the recipient of a federal grant which provides for the expansion of Medicaid. That grant expires in June. At risk are institutions like Jackson Memorial Hospital, which serves many 1199SEIU members and their families. Both Rubio and Scott – former president of the Hospital Corporation of America – are vehemently against the new healthcare law and as in several other states, there are efforts underway in Florida to get rid of healthcare reform altogether. In spite of Florida’s tough environment, workers are on the move.

In late 2010, some 2,400 workers at six Florida hospitals voted for 1199SEIU membership; some 50 new 1199SEIU delegates were sworn in and members were attending workshops to strategize for negotiations and worksite actions.

In Maryland analysts are predicting a $1.6 billion shortfall. Last year’s deficit was covered by federal stimulus money, which is not available this year. Gov. Martin O’Malley has proposed an austere budget which includes a buyout plan for state workers as well as no new taxes and perhaps some

deep cuts to hospitals and nursing homes.

While O’Malley’s budget rejected income tax increases, he didn’t rule out a proposed alcohol and gasoline tax to generate revenue for the state. 1199SEIU is working on and supporting the alcohol tax in Maryland. The tax would pay for healthcare programs.

Similar to New York, Massachusetts faces a deficit of nearly 10%, with a $2 billion shortfall on a $28 billion state budget. Major budget priorities for the Union in Massachusetts include protecting funding for the statewide Personal Care Attendant (PCA) program, along with key funding sources for safety net and community hospitals. The PCA program includes 28,000 home care workers who joined 1199SEIU in 2007.

1199SEIU represents members at dozens of safety net and community hospitals in Massachusetts, which will potentially be affected by upcoming budget decisions – including thousands of members within Boston Medical Center, Cape Cod Healthcare, Caritas-Christi, Cambridge Health Alliance, and others. Massachusetts members will hold their annual Advocacy Day rally at the State House in Boston on May 11. The Union’s budget priorities for home care, nursing home, and hospital members will all be important themes at the event and in political action activities leading up to it.

In New Jersey right wing Gov. Chris Christie continued his attack on public sector workers and Medicaid funding. In his state of the state address delivered in early January, Christie proposed cuts to Medicaid and state employee benefits as a way to close New Jersey’s budget gap.

New Jersey members are mobilizing against cuts that would devastate nursing homes and hospitals.

“Preventing additional cuts this year will be crucial because more cuts would worsen working conditions for us and lower the standards of care we provide to our residents,” says Eileen Lewis, a restorative assistant at a Cinnaminson, NJ nursing home and a long-time 1199SEIU delegate.

New York 1199ers standing up against budget cuts at a 2009 rally in Albany.

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OUR HOMES

products and home electronics. And there’s mounting evidence that the chemicals in them are dangerous.

For example, Bisphenol A (BPA), which is used in plastic water and baby bottles has been shown to effect fetal brain development and is linked to behavioral problems in young children. Parabens, common ingredients in moisturizers and hair care products, have been linked to cancer in animals.

And phthalates, used in plastics and cosmetics for flexibility and resilience, have been linked to liver cancer.

“We Consumers Need to Be Aware of What

WE’RE USING” Many toxins are hidden in products around our homes.

We’ve known for some time that exposure to toxic chemicals causes, among other diseases and conditions, cancer, learning disabilities and obesity. Still, hazardous chemicals routinely find their way into our homes— and our bodies — in the form of cosmetics, cleaning products and other goods we use daily.

“As a consumer I’m concerned about all the toxic substances that we’ve found that cause birth defects and cancer and infertility. I’ve spent many an hour in the lab testing blood and other body fluids to determine the health conditions of individuals, whether it was diabetes, cancer, anemia, leukemia, etc.,” says Vivian Y. Stuart, who retired as a laboratory technologist from Franklin Hospital Medical Center in Valley Stream, NY. “I was really surprised to learn that even baby shampoo contains toxic substances.”

Men and women use a combined total of about 18 personal care prod-

ucts a day. We also use or come in contact with scores of household products. These include insulation, bottles and toys made of plastic, food packaging, non-stick pots and pans, cleaning

“Is it OK to spray things in my home? Is it OK to put things in our wash?

How much of something is it OK to put on?”

Michael Augusto, a biomedical technician at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, tries to buy “green” household products and reads labels carefully.

In 2008 Congress banned six types of phthalates from toys and cosmetics.

But that ban was unusual. The chemical industry has successfully opposed national regulation. While states like California and Maine have passed tough laws, Congress has failed to overhaul federal regulations in a meaningful way.

Filmmaker Annie Leonard looked at the cosmetics industry in her 2010 film “The Story of Cosmetics.” Leonard pointed out that the business is essentially self regulating, with a safety panel that assesses less than 20% of the chemicals used in its products.

And the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which most people assume oversees the cosmetics industry, doesn’t even test the safety of most personal care products. In fact, since 1938, the agency has banned companies from using only eight out of some 12,000 chemicals. In fact, the F.D.A. doesn’t even require complete labeling.

“We think we’re safe because we see safety warnings on products. We assume they were researched. Those labels weren’t written by chemists.

They were written by lawyers,” says Michael Augusto, a biomedical technician at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. “We consumers need to be aware of what we’re using. Is it OK to spray things in my home? Is it OK to put things in our wash? How much of something is it OK to put on? You might find something out and not want to use a product.”

Augusto is a veteran of numerous Occupational Safety and Health seminars, a member of Mt. Sinai’s Safety and Health Committee and a certified health and safety trainer. Augusto takes his work home with him by trying to buy non-toxic products, and reading labels carefully.

“The reality is that big corporations spend lots of money trying to make us think they’ve done a good job and their products are safe to use because they say so,” says Augusto. “But those are just disclaimers. They just want you to feel like you can trust them.” “‘The Story of Cosmetics’ is a real reminder about the safety of the products we consume,” says Stuart. “I would definitely share the film with family and friends. After all, all of our health is at risk.”

“The Story of Cosmetics” and information about legislation and safer products are available on the Internet at www.safecosmetics.org.

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OUR INSTITUTIONS

“They Know We’re Trying to Make the World Better” 1199ers are on the cutting edge of efforts to “green” health care.

Health care, by its nature, seeks to protect and preserve; an unfortunate side effect is its environmental impact.

The industry creates some five million tons of solid waste per year, consumes twice the energy of traditional office space and uses a vast array of toxic chemicals, from cleaning products to chemotherapy drugs.

But things are changing—spurred in part by healthcare reform’s demands to cut waste, stricter governmental oversight, and increased awareness about sustainability. Health care is making changes that safeguard, rather than harm our environment. 1199ers are getting involved.

Bernard McKnight is an environmental service worker who’s been at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan for 13 years. A member of the institution’s “Green Team,” McKnight is among the hospital’s employees who work together on sustainability and environmental issues.

“There have been a lot of big changes over the years. When I first started here we had a little recycling program, but it really didn’t take off,” says McKnight, as he gives Our Life And Times a tour of the long, winding tunnel which houses the hospital’s bins and dumpsters of well-organized waste, garbage and recyclables. “Now we’re laying the foundations so our programs can really branch out. We try to set smart, achievable goals. We want to make sure that what we do lasts, like composting in our kitchens, using “green” cleaning products, water conservation, trash recycling and red-bag (biohazard) waste reduction programs.”

McKnight’s in one of several groups of 1199ers participating in a groundbreaking labor-management initiative in which workers are on the leading edge of “green” in their institutions. The program is sponsored in part by the U.S. Dept. of Labor and among its developers are the Union and the Healthcare Career Advancement Program, a partnership of SEIU locals and employers dedicated to healthcare education issues.

1199SEIU members in New York City and in Baltimore are training to teach others about energy and water conservation methods, the reduction of waste and recycling, and the proper use of cleaning products. They’re also preparing for new job responsibilities that will evolve as healthcare facilities implement broader sustainability programs.

“I’ve always been interested in global warming and environmental

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issues,” says Michael Ramos, an environmental services worker at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, NY. “And right now we have a really good opportunity to learn information and spread the word about changing things.”

Jessica Brunson is a housekeeper at NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan. She’s also participating in the “green” healthcare project. She says it just makes sense to have workers playing a major role in such a major industrial shift.

“At first I thought ‘I’m just a housekeeper. Who’s going to listen to me?’ But then I realized I have lots of ideas to share,” says Brunson. “We’re on the front lines of defense. We deal with all the waste, so why not have the education?”

“Waste management is really important,” Ramos continues. “There is just constant trash flow in a hospital— patients on IVs, tubes from feedings— and then we have the overflow. If we can get people to be more conscious of what they’re putting in the garbage, it would be really helpful because it’s really expensive. We pay by the pound to have our trash taken away. We could save a lot of money and that really helps our hospital.”

Nigel Smith, a lead mailroom clerk at Einstein Hospital in the Bronx, NY, says

“Right now we have a really good opportunity to learn information and spread the word about changing things.”

Bernard McKnight, an environmental service worker at NY Presbyterian Hospital, above, and Jessica Brunson, a housekeeper at NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan. that an institution can have an impact on environmental preservation by implementing even one change in a single area.

“Hospitals generate a lot of paper,” says Smith. “Sometimes a report will be six or 10 pages and they’ll just use the top page. I’d like to make sure more of that goes into the recycling bin and less goes into the garbage.”

Smith is responsible for emptying 76 recycling bins throughout several departments at his institution.

“Some days I get more calls than others,” he says. “I’d like to get more.”

NY Presbyterian’s McKnight says he knows “green” is a hot topic these days, but there really is a special link between health care and caring for our environment.

“When a person comes in to our hospital and sees that we’re ‘green,’ they know we’re not only going to try to make people better,” she says. “They know we’re trying to make the world better.”

THE WORK WE DO: GOING “GREEN” ATLAUREL REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER t Laurel Regional Medical Center, in Laurel, MD, environmental service workers are helping pave the way for the “greening” of their institution. They’re among the Baltimorearea 1199ers who are participating in a new grant-funded labor-management project which seeks to create “greener” hospitals and nursing homes. They’re also preparing the healthcare workforce as their jobs evolve with growing sustainability efforts. The project was developed in part by Healthcare Career Advancement Program, a training and education-focused partnership of SEIU locals and employers.

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3. Anna Pujols has been a housekeeper at Laurel Regional for five years. She works in the institution’s operating room. “I see it as very important,” she says. “We need to learn how we can protect our planet and how we can live and work in a safe place.”

4. “I thought going ‘green’ was just about using natural products or a certain type of paper towel,” says housekeeper Antoinette Polk. “I didn’t know about a lot of different chemicals or lighting or water. It’s good for workers and patients too. Some of those chemicals are very harsh. If we do a lot of recycling in the patients’ rooms it will be helpful. We’re getting new mops. I’ve even started buying a few new products at home.”

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1. “It depends on the day. Today I’m working in an area that does infusions, which make a lot of waste because of the tubing and the needles,” says housekeeper Sandra Castro. “I really like the classes and I’ve learned a lot— mostly about recycling, which we need here. People want to do it. It will save money and we can save the earth.”

2. Housekeeper Zeline Woods cleans Laurel Regional’s operating rooms.

“Everybody is going ‘green’,” says Woods.

“We need to make changes at this hospital.”

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5. Housekeeper Rosa Cruz works in the institution’s Emergency Dept. She’s preparing to participate in a “green” training, which at press time was scheduled to start in February.

“I recycle at home and use earth-friendly cleaning products,” says Cruz.

6. “When people see us doing recycling, they’ll get used to it and take it home,’ says Laurel Regional environmental service worker Iris Garcia. “It’s good for the whole community.”

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OUR PLANET

Our Dwindling

WATER SUPPLY

Thirst for corporate profits threatens us all.

Not long ago, most Americans took the availability of clean water for granted. This is no longer the case. Pollution, climate change and privatization have dramatically altered our relation to the world’s most essential resource.

Worldwide demand for water is doubling every 20 years, twice the rate of population growth. Currently 1.3 billion people don’t have access to clean water and 2.5 billion lack proper sewage and sanitation. In less than 20 years, the demand for fresh water will exceed the world’s supply by over 50 percent, estimates The People’s Water Forum, a global water justice movement.

We are not exempt. In the U.S., major obstacles to available clean water are pollution, privatization and commercialization. In North Florida, residents are gearing up for a major battle with the Swiss-based Nestlé Corporation, the country’s largest water bottler and the world’s largest foodpackager.

Nestlé’s is seeking a permit to begin withdrawing 400,000 gallons of spring water each day from sites along the Wacissa River in Jefferson County. Residents also are opposed to the additional traffic and pollution that would result from the 70 trucks a day needed to transport the water. Florida Panhandle residents already are suffering the effects of last spring’s BP oil contamination of the Gulf.

1199ers in the MD-DC region face similar problems. Pollution is costing the Chesapeake Bay region millions and possibly billions of dollars in lost jobs, seafood declines and other problems, a recent report by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation finds.

“Not long ago, I had no problem catching enough fish in the Chesapeake to feed my family,” says Dante Marshall, a CNA at Summit Park NH in Catonsville, MD. “About 15 years ago, rock, trout and blues were plentiful and I could cast a net to catch crabs.”

Marshall says that now when she looks in the Chesapeake she often sees garbage and other debris that should have been recycled rather than end up in the bay. “This is not just a problem for those of us who fish,” she says. “The pollution of the Chesapeake affects our economy and our health.”

In Massachusetts, Cape Cod’s shell fishing and tourist industries are being threatened by rising nitrogen levels that are suffocating the vegetation and marine life in the Cape’s saltwater ponds and estuaries.

interests of natural gas companies — issued regulations that would allow hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to expand in New Jersey and New York as well as Delaware and Pennsylvania. Fracking is a controversial method of injecting millions of gallons of chemically treated water underground in a search for natural gas.

Aside from water contamination, communities are faced with public health threats from chemicals evaporating off drilling sites and residual chemicals that can spill or leak onto the soil.

The process has been linked to drinking water contamination and property damage in Colorado, Wyoming, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In December, then-Gov. David A. Paterson vetoed legislation that would have put a moratorium on all forms of fracking. The governor instead issued an executive order placing a moratorium on horizontal fracking while letting vertical fracking continue.

Clean water advocates are opposed to both forms. At a recent New York City press conference, a Hudson Riverkeeper spokesperson declared, “There is no second chance to fix our water supply once it’s been tainted from gas drilling gone wrong.”

Clean water should be a public trust and human right.

Take Back the Tap So many of us have been programmed to believe that bottled water is hip and healthy, but tap water is better for our health, our environment and our wallet. In fact, one-third of all bottled water, including Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coke’s Dasani, actually is tap water.

Bottled water costs about 2,000 times the cost of tap water. It is less regulated, so it is often less safe and worse tasting. The big beverage companies often take water from municipal or underground sources that local people depend on for drinking water. Producing and transporting the plastic bottles uses energy, spews carbon dioxide and emits toxic chemicals.

And 80 percent of the empty bottles are piling up in landfills.

The Washington-based Food and Water Watch has launched a campaign to Take Back the Tap and to demand that Congress and local governments protect our water resources. For more information, go to www.takebackthetap.org.

CHRIS JORDAN PHOTO

Members in New Jersey and New York not only are victims of polluted waterways, they now face the prospect of polluted drinking water. The Delaware River Water Basin Commission in December — bowing to

LIVING “GREEN”

“I tell them to try changing just one thing at a time.”

Stephanie Moffett, a pathology transcriptionist at St. Petersburg General Hospital, grows her own vegetables, saves rainwater and recently installed an energy efficient roof on her home.

Change Starts With Person in the Mirror The personal is political.

oving our nation to a cleaner and more sustainable environment will require major political battles.

Our elected officials and public institutions must do a better job of protecting our air, food, water and the products in our homes and workplaces.

A healthier environment also will require changes in our personal lives. Some 1199ers already are showing the way.

“I’ve been concerned about the environment as far back as the fourth grade,” says Stephanie Moffett, a pathology transcriptionist at St. Petersburg General Hospital in Florida. “As a child I was concerned that the soda six-pack plastic rings were killing fish.”

One year later as a fifth grader, Moffett built a solar hot-

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water heater for a science project in school. Today, she reduces her carbon footprint by walking to work, where she is a leader of the green team. “Environmentalism is not only good for our health, it also makes sense economically,” she says.

The hospital saves $400 a month since it replaced un-recyclable Styrofoam cups at Moffett’s urging. Her experience at the hospital also has informed her eating habits. “I see a lot of illnesses related to processed food,” she notes. “If I can’t pronounce an ingredient in packaged food, I won’t eat that food.” offett uses hydroponic, or soilless, gardening to grow most of her vegetables. She and her parents recently installed an energy efficient metal roof on their house. They also save money by

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collecting rain water in 55-gallon drums. They use five composters for their garbage.

Moffett, who acts in local plays, touts another benefit of protecting the environment, stating, “I live a healthier life with more energy.”

“I’m especially concerned about waste and ignorance about recycling here in Massachusetts,” says Lynn Community Health Center purchaser Denise Clark.

“After growing up in Northern California where we had neighborhood gardens, food co-ops and glass and plastic recycling, I moved to Massachusetts, and I thought I had landed on another planet,” Clark says.

“Oh, the money I could make from what people toss out in the trash here.”

She has salvaged antiques from throughout Lynn to furnish her home and give to others.

Clark has reduced her electric bill by insulating her home and using high efficiency light bulbs. And, she says, “The local farmers’ market where I get my fish is actually cheaper than at the super market.”

She’s made a difference at her workplace, too. “When I began working at the clinic seven years ago, there was little if no recycling that I knew of. So I took it upon myself to start the recycling of all toner cartridges for all of the twelve clinic office sites by supplying them with return labels, bags and recycling boxes.” lark, a Union delegate, is one of the 1199ers who worked to help secure funding for the health center’s new all-green building in Lynn.

“It is being created from the ground up by union workers,” she says. “So even if the rest of the city is behind, I’m proud to know my workplace is doing its part.”

Clark says that she appreciates another Lynn resident who is doing his part.

“There is a man who walks the streets with a pocket full of black bags picking up trash,” she says. “From his appearance, I suspect that he is homeless, but that doesn’t stop him. And I have thanked him from time to time.”

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Climate Change is a

LABOR ISSUE An interview with Sean Sweeney, director of Cornell’s Global Labor Institute

Sean Sweeney is the director of the Cornell Global Labor Institute, a program of Cornell University’s School for Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR).

Sweeney and the GLI have worked with unions in the U.S. and internationally to develop a forward-looking, movement building and science-based climate protection agenda.

GLI organized both the first major labor-environment conference on climate in the U.S. in 2007, and the first U.S. labor delegation to the United Nations climate talks.

Sweeney co-authored the United Nations 2008 study entitled Green Jobs: Towards Sustainable Work in a Low Carbon World (downloaded by over 800,000 readers).

Also in 2008, the GLI convened the Labor Leaders Climate Forum, a project that involves 16 unions and organizations like the Blue Green Alliance, Apollo Alliance, Labor Network for Sustainability and Jobs with Justice.

Our Life And Times interviewed Sweeney in December.

Q. You attended the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, in December. Please assess the success of the gathering.

A. There is a general feeling that, after the disaster in Copenhagen (there was a climate conference there in 2010) last year, Cancun has given the world a second chance to reach a fair, ambitious and binding global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus begin to address the destruction of the earth’s atmosphere. But the almost endorsement by governments of the “Cancun Accord” does not change the fact that, after 20 years of talking, global warming emissions continue to rise at an alarming rate; 2010 was the hottest year on record, and the big obstacles to a global climate deal have not been dealt with.

The U.S. has 5% of the world’s population and is responsible for roughly 30% of the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. And yet the U.S. Congress has not been able to pass a piece of legislation that can honor the Administration’s verbal commitment to reduce emissions. Without a robust commitment from the U.S., other countries will drag their feet.

The president must show leadership by using all available executive and regulatory powers to fight emissions and create jobs at home. States like New York and California can also play an important role by putting in place plans to reduce emissions.

Q. What does the conference outcome mean for labor’s role in the movement to protect the climate and secure green jobs?

A. Cancun has set the stage for labor to present a forward-looking agenda, one that creates jobs and reduces emissions at the same time.

Climate change has become a trade union priority in many parts of the world. Why? Because labor as a progressive social movement cannot ignore the biggest ever threat to human civilization. Also, climate protection will build labor’s power, because dealing with global warming will require unions and social movements gaining much more power over political and economic decision making.

Union-supported green initiatives in the workplace are important, but the climate crisis demands much bolder actions, and quickly.

We in labor must realize that climate is more than about “green jobs,” because it is possible to grow the number of green jobs without reducing emissions—this is in fact what is happening in the U.S. and many other countries. Green job growth has been too modest to have an impact on the presently serious levels of unemployment.

The way to dramatically scale up “green jobs” is to pursue the kind of emissions reduction targets the scientific community says are necessary. SEIU supports this, on the understanding that such a target would create many more jobs—the British trade unions call them “climate jobs”—in public transit and new rail infrastructure, weatherization and building retrofits, pollution control technologies, full transformation of our antiquated grid system, production of electric vehicles, and so on.

Climate protection today offers the only real job creation scenario there is. And many of the jobs need to be created in the public sector.

January/February • Our Life And Times

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INTERVIEW

“The impact of climate change on human health is already a serious global problem.”

Q. What is the role of healthcare workers in the struggle to address the energy and climate crises?

A. Healthcare workers have led the way on civil rights, immigrant rights, and many issues in recent decades. They are in many ways the moral vanguard of the labor movement. The U.S. labor movement’s climate policy has been defined by unions who perceive themselves as “job losers”—unions in energy and manufacturing in particular. Healthcare workers stand in solidarity with those unions, but when it comes to climate change, solidarity cannot mean deferring or “business as usual” or the agenda of the coal and oil companies.

Energy and climate is everyone’s business, not just those who work in the carbon-intensive industries. The impacts of climate change on human health is already a serious global problem. The number of climate refugees has reached 150 million. Malaria deaths are increasing, for example, as mosquitoes move to higher altitudes. And then there is Katrina and other extreme weather events that kill people and compromise the health of millions.

Q. Do you see a connection between the fight for climate protection and the building of the labor movement?

A. Labor is often asked to be everything to everybody at a time when unions have a lot of problems defending the members they already have. So it is hard to talk to some union leaders about climate change. Raising it provokes a sigh, as in “we’d like to do more, but…”

Certainly, young people and communities of color get global warming—and want action.

But this is more than about labor’s reputation or its capacity to build alliances. It’s much more fundamental. Labor needs a new agenda—one grounded in social solidarity, environmental sustainability and economic democracy. Climate protection thus becomes a core concern, not a side issue.

Since the New Deal labor has insisted on rights—rights to organize, to basic protections at work and in society at large, and so on. We have left economic management to others, mainly bankers, CEOs of global corporations and the politicians who represent their interests.

Now we have a so-called “model of development” that abuses workers and the environment with the same level of indifference and disregard. Rebuilding the labor movement will depend a lot on our capacity to imagine and fight for a different economic system— one that is driven by communities and brings human and environmental needs into true alignment.

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Resources on the Web Dozens of organizations devoted to the many streams of the environmental movement can be found on the web. They range from environmental conservation, health and justice to various ecology movements to anti-nuclear power to green jobs. Following is a small sampling of some of those sites.

LABOR: Labor Network for Sustainability is a project of Voices for a Sustainable Future. LNS is dedicated to engaging unions, workers and allies who care about economic justice, ecology, and equality to support economic, social, and environmental sustainability. www.labor4sustainability.org/ Apollo Alliance is a coalition of labor, business, environmental, and community organizations working to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs. It has affiliates across the country, including in Massachusetts, New York State and New York City. http://apolloalliance.org/ Blue-Green Alliance is a national, strategic partnership between labor unions and environmental organizations dedicated to expanding the number and quality of jobs in the green economy. www.bluegreenalliance.org/

HEALTH CARE: Health Care Without Harm works to implement ecologically sound and healthy alternatives to healthcare practices that pollute the environment and contribute to disease. www.noharm.org/ Practice Greenhealth is the nation’s leading membership and networking organization for institutions in the healthcare community that have made a commitment to sustainable, eco-friendly practices. Access to some of the content requires membership for which there is a fee. www.practicegreenhealth.org/

NATIONAL: Friends of the Earth is the U.S. affiliate of a federation of grassroots groups in 76 countries working to defend the environment and champion a more healthy and just world. www.foe.org/ 350.org is an international campaign to build a movement to unite the world around scientific and just solutions to the climate crisis. www.350.org/ Environmental Justice Climate Change (EJCC) Initiative is a national alliance of environmental justice organizations, religious institutions, and other social justice organizations that works to address the impact of climate change on poor communities of color. www.ejcc.org/ The National Resources Defense Council, with 1.3 million members and online activists, works to safeguard the Earth: its people, its plants and animals and the natural systems on which all life depends. www.nrdc.org/ The Center for Environmental Health protects people from toxic chemicals and promotes business products and practices that are safe for public health and the environment. www.ceh.org/ The Environmental Working Group (EWG) uses the power of public information to protect public health and the environment. It provides resources to consumers while simultaneously pushing for national policy change. www.ewg.org/ Healthy Schools Network, Inc., is the leading national voice for children’s environmental health at school and is a national-award-winning not-for-profit environmental health organization. www.healthyschools.org/

INTERNATIONAL: Sustain Labor believes that workers should play a fundamental role in the route to a sustainable world and that workplaces are at the center of production and consumption, therefore they should be central locations in any effort to change production and consumption patterns at local, national and international levels. www.sustainlabour.org/ The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), founded by the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization, is the leading international body for the assessment of climate change. www.ipcc.ch/

HOMECARE

New York State’s Homecare System Is

BROKEN

We launch campaign to fix it.

This year the first of some 78 million baby boomers will turn 65. That means an increasing number of people across the nation will be requiring homecare services. Already in New York City, some 100,000 residents rely on home health care. But these residents are cared for in a system that is in crisis.

“While there are many quality providers, too much of the system is fraught with profiteering and fraud,” 1199SEIU President George Gresham said at a Dec. 7 Manhattan forum called to address the problems in the system. “In one of the fastest growing job sectors in our state, homecare workers often earn poverty wages with no healthcare benefits,” Gresham added. “Now is the time to introduce reforms in Albany that will protect our most vulnerable citizens— seniors and people with disabilities—and ensure that caregivers have quality jobs.”

At the forum, Gresham discussed the Union’s campaign to reform the broken system. He and others stressed that for years too many homecare agencies have been siphoning away excess profits in inflated administrative costs and through fraud while only a fraction of Medicare and Medicaid dollars are allocated for direct care.

A major component of the Union’s campaign is the website, www.HomeCareCrisis.org, which contains a fact sheet, testimonials, workers’profiles, videos and a “Hall of Shame” section that documents some of the more blatant cases of fraud.

For example, the website notes that last year a judgment of $42 million was entered against ANR Homecare Services Inc., a company controlled by Alexander Levy. In addition, other companies controlled by Levy have agreed to repay approximately $6.3 million to the Medicaid program on related charges.

The website also cites the Washington-based nonprofit Institute of Medicine report that “poverty wages and high rates of job-related injury lead to unacceptably high rates of vacancies and turnover,

which can, in turn, lead to poor quality of care for patients.”

“A lot of my clients wouldn’t survive in a nursing home,” says Georgina Rivera-Vega, an aide for Manhattan’s Fedcap Home Care. She is comforted, she says, knowing that she can help her clients remain in their home. But, says Rivera-Vega, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for her to make ends meet as an aide.

“I’ve been a home health aide for 19 years, yet I earn $7.65 an hour. The only way I can make it is to work a lot of overtime. I work from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., five days a week,” she says. “I don’t get food stamps or Medicaid and the rent for my Bronx apartment is close to $1,000 a month.”

“Too much of the system is fraught with profiteering and fraud.”

Rivera-Vega says she is concerned that the budget crises from the local to the national level might delay the needed reforms to the system. “We work ourselves to death, yet all I hear about is the need to cut,” she says.

“Across-the-board Medicaid cuts, without structural reform, would be the worst-case scenario for homecare consumers, workers and providers,” says Steven Dawson, president of the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute and a speaker at the Dec. 7 forum.

“True reform requires investment in a stable, welltrained workforce-and that will require new payment policies that reward ‘high road’ providers who demonstrate that they are creating decent jobs and providing quality care,” said Dawson at the forum.

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg also spoke at the forum. “With a budget crisis upon us, we must take every opportunity to improve the efficiency of services we deliver,” Bloomberg said. “By restructuring these services and improving their transparency and coordination, we can create better working environments for staff and more effective services for the city’s neediest.”

Rivera-Vega agrees. “We desperately need a living wage,” she says. “It’s not just good for us. It’s good for our clients and for the health of the city.”

Georgina Rivera-Vega, a home health aide with New York City’s Fed Cap Agency, earns $7.65 an hour.

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Sculptor YomTov Cohen is an engineer at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, NY. constant in his life, says Cohen, is his art.

“I was born an artist,” he says. “From the time I was six or seven years old I was making art. I was drawing on the blackboard for the class. As a teenager I made the backgrounds for our school plays.”

PEOPLE

Always Time For His Art Montefiore engineer YomTov Cohen’s life took him all over the world, but he never gave up his love of creating art.

YomTov Cohen has worked in Montefiore Hospital’s engineering department since 1972. The work takes him all over the Bronx, NY institution.

“We’re mechanics,” says Cohen.

“Whenever things need to be fixed we’re there. There are a million jobs we do, but what I love most is that I get a chance to see so many people.”

Cohen is by nature a traveler. He was born in Morocco. His family moved to Algeria, then France and finally settled in Israel. As a young man he joined the Israeli Merchant Marine and went all over the world. He moved to the United States in 1962.

One of the things that has remained

Even with his busy life today he finds time to sculpt, draw and even make the occasional piece of stained glass.

One work of which he is most proud is a sculpture of the city of Jerusalem he created for Montefiore’s synagogue. The piece is a free-standing, three dimensional miniature city made of hydrocoal embedded with real gold and gems and finished with paint and gold leaf. It depicts several major faiths and many of Jerusalem’s holy sites.

“When I was doing it, I’d put on touching music about Jerusalem and it would inspire me,” he says. “There’s so much in there about that place and what I’ve gone through. I’ve even brought patients in here and they say they feel something; that it’s like therapy for them. It makes me a little high knowing that my work helps people.”

Around the Union

Organizing Express Rolls On In Florida 1199SEIU’s organizing express rolled on in the Florida Region where healthcare workers made organizing history with a string of election victories in November and December in an unprecedented organizing drive. More than 2,400 workers at six Florida Hospital Corporation of America (HCA)affiliated hospitals said yes to representation by 1199SEIU. “Now that we are in 1199SEIU Florida we have the opportunity to change things for the better,” says Jose Marquez, a

housekeeper at Osceola Regional Medical Center/HCA, in Kissimmee. “We can negotiate together for better wages and benefits.”

HCA is the largest for-profit hospital network in the world.

The campaign is the biggest healthcare organizing drive in the history of the South. HCA workers have united around job security, benefits and having a voice on the job. Victories include service and technical workers from Community

Hospital/HCA in New Port Richey and Central Florida Regional Medical Center/HCA who voted 219-98 and 129-96, respectively, in elections held on Nov. 29 and Nov. 30 for representation by 1199SEIU. Some 600 service and technical workers at Osceola Regional Medical Center/HCA voted 405-43 to form a union in a Nov. 16 election. Workers at Largo Medical Center/HCA in Largo, Oak Hill Hospital/HCA in Brooksville, and Fawcett Memorial Hospital/HCA in

Port Charlotte also voted overwhelmingly for membership in 1199SEIU. “We can now focus on our jobs better knowing that we’re going to stand together and negotiate together,” said Shane Luppkes, who works in behavioral health at Community Hospital/HCA in New Port Richey. “Now we have a chance to fine tune our benefits, our work environment and more opportunities for those who want to advance their careers.”

1199SEIU LGBTQ Caucus Combats Hate The 1199SEIU LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender and questioning) Caucus cohosted a Communities of Faith Against Hate breakfast at the Union’s Manhattan headquarters Dec. 10. The meeting sought help to fight and raise awareness of hate crime.

The event was prompted by a series of vicious anti-gay attacks that have occurred in recent months, including the murder of a Bronx man. In attendance were clergy and leadership from a spectrum of faiths, community leaders, LGBTQ rights activists and elected officials. New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn opened the breakfast meeting. Quinn pledged that the City Council “would go to any lengths” to get bias crimes under control.

The breakfast kicked off an Interfaith Weekend that in-

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January/February • Our Life And Times

cluded a peace vigil, lectures, a poetry reading and sermons themed around love and compassion. It also featured a series of posters which remind New Yorkers that “Our Diversity is Our Greatest Strength” and encourage all to “Love Love.

Hate Hate.”

Lourita Shegog, a home health aide with New York City’s Partners in Care Agency, said the Union’s involvement in event was not only vital for LGBTQ members, but is also an 1199SEIU tradition.

“This is what our Union stands for. We fight for human rights. It all started with Dr. King. We’ve always fought for that,” says Shegog. “Sometimes you have to speak up for people and help them organize. This is how we let people know what we’re all about.”

Shegog, a long-time activist, said she was proud to see 1199SEIU taking a stand on LGBTQ issues, particularly after the historic Dec. 22 repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell, the military’s ban on gay service members.

“Our issues are never spoken of. It’s very hush hush, even though everyone knows they’re there,” says Shegog. “Now we can start to bring things out in the open. I call it ‘our closet.’ By doing this it brings us together and shows we really respect people from all walks of life. It shows that our Union really does believe what we say.”

The 1199SEIU LGBTQ Caucus is developing its own website. It will be up soon. To join the Caucus or for more information email Organizer Patrick Duncan at patrickd@1199.org.

A poster from NYC’s anti-hate campaign and a button from the 1199SEIU LGBTQ Caucus.

THE BACK PAGE

“We need to learn how we can protect our planet and how we can live and work in a safe place.”

– Anna Pujols a housekeeper at Maryland’s Laurel Regional Medical Center

See pages 8 and 9

TO READ MORE ABOUT 1199SEIU’S ORGANIZING AND CONTRACT VICTORIES AND DEVELOPMENTS THROUGHOUT ALL REGIONS OF OUR UNION, LOG ONTO WWW.1199SEIU.ORG