Our Life & Times | October 2015

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ASIAN PACIFIC CAUCUS MEMBERS CONDEMN BUSH

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NEW ORGANIZING ROUNDUP

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CAPE COD 1199ER IS A SON OF MOTHER EMANUEL CHURCH

A JOURNAL OF 1199SEIU September/October 2015

THE

HIGH HIGHER

COST OF

EDUCATION

College costs are a major issue for working people in next year’s election.

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September/October 2015 • Our Life And Times

Baltimore CNA Susan Clark’s youngest son is studying engineering in college.

Tuition is close to $40K a year. He’ll graduate with more than $60K in student loans. See story on page 9.

3 President’s Column

$15 an hour for all workers is a moral imperative.

4 In The Regions

Ice Bucket Challenge, NYC Labor Day Parade, Fighting for Laurel Regional, Asian Caucus Members Condemn Bush’s “anchor baby” and more.

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Our Issues: Affordable College Tuition 1199ers on the matters they see as most critical to working people in next year’s presidential election. The first in a series.

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New Organizing Round Up

In the last few months, 1,300 workers vote union for better conditions, respect and the ability to care for their patients.

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Farewell John Reid

Long-time 1199 EVP never backed down from the fight for justice.

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The Work We Do

Editorial

Our Life and Times September/October 2015

THE AIM OF ALL POLITICS IS THE PURSUIT OF THE COMMON GOOD. With so much ahead of us, the Pontiff’s message resonated deeply with our Union’s own doctrine.

This issue of Our Life And Times is closing just as Pope Francis ends his astonishing visit the United States. A handful of 1199ers had the opportunity to see the Pontiff at Masses and processions. At each stop during his visit, with his signature warm-hearted gravitas, he talked income inequality, the fair treatment of workers, the dangers of climate change and other progressive issues. It was moving to see the admiration and affection inspired by “The People’s Pope” in our sisters and brothers, and his passion for what are the deeply held doctrines of our own Union.

At the same time, members are starting to think seriously about the issues that are most important to us in the next presidential election. And soon we’ll create our Vision Platform, based results of the survey conducted over the last few months. (Tens of thousands of them were returned.) Affordable college tuition, good jobs, fair wages, affordable housing: all of these things and the fight for them are on members’ minds.

“Wow. It’s not easy. I don’t even have the words for it sometimes,” says Susan Clark, a CNA at Future Care in Baltimore of her son’s $40,000 yearly college tuition. “But our kid deserves the best and we make it work.”

In his remarks to Congress on Sept. 24, Pope Francis reminded our elected officials it was their responsibility to “preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the aim of all politics.”

NYS Gov. Andrew Cuomo had that in mind when he announced on Sept. 10 his support for a $15 minimum wage for all of New York’s workers. Such a move would be a major advance for the Union’s 80,000 homecare workers who dedicate their lives to caring for our frail, sick and elderly.

“It’s just about the cost of living,” said NY Foundation home health aide Kim Thompson. “We’re not asking to live in mansions. We just want to live where we live and be comfortable.”

New Jersey nursing home members stand up for safe staffing legislation.

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A Son of Mother Emanuel

Cape Cod Hospital delegate Bernard Bowens talks about growing up in the historic Charleston church and moving forward after the tragic massacre.

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The Last Word: Alicia Garza

An interview with one of the co-founders of the #BlackLivesMatter movement

Our Life And Times, September/October 2015 Vol 33, No 5 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

editor

Patricia Kenney director of photography

Jim Tynan photographer

Belinda Gallegos art direction & design

Maiarelli Studio

cover photograph

Jim Tynan contributors

Bryn Lloyd-Bollard Rae Rawls Dunnaville JJ Johnson Amanda Torres-Price

secretary treasurer

Maria Castaneda executive vice presidents

Norma Amsterdam Yvonne Armstrong Lisa Brown-Beloch Angela Doyle George Kennedy Maria Kercado Steve Kramer Joyce Neil Bruce Richard Mike Rifkin Monica Russo Rona Shapiro Neva Shillingford Milly Silva Veronica Turner Laurie Vallone Estela Vazquez

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.

Follow the conversation on social media: LUBA LUKOVA

@1199seiu www.1199seiu.org September/October 2015 • Our Life And Times

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Letters

THE PRESIDENT’S COLUMN George Gresham

All Healthcare Workers Deserve $15 An Hour!

It’s a moral imperative to pay our vital caregivers a living wage.

PROUD OF 1199’S STAND WITH PLANNED PARENTHOOD was just scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed when I came across a great 1199 post: A big, pink “1199SEIU Stands With Planned Parenthood.” My Union was joining in the Sept.

29 “Pink Out” in solidarity with Planned Parenthood and in the fight for women’s healthcare in America.

I was so proud I quickly changed my profile picture to bright pink. Great job with social media 1199!

Social media can be a very powerful tool to make our voices heard!

I am very proud of my union for standing with Planned Parenthood and against the attacks on women in this country. Planned Parenthood for decades has been a crucial provider of healthcare services to women who might not otherwise have been able to afford them. Our women have been able to turn to Planned Parenthood for services like cancer screenings, mammograms and other preventive care.

These attempts to defund Planned Parenthood and the behavior of the politicians during the recent “hearings” about it are a disgrace.

Conservative Republicans have manipulated facts and lied for their own political gain. As women, healthcare workers and union members we must stand up for women’s health issues and women’s rights. And again, I was proud to see 1199 taking a stand for us.

I

EVE SHOENTHAL Occupational Therapist, Yorktown Heights, NY via email

I

BOMBA, NOT RUMBA wanted to write to thank you for your article in the July/August issue about the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City. Many members may not know how hard 1199ers work and how much love goes into getting ready for that parade every year. I also wanted to make an important correction to something in the story: that the Bomba dance style of 1199’s Latinos Unidos Dancers Bomba dance troupe is NOT related to Rumba as you reported. Rumba is a popular ballroom dance. Bomba goes all the way back to Puerto Rico’s African heritage and represents the history of our island. I felt it was really important to correct that because of our members’ dedication to performing with the Latinos Unidos Dancers and their pride in bringing Puerto Rico’s culture to the 1199 family.

WANDA CHABRIER Retiree, New York City 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 them to Patriciak@1199.org and please put Letters in the subject of your email.

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September/October 2015 • Our Life And Times

The “Fight for $15” movement to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour has given a huge burst of energy to the labor movement. Until recently, that fight has focused on fast-food workers, and we 1199ers are happy to have played a role in support of these poverty-level sisters and brothers. In New York State, the movement has already achieved a great success as the state labor commissioner has mandated the $15 minimum by 2018 for hundreds of thousands of fast-food workers.

In the meantime, we have tens of thousands of our own 1199 sisters and brothers—primarily homecare workers—who are making less than that. It is an absolute scandal that workers who devote their lives to caring for our frail, elderly and disabled are themselves living in poverty. We aim to put an end to this disgrace.

It is a moral imperative that all homecare and healthcare workers receive $15 per hour. Extreme income inequality is a threat to our very democracy. With a living wage, we can ensure more compassionate care for homecare clients and better lives for homecare workers and their families.

In June, we made history when our 35,000 Massachusetts personal care attendants (PCAs), as homecare workers are called in that state, became the first in the United States to win a $15 minimum hourly wage. This is a huge achievement. But it is only the beginning.

The voices of our Massachusetts PCAs are inspiring. “This victory, winning $15 per hour, it means we are no longer invisible,” says Kindalay CummingsAkers, a PCA from Springfield. “We showed the world that it is possible.”

Rosario Cabrera of New Bedford says, “I am so proud that I can show my children and someday tell my grandchildren that I was part of this moment in history, that I was part of a movement for social justice. We want all home care workers to win $15 per hour—and to do it first in Massachusetts fills us with pride.”

Veteran 1199ers have witnessed many changes in our healthcare industry. In the past dozen or so years, we’ve seen a dramatic restructuring of healthcare delivery away from acute care and toward ambulatory care. This is a trend that is bound to accelerate, especially under the Affordable Care Act, for reasons both of cost control and better patient outcomes.

Home health care has taken on increasing importance which will only grow with our aging patient population. The U.S. Dept. Of Labor estimates there are now about two million home health aides and projects a 50 percent increase in that number within a decade. Nine of every 10 homecare workers are women, many of them heads of households with children.

Income inequality is now on the lips of many an aspiring politician. But more than hand-wringing is needed to end this economic injustice. Virtually all funding for homecare comes from Medicaid, which is funded jointly by the federal government and the states.

In New York, after securing the $15 minimum wage for fast-food workers, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has come out strongly for the same for all workers in the state. Our 80,000 homecare workers deserve no less. The fast-food workers raise comes due by 2018 in New York City, by 2021 statewide. This standard and these deadlines—if not higher standards and faster deadlines—should apply to homecare workers who arguably provide a more essential service and unquestionably a healthier one.

The job of the home health aide is a difficult one, and among those with the highest injury rate. The homecare worker provides health care protocols (measuring and recording vital signs, collecting routine specimens, feeding, assistance with medication, etc.), personal hygiene services (bathing, dressing, grooming, skin care), housekeeping tasks (laundry, shopping, etc.) and other related support services essential to the consumer’s health.

The governor, backed by our union and other labor organizations, will take the fight to the NY Legislature. If successful, New York will become the first state with the $15 an hour minimum wage, which would generate $15.7 billion annually in increased wages. The fast-food workers raise comes due by 2018 in New York City, by 2021 statewide. This standard and these deadlines—if not higher standards and faster deadlines—should apply to homecare workers who arguably provide a more essential service and unquestionably a healthier one.

Because they work alone, and depend on Medicaid dollars for their livelihood, it is only through our union members that they have the collective strength to make gains in our state capitals and in Washington, DC. It is little wonder but most admirable that our least-paid 1199 members are among our most militant, the first to mobilize for our demonstrations, the most generous with their contributions to our Martin Luther King, Jr. Political Action Fund.

Homecare is the fastest growing sector of our healthcare industry. Solidarity with our homecare sisters and brothers must become a priority for every 1199er.

It begins now with the fight for $15 an hour minimum wage. But we’re just getting started. Ain’t no stopping us now.

InTheRegions

"

A JUST ECONOMY

must create the conditions for everyone to be able to

enjoy a childhood

WITHOUT WANT, to develop their talents when young, to work with

FULL RIGHTS

during their active years and to enjoy a dignified

1199SEIU welcomed Pope Francis to the U.S. with this specially created graphic. 1199ers were among the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who greeted the Pontiff at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a Mass at Madison Square Garden and during his processions through Central Park and up Fifth Avenue.

retirement as they grow older."

– POPE FRANCIS

The 400,000 healthcare workers of 1199SEIU welcome the People’s Pope and celebrate his message of economic and social justice. We share his moral vision that all our struggles are connected. Together, people of conscience are building a mass movement to achieve: • $15 for homecare and healthcare workers, and all working people • A solution to extreme inequality • Renewable energy, clean air and an end to climate change.

1199SEIU.org @1199SEIU

#PeoplesPope

DESIGN BY REGINA HEIMBRECH

Members at Mid-Hudson Regional Hospital celebrate their September contract victory.

NEW YORK

September Brings Hudson Valley Contract Wins

Nine hundred 1199SEIU members at MidHudson Regional Hospital in Poughkeepsie, NY made history Sept. 14, when after two hectic years of bargaining they voted overwhelmingly to ratify a new collective bargaining agreement In addition to improved wages and guaranteed raises, the contract includes a legally binding grievance procedure that gives workers a voice at work and levels the playing field in cases of workplace problems.

Members won two new important benefits: the 1199 Child Care Fund and the 1199 Training and Upgrading Fund. The Training Fund is a critical resource in today’s rapidly changing healthcare industry. The contract also provides for improved and more affordable health benefits, with a contract reopener on Jan. 1, 2017, specifically to address further improving health benefits.

MidHudson Regional (formerly St. Francis) has been part of the Poughkeepsie for more than a century. In 2013 the RNs, service workers and business office and clerical workers voted to become 1199SEIU members. The hospital has struggled financially and the road to the new agreement was an arduous one.

An informational picket was held in May 2015 to push management along. Nancy Stokes, a

PCT at the hospital for 18 years, is thrilled with the new pact.

“We did it. We have a contract. Everyone is protected.

Everyone’s life is better in one way or another,” she says. “And we now have the tools and resources to keep us on the road to improvement.”

Workers at St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital in Cornwall, N.Y. voted overwhelmingly in favor of a new agreement on Sept. 13, which meets their contract goals by preserving no cost health benefits and a guaranteed pension. The pact also provides wage increases that total 10.5% across the life of the contract, and language that addresses job security was amended to provide more protection to members. The new contract is effective through Sept. 30, 2018.

And on the heels of that victory, members at Catskill Regional Medical Center in Harris, NY voted to ratify a contract that maintains their no-cost health benefits and a guaranteed pension.

The ratification was met with enthusiasm and relief. In addition to wage increases that total 10.5% across the life of the agreement, the new collective bargaining agreement includes better longevity pay, and certification and shift differentials. Sick leave and vacation time are also improved under this contract.

September/October 2015 • Our Life And Times

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1199ers Break the U.S. Ice Bucket Challenge Record In New York City’s Central Park on Aug. 8, members of 1199SEIU made history and at the same time did their part to find a cure to a devastating disease.

Members of 1199SEIU and their families completed the country’s largest Ice Bucket Challenge—fundraisers where participants take up the challenge of dumping buckets of freezing ice water over their heads to help find a cure for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

ALS attacks the nervous system. It is incurable and ultimately fatal.

1199SEIU’s recordsetting Ice Bucket Challenge, with 495 participants, was held in conjunction with the ALS Association of Greater New York and broke the previous record set in St. Augustine, FL in 2014.

Josephine Duran, the daughter of 1199SEIU member Ormenia Duran, from at New York City’s Jamaica Hospital, was

in Central Park for the Challenge. The Duran family isn’t a stranger to the disease or the hard work that goes into finding a cure. A few days before the event, Josephine wrote a moving account of losing her father Porfirio to ALS. “It was painful to watch him deteriorate but he remained an inspiration to us until he lost his battle to ALS in 2008. I remember, near the final stages, my father would communicate by touching letters spelled out on the ground. Even in that state, he would still tell jokes and recount his favorite memories of us,” wrote Duran. “ALS is becoming more common and many people still don’t understand the illness. There’s still a lot of work to be done to raise awareness.”

You can donate to the search for a cure to ALS at 1199.org/icebucket. You can also read Josephine Duran’s account of her father’s struggle with ALS at 1199SEIU.org.

Photo Credit: Raimundo Valdes

Hundreds of 1199ers took the Ice Bucket Challenge in NYC’s Central Park Aug. 8 to help find a cure for Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

At this year’s Labor Day parade in NYC, 1199ers marched under the banner of The Fight For $15 and “Labor’s Superheros.”

NEW YORK

Workers’ Pride on Display at NYC Labor Day Parade Thousands of New York’s working people marched up Fifth Avenue Sept. 12 in New York City’s Annual Labor Day Parade and among them was a contingent of 1,000 1199SEIU members.

Every year, the parade marks a special day for the city’s workers – when their contributions are celebrated in great spectacle. New Yorkers are given an opportunity to remember the vast diversity of workers who make the City what it is. This year, the parade was even more special for 1199SEIU members because the Union’s President George Gresham was named the event’s Grand Marshal.

“Seeing George up there give me chills,” said Kim Thompson, a home health aide with New York Foundation. “It reminds me what our Union can do and it’s is awesome that we have so much power.”

The theme for 1199’s contingent this year was “Labor’s Superheroes,” in a reminder of just what it takes to be a caregiver. Adding to the significance of this year’s parade was Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s

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September/October 2015 • Our Life And Times

announcement days earlier of his support to increase New York State’s minimum wage to $15 an hour for all workers.

“The current minimum wage of $8.75 an hour just doesn’t work,” said Cuomo.

Judy Scipio is a home health aide with New York City’s Social Concern Agency.

“It’s important for homecare workers to be out here today,” she said. “We do such hard work and this is what Labor Day means. I put out a lot of labor and it’s very important that we are recognized for that.”

In addition to Gov. Cuomo, Pres. Gresham was joined at the parade by numerous elected officials and labor leaders who marched in a show of solidarity and labor strength.

Among them were New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio and Comptroller Scott Stringer and Vinny Alvarez, head of the city’s Central Labor Council.

“This day is about unity,” Dalia Rugo, a certified pharmacy technician at Rite Aid store #4215 in Manhattan. “We are here representing that. We are here to show this city that labor is one big family.” #fightfor15

InTheRegions

Asian Pacific Caucus Members Condemn Bush

Jeb Bush’s use of the term “anchor babies” at a press conference in August drew a swift and loud condemnation from members of 1199SEIU’s Asian American Pacific Islander Caucus and the Union’s Secretary Treasurer Maria Castaneda.

“SEIU’s Asian American Pacific Islander Caucus stands together with our Latino brothers and sisters in condemning Bush’s offensive antiimmigrant, anti-child, anti-family comments.

Contrary to the hateful rhetoric coming from many Republican presidential candidates, fairness for immigrant families would result in better jobs and a

stronger economy for all,” Castaneda’s statement affirmed. “Bush’s comment show disrespect to the contributions that API immigrants have made to America, from building the transcontinental railroad to growing our nation’s food in California’s Central Valley and other parts of the country and providing quality healthcare as nurses, home care providers, hospital workers and other healthcare professionals.”

Bush used the term to describe the U.S.-born children of undocumented parents. He then sought cover from the firestorm his offensive language created by attacking the country’s Asian community.

“People move to America because they want a new life. They want a better future for themselves and their children,” says Sue Shen, a home health aide with New York City’s United Jewish Council who came to the U.S. from Shanghai, China in 1992.

“We are not what he says we are. When I came to this country I took any job I was offered. We work very hard. This is what immigration is about; it’s not for us.

It’s for our children, our grandchildren and our great grandchildren. They succeed and make the country better.”

ABOVE: United Jewish Council home health aide Sue Shen, left, and Amy Xin, a home health aide at the First Chinese Presbyterian Agency.

Laurel Regional Hospital members held a press conference in September to let the community know about the institution’s impending closure.

MARYLAND

Community Decries Laurel Regional Closing At the Maternal and Child Health Dept. at Laurel Regional Hospital in Laurel, MD, 32 labor and delivery nurses and six service and maintenance workers were given layoff notices at an Aug. 21 staff meeting.

The workers were then told the unit would be permanently shuttered by mid-October; it was just the first step in a plan by Laurel Regional’s parent, Dimensions Healthcare System, to drastically downsize and ultimately replace Laurel Regional with an ambulatory care facility. Dimensions announced that the closure will occur in stages, but the move has drawn criticism from workers and community groups, who feel blindsided and have expressed concern that the hospital’s loss endangers the area’s most vulnerable and elderly residents.

“When I had my five children, Laurel Hospital wasn’t here,” said resident Linda Pohland. “Traffic now is worse than it used to be. If you were having a baby, it might be too far to give birth. I’ve lived without a hospital here, and I’ve lived with one here. Living with

one is better.”

By Oct. 7, maternity patients arriving at the hospital will be assessed in the emergency room and sent to Prince George’s Hospital via EMS for further care. Beginning Oct. 9, maternity patients will no longer be accepted at Laurel Hospital.

The proposal, which was announced in late July, surprised local elected officials, Laurel residents, and hospital staff. It eliminates most of the hospital’s services and all but 30 medical and surgical beds, transforming the full-service hospital to an ambulatory care center which would ultimately be replaced with a brand new facility. The new facility, estimated to cost taxpayers $24 million, has yet to be approved by the state or county government.

At a packed public forum on Aug. 10, dozens of residents testified on the need for a functional, full-service hospital in Laurel. The nearest hospitals are at least 10 miles away—a life-threatening distance in an emergency situation. State Delegate Joseline Pena-Melnyk

expressed her frustration with the announcement.

“I am disappointed at Dimensions for making this decision without consulting the community,” she said. “Expectant mothers need accessible maternity care, and Laurel needs a full service hospital.”

Members call the lack of transparency unacceptable and vow to fight for accountability as they work in coalition with community allies to keep a fullservice medical facility in the Laurel community.

“This isn’t fair to anyone,” said Andrea Nagel, a labor and delivery nurse who has worked at the hospital for 16 years.

“Obviously we’re all worried about how we’re going to find new jobs. But what about pregnant women who were expecting to give birth here after we shut down?

Where are the pregnant women with little or no prenatal care going to deliver? There are a lot of unanswered questions.”

At press time, another 80 Laurel Regional workers had been served with layoff notices.

Illustration by Regina Heimbruch

VP Biden and Gov. Cuomo Rally for $15 Minimum Wage in NY United States Vice President Joe Biden joined New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo on stage Sept. 10 at New York City’s Javits Center where Cuomo accepted his wage board’s recommendation to impose a $15 minimum wage for fast food workers and called on the State Legislature to raise the minimum for all workers, including the State’s 80,000 1199SEIU-represented homecare workers. The campaign, launched under the name the “Mario Cuomo Campaign for Economic Justice” was greeted with enthusiastic cheers from the

crowd of union workers— which included a sizable contingent of 1199SEIU members. In his remarks, Cuomo said, “It’s wrong to have an economy where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” “The workers work very hard, they take such good care of their patients,” said Margaret Edwards, a CNA at Kings Harbor Care Center in the Bronx, as she marched in the NYC Labor Day Parade a few days after the announcement. “We want to make sure everybody has a good salary and can take care of themselves.”

September/October 2015 • Our Life And Times

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NEW YORK

Do The Rite Thing, Rite Aid! Rite Aid workers distributed leaflets at one of the chain’s locations in Flushing, NY on Sept. 9 to let the community know that they’ve been in a six-month contract struggle with the drug-retail giant.

1199SEIU represents hundreds of pharmacists, interns, pharmacy technicians and cashiers at Rite Aid. The company has demanded serious concessions that would result in layoffs and immediately take pharmacy interns out of the bargaining unit. Pharmacists would be phased out of the bargaining unit over time.

Mary Graffeo, a cashier at Rite Aid #0668 in Ronkonkoma, NY, joined the leafletting to make sure the public knows what’s happening to workers at their local stores.

“Our customers know us. We are like

family and I have real pride in my store. I love my job,” says Graffeo. “I don’t see how they can do this. And our pharmacists are the backbone of the company. All we want is a fair wage and to be treated decently.”

Yolanda Diaz, a CNA at Sapphire Nursing Home in Flushing, came on her lunch hour to lend support to the action.

“Every family deserves a fair wage and good benefits. Many employers only care about themselves and this is why workers are in the situation we’re in,” says Diaz.

“Workers going without a contract for six months is not acceptable. We need to stick together and fight to make sure this doesn’t happen.”

Lillian Burns, a pharmacy technician at Rite Aid #10672 in Shirley, says she’s with Diaz and is committed to the struggle.

“I’m from the old school. I know

unions are very important and they’ve provided us with a lot of opportunities over the years. I was around when we had no union,” says Burns, who has been at her Rite Aid for over 20 years. “The Union is important to me and to my husband, who is a retired veteran. They’re trying to take away from us things we’ve worked hard for, so you bet I’m going to fight like hell to keep them.”

You can show your support for Rite Aid workers by calling 1-800-RiteAid and telling them to settle a fair contract.

Lillian Burns (center), a Rite Aid pharmacy tech, distributed leaflets on Sept. 9 to let the public know about the company’s attempts to break the union and refusal to settle a fair contract.

Splendor On The Parkway 1199SEIU members once again shone brightly in New York City’s annual West Indian Day Parade. Every year, the event draws more than two million revelers to its route on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn who thrill to the spectacle of feathers, sparkle, gems and Caribbean culture. “What I like about it is that people from all over the world get together,” says Clyde Bascom, an 1199SEIU retiree and member of the 1199’s Social & Cultural Committee, which undertakes the yearlong task of putting together the Union’s contingent. “And once the summer is over and the parade is done we take a rest. We all go back to what we were doing and then slowly we get back to work again. In spring you see the flowers start to bloom. You know summer is coming and so are we.”

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September/October 2015 • Our Life And Times

InTheRegions

Brides March

1199ers were among the hundreds of New Yorkers who took to the streets in the Fifteenth Annual Gladys Ricart & Victims of Domestic Violence Memorial Walk on Sept. 26. The event is a memorial for a bride murdered by a jealous ex-boyfriend on her wedding day and seeks to call attention to the victims and survivors of domestic violence. To learn more, log on to bridesmarch.com. #endDV #domesticviolence.

1199’s MD/DC Division this August hosted a Summer Leadership Institute with our coalition partner CASA to help area young people develop new ways to respond to police violence, poverty and other problems facing their community.

The Institute was developed after April’s uprising in reaction to Freddy Gray’s killing.

After the week long program, participants took action plans back to their schools, neighborhoods and churches for implementation.

Follow-up programs are planned for later in the year.

NEW YORK

Support Central NY Nursing Home Workers: Log On To WorkersForQualityCare.Org Workers at scores of nursing homes from New York’s Mohawk Valley to its the Southern Tier are in the midst of negotiating new contracts covering hundreds of 1199SEIU members.

As part of the effort, 1199SEIU members have launched a campaign to help raise standards at the institutions, ensure quality care for their residents and provide workers with a more secure future. A major part of the effort is a new website, WorkersForQualityCare.org. The new

site gives workers the opportunity to tell their stories about their lives at work and at home—and how their dayto-day lives are intertwined with their residents.

Jessica Roberts, a CNA at Sunnyside Care Center in East Syracuse, NY, is expecting her first child, in a few short months. She loves caring for her residents, but worries that without a wage increase she won’t be able to afford to work at Sunnyside anymore. “They make me smile and laugh every day, even when

I don’t want to. They really are family to me, just as close to me as my own grandmother. It makes me want to cry just thinking about it,” she says. “I love them so much, but with the pay I get now I won’t be able to support me and my child.”

Members say the fight for better working conditions is not just about them, it’s about being able to provide good care for their residents they care for like family. “I don’t get to spend nearly as much time with the residents as I’d like to and that’s really

hard,” says Jesse Hoffer, a CNA at The Grand in Rome, NY. “I mean, for example, I have one hour in the morning to get 10 people washed, dressed, and everything in the morning. We get the job done but it’s just not fair to the residents. They feel like you are rushing them and you get frustrated.”

To share your story or learn how you can support Central New York nursing home workers in their contract struggle log on to WorkersforQualityCare.org.

September/October 2015 • Our Life And Times

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Our Union

OUR IS SUE S:

Affordable College Tuition 1199ers on the matters they see as most critical to working people in next year’s presidential election.

CREDIT CARDS & MORTGAGES TO PAY FOR COLLEGE When Peggy Wineski, a lab clerk at Montefiore New Rochelle in New York State’s Westchester County, decided to go back to college 10 years ago, she didn’t know her diploma would come with a second mortgage.

Wineski, who’d been laid off from her job as a bank loan officer, completed her Bachelors of Science majoring in nutrition at Lehman College in the Bronx. She then went on to earn a Master’s Degree in Health Education and Promotion at Lehman. She paid roughly $38,000 out of her own pocket for each of her degrees.

“When I graduated with my Bachelor’s we took out a home equity loan to pay off the credit cards I used to pay for everything while I was in school,” she says. “And then when I decided to go for my Master’s, we had to re-apply for another home equity loan to cover the original loan.”

Wineski, 56, was spending as much as an additional $500 a semester on books.

Her husband took as much overtime as he could at his job at Pathmark supermarkets to help cover some fees and pay down the home equity loans while she was in school, but it was still a stretch.

“I know I’m very lucky because we had the house to fall back on. It’s a horror for a lot of people. You’re told you make too much money and you can’t qualify for aid or grants and then you have to borrow private student loans; those interest rates are astronomical,” she says. “Universities have money, but the only people who get it are the super-rich or the very, very poor. The working class needs help, too.

We need to pressure the people who give universities their endowments to look at the money and make sure they know where it’s going.”

The current job market doesn’t help students either, she says. She became a lab clerk at Montefiore New Rochelle because she wanted to be in health care but couldn’t find a position in her specialty, health education. She likes the lab, she says, but is disappointed she can’t follow her passion.

“It would be nice if you could get a job in your field. You’ve studied.

You’ve worked hard, but there just aren’t enough jobs out there for people,” she says, the frustration rising in her voice.

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September/October 2015 • Our Life And Times

“People have Master’s Degrees and Ph.D.’s, and they can’t use them. They’ve spent $100,000 and they’re working in McDonald’s. It depresses you and makes you think, ‘Why am I even bothering?’”

“THESE DAYS YOU NEED TO BE RICH TO GO TO COLLEGE” Susan Clark is a CNA at Future Care Cold Springs in Baltimore, MD. Her son Sidney Elliott, 19, wants to be an engineer. Clark says he’s a good enough athlete that he might have been able to get through school that way, but he wanted to focus on academics. Sidney, her youngest, just finished his sophomore year at West Virgina University and when Clark is asked about the costs of sending her son to school she takes a deep breath.

“Wow. It’s not easy. I don’t even have the words for it sometimes,” she says.

“But our kid deserves the best, and we make it work.”

Clark and her husband, a Verizon worker, have eight kids. The cost of West Virginia is over $40,000 a year.

Sidney takes about $15,000 in loans and the family qualifies for grants and other financial aid, but that still leaves a big chunk of money to be covered for housing, books and everyday expenses.

“When it comes time to pay the tuition I work a whole lot of doubles,” she says.

“You do what you have to do.”

Clark’s more concerned about her son’s future than the hard work it takes to pay his tuition.

“He tells me not to worry because when he graduates he’s going to get a good job and pay back his loans. He tells me that we’ll worry about it when the time comes,” she says.

The point is that no one should have to worry or work double after double, says Clark.

“They need to lower tuition at these colleges. A lot of people, especially Black people, don’t have the money for it,” she says. “It’s why I push my own kids to go to school: so they don’t have to go through what we go through—working so hard. These days you need to be rich just to go to college, and I don’t think that’s fair.”

“EDUCATION IS THE KEY RIGHT NOW” Like a lot of parents Lisa King, a certified pharmacy tech at Morton

Reason #12 to Join 1199SEIU

fRee college tuition foR membeRs Lisa, certified Pharmacy Technician Proud 1199SEIu mEmBEr SIncE 2012

TOP: Peggy Wineski, a lab clerk at Montefiore New Rochelle, took out a second mortgage and used credit cards to pay for her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees.

BOTTOM: Taunton Hospital pharmacy tech Lisa King was featured in this ad campaign in Boston. “I work with pharmacists and some of them are carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars in [student] loans,” she says.

Hospital in Taunton, MA, and her husband, a UPS driver, put money away for their kids’ college education. With a 10-year old and a six-year-old, college is a while off, but the Kings still think about it.

“I work with pharmacists and some of them are carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans,” says King, referring to the future she’s hoping to help her kids avoid.

“I one hundred percent agree with what the president is saying right now [about reforming student loan lending practices]. Sallie Mae should have to give thousands of dollars back to people,” she says.

King is an active 1199SEIU delegate and graduate of the Union’s Leaders in Training and Advanced Leaders in Training Programs. King’s also a U.S. Army veteran who started her education under the GI Bill. She’s passionate when she talks about education and the need to make it available and affordable for working people.

“I look at our Training and Upgrading Fund, and it’s one of the things I value the most,” she says.

“Education is the key right now” “When my kids ask me why I have to go to Boston I tell them it’s because I have to go and fight for the union.”

“ WHEN IT COMES TIME TO PAY TUITION I WORK A WHOLE LOT OF DOUBLES. YOU DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO.” – Susan Clark is CNA at Future Care Cold Springs in Baltimore, MD

New Organizing

New Organizing Roundup

Over 1,300 workers joined 1199SEIU this summer.

All Metro for years. Now they’re part of the Union’s bargaining unit.

The campaign forced the employer to acknowledge the TBAs and provide coverage for them under the 1199SEIU contract.

Another major victory was for patient access representatives Manhattan’s NYU Langone Medical Center, who voted overwhelmingly to join 1199SEIU. The workers cast their ballots June 9 to become part of the existing 3,000-member bargaining unit at NYU and are now covered under the Union’s contract with League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes, which includes healthcare with no copays, a secure pension, strong job security language, educational opportunities and guaranteed wage increases.

“Joining 1199 meant a lot to me and my co-workers,” said Anthony Rojas, a patient access rep at NYU, who helped organize the campaign.

“Ever since we started forming our Union we’ve been communicating better and uniting. We feel more like a family now. I’m very excited for the benefits of joining 1199, especially the job security. Now we’ll be able to make NYU a better

place to work and receive care.”

June also saw workers in New York’s Hudson Valley vote Union in an election at HealthQuest’s Hudson Valley Cardiovascular Practice (The Heart Center) in Poughkeepsie. Like the new members at NYU Langone, Heart Center workers will join 1199ers in the bargaining unit at nearby Vassar Brothers Hospital. The contract provides affordable health care, child care and education benefits and wage increases.

“We were very excited to learn that we won our election,” said Amy Jordan, a cardiac echo tech at the Heart center for nine years. “We work for a good employer, but it’s an employer that’s undergone some changes. That made forming our union an imperative. We’re looking forward to having a voice in our working conditions, patient care and our future. Now we can retire from The Heart Center one day knowing that we can have a pension for life.”

Other recent organizing victories include LPNs at Marcella Nursing Home in Burlington, NJ and parking valets at several sites of the North Shore-LIJ Health System.

“

Ever since we started forming our Union, we’ve been communicating better and uniting. We feel more like a family now. I’m very excited for the benefits of joining 1199.

“

According to the mainstream media the labor movement, and with it worker strength, is contracting at lightning speed. But healthcare workers are busting that conventional wisdom: in 2015 alone, some 3,000 caregivers in 43 elections said yes to 1199SEIU membership.

Between June and September more than 1,300 workers voted for Union membership on some 10 elections. Highlights include: An August win for LPNs at Long Island Home and Hospital in Amityville, NY. The nurses were fighting for a stronger voice on the job, higher wages and better benefits. The LPN vote at Long Island Home came just days after 140 Registered Nurses at the institution voted 83-6 in favor of 1199SEIU membership. The RNs stayed strong and overcame a particularly disrespectful antiunion management campaign.

Summer ushered in several major wins: June was a good month for victories, including a vote for 1199SEIU by 670 Traumatic Brain Injury Aides (TBA) at New York City’s All Metro Agency.

These workers had been working alongside 1199SEIU members at

LPNs and RNs at the Long Island Home and Hospital after the LPN organizing victory there in August.

September/October 2015 • Our Life And Times

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Remembrance

STANDING TALL AND LOOKING GOOD Remembering John Reid Beloved EVP never shied away from even the fiercest battles.

John Reid, the beloved longtime 1199SEIU executive vice president, died Aug. 31 at Baltimore’s Sinai Hospital after complications from diabetes, shocking and saddening thousands of 1199 caregivers whom he organized, mentored, counseled and led over the past three decades. He was 68.

Reid was born on Aug. 18, 1947, in Gastonia, NC. Nineteen years earlier, Gastonia was the site of pitched battles between textile workers organizing their union and company thugs and sheriff’s deputies.

Reid understood and appreciated the soil from which he came, and became a lifelong champion of working people and social justice.

In the outpouring of love mingled with grief expressed by members on Facebook upon learning of Reid’s death, one member called him “the best.”

Another responded, “The best of the best.” To another which replied, “He was the worst—if you were a boss.”

A returning Vietnam War veteran, Reid went to work in 1975 as a psychiatric technician at Philadelphia’s Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

His devotion to health care, passion for civil rights and natural skills at working with others led him to become a union organizer for Philadelphia-area hospitals in 1979.

Five years later, he moved to New York City where he soon became an 1199 vice president and then executive vice president. 1199SEIU Pres.

George Gresham and his predecessor Dennis Rivera often looked to Reid as a “go-to” person for the most difficult assignments over the next 30 years.

In 2005, he relocated from New York City to Baltimore, MD, to take on the challenge of uniting the city’s healthcare workers together in a union. As 1199SEIU Executive Vice President for the newlyconstituted Maryland/DC region, Reid built bridges and fostered important relationships between the

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September/October 2015 • Our Life And Times

Union and the area’s most influential healthcare employers. He worked tirelessly to bring 1199SEIU’s spirit of partnership and political action to try to solve the problems brought on by our nation’s economic and healthcare crises.

Reid oversaw 1199’s efforts to expand healthcare access for thousands of Maryland residents, raise wages, improve benefits for hard-working families and bring good jobs to the region. Among Reid’s many notable achievements were the implementation of a joint labor-management education fund for 1199 members in the Maryland/DC area, and the ratification of an historic collective bargaining agreement at Johns Hopkins Hospital, which raised standards for healthcare workers in Baltimore and throughout the state.

By the time he retired in December 2014, Maryland’s governors, senators and legislators, and Washington D.C.’s city officials looked to 1199SEIU and to Reid as key resources in the political life of Maryland and the nation’s capital.

His co-workers knew him as a patient man, but one who felt time was too precious to waste. He was considered gentle and kind, but also tough-minded and focused on the tasks at hand—improving the lives of countless healthcare workers and working families from New York to Washington, DC—and beyond.

He is survived by his mother; his partner, Kristine Simms; his two daughters; a son-in-law; four grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; and thousands of union members who loved him.

“We are blessed to have known John’s energy, talent and love for as long as we did,” said Pres.

Gresham. “Those who knew him will remember him by his motto, ‘Standing tall and looking good; you ought to be in Hollywood.’ And truly, John Reid was large in stature, and even larger in his spirit.”

Reid understood the soil from which he came, and became a lifelong champion of working people and social justice.

T HE WORK W E DO

New Jersey Members Stand Up for Compassionate Care In Their Nursing Homes 1

At a Town Hall meeting on Sept. 29 in Union City, NJ scores of 1199SEIU members gathered to share stories about how inadequate staffing in their nursing homes affects their ability to care for their residents. More than 40,000 people in New Jersey depend on nursing home workers for around-the-clock care. Yet, in spite of workers’ loving care and dedication, the American Association of Retired Persons ranked the state’s homes second worst in the country for patients diagnosed with bedsores. Proof that without adequate staff even the most dedicated workers can do only so much.

Legislation has been introduced in New Jersey to establish minimum staffing ratios for CNAs. Caregivers say it’s badly needed. Union City Mayor and NJ State Senator Brian Stack was at the event and pledged his support for the legislation, vowing to do everything possible to turn the bill he is sponsoring into a law. Stack’s mother was cared for in a nursing home before she passed away. “We have a deep obligation to ensure that all of our state’s seniors receive the type of care that we would expect for our own loved ones,” said Stack. “Nursing home residents and their families need peace of mind that their caregivers are able to devote the time to provide compassionate care.”

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1. “We cannot keep doing the same things and expecting different results.

We must get this bill passed,” says Pearlina Evans, a CNA at Emerson Healthcare in Emerson.

2. “I believe and I know a lot of my coworkers share these values: taking care of our residents is about love and care,” said Velma Johnson a CNA at Windsor Garden in East Orange. “They represent you. If my residents are sitting in the day room or visiting with family I want them looking sharp and well-cared for. I want people to know that my residents are with people who truly care about them.

This is a job I love.”

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3. “Patients need to be treated with dignity and care,” says Paulette Harris a CNA at Cedar Oaks in South Plainfield.

“They need empathy. Because of short staffing we’re not able to communicate as much with them. It breaks my heart to know that my patients aren’t getting the care they need.”

4. ”I give out meds, do blood pressure and other vitals and make sure the residents are stable. When CNAs are short I have to stop what I’m doing and help them. I have to bring patients up to their room or whatever else needs to be done because at the end of the day it’s my responsibility—the CNAs are working under my license,” says Mara Santos

September/October 2015 • Our Life And Times

an LPN at Aristocare at Alameda in Perth Amboy. “I feel like there’s no compassion working like this. I leave work thinking about stuff that happened and the staff is blamed for everything. It’s a lot of stress.”

5. “When I think about compassionate care I think about how we are there for our residents physically, emotionally and spiritually. We’re very close with them and when someone is close to their last days and we don’t have adequate staffing levels so we can spend time with them, that’s really hard. It doesn’t allow us to give them the quality of care they need or the kind of care we want to give them,” says CNA Patricia Matthews from Forest Hills Health Center in Newark.

6. “Where I work we are really short staffed,” says Recreation Aide Glenn Hamilton. “Maybe one day a week we have full staff. We have 86 residents and eight CNAs. That’s crazy. We’re talking about people’s human rights and human life.”

7. “How can I tell a family member that I didn’t have time to shower their mom because I was busy taking care of someone else?” asks Ella Moton, a CNA at Alaris at Harborview in Jersey City. “If we pass this bill I can make sure that your momma has her shower, that no one gets bed sores and that everyone is eating nutritious food properly. I’ll have time to do everything I need to do.”

Our Members

CAPE COD 1199ER IS A SON OF MOTHER EMANUEL CHURCH

Bernard Bowens embodies the church’s teachings. all spoke there. Members of the church took part in the 1963 March of Washington,” he proudly recalls.

The march was one of Bowens’ earliest participations in the civil rights movement. “It helped to boost my confidence and to show me that we had allies,” he stresses.

He continued his activism in his work life. “When I arrived at Cape Cod I became a delegate,” Bowens says. “And one of the first things I did was assist in restarting the Affirmative Action program.”

He quickly became a leader at his workplace and an officer in his local. But he feels most at home in 1199SEIU. “We are a Union that seeks the participation and input from every member, regardless of their race or ethnicity,” he says.

“That is what makes our Union great and that is what makes this country great.”

“The local union should be involved in politics,” he says.

“However, it should take care of the union membership in the workplace first. I strongly believe that we have to do both. And to be successful, we have to come together as one.”

Photographer Andrew Lichtenstein’s photo from the Emanuel AME Church for a 2012 story on the Facing Change history website about the church’s roots in slavery.

“ As a child, I didn’t know a safer place.”

Bernard Bowens has been a dietary chef at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, MA for 28 years. But to those who know him, especially his Union sisters and brothers, he’s much more. He has been an activist and leader at his institution since he first donned his chef’s apron.

Today, Bowens, an 1199SEIU delegate, also is a member of the Union’s highest body, its Executive Council. But his road to activism began before his 1199SEIU membership. His union activity began when Cape Cod Hospital was affiliated with Locals 767, 289 and 2020. Local 2020 together with Local 9 in Boston merged with 1199SEIU in 2005.

Bowens says the seeds of his involvement were planted even earlier, in his childhood. “It was in my home in Charleston, SC, and house of worship there – Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church,” he recalls.

Mother Emanuel, as it is called by its parishioners, was the scene of the June 17 slaughter of nine

church members by avowed white supremacist Dylan Roof.

“When I first heard the news, I couldn’t believe what was happening,” Bowens says. “That is where I went to Sunday school as a boy. Many members of my family were church members. My mother used to attend the Wednesday night Bible study meetings.”

Roof opened fire on the parishioners after sitting through the Wednesday weekly Bible-study meeting.

Bowens recalls the church as a place where he and his brother not only worshipped but also had fun.

“We did things like put pennies that should have gone into the collection box into the cracks in the building,” he jokes. “It was like a second home. As a child, I didn’t know a safer place.”

He also remembers the church as a center of civil-rights and political activities. “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King and Rev. (Ralph) Abernathy

Bowens believes organizations like 1199SEIU are the antidote to the evil of men like Dylan Roof, who boasted that he committed the shootings at the Church in an attempt to ignite a race war.

“Unfortunately, there are still people like that, but there are more and more who think otherwise,” Bowens says.

And he does not despair. “I am confident because things are changing. For example, so many white South Carolinians came out in solidarity and in mourning for the Charleston victims. I say, ‘God bless those who perished. And let justice prevail.’ And I am confident it will.”

“The movement to remove the Confederate flags also gives me confidence, especially because it’s not just African Americans who are making the demand,” Bowens adds.

“Also, the Black Lives Matter movement has shined a spotlight on something that has been going on for so long, but now we have cameras to document it,” he says.

“And I’m encouraged also because our Union has joined hands with these movements for equality and justice. Our Union fights for all and that principle has always been in the forefront of my life.”

September/October 2015 • Our Life And Times

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The Last Word: Black Lives Matter – From a Moment to a Movement

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an activist movement that was started by three young African American women — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometti — after a Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman in July 2013 in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Beginning with the Twitter hash tag #BlackLivesMatter, BLM has developed into an international movement for racial justice and equality.

Garza, who is based in Oakland, CA, also is the special projects director for the National Domestic Workers’ Alliance.

Our Life And Times interviewed her in September.

How did a labor organizer become the founder of a hash tag that’s developed into an international movement?

Years of organizing work in Black communities with people who were largely out of work or who only had access to temporary and seasonal work certainly, for me, not only shaped my consciousness but also is shaping #BlackLivesMatter. When Patrisse, Opal and I founded #BlackLivesMatter not as a hash tag but as an organizing network, we also brought our experiences organizing at the intersections of the economy, immigration, police and prisons, race, gender and democracy.

What do you think needs to be included in a comprehensive racial justice agenda?

A comprehensive racial justice agenda needs to include employment, a new economy, education reform, prisons, policing, access and equal protection for trans and gender non-conforming folks, social wage issues, and government regulated (not corporate controlled or privatized) community reinvestment and revitalization, and immigration reform.

How do issues such as racial, gender and sexual equality relate to economic justice?

Racial, gender and sexual equality is inextricable from economic justice. When we look at who is poor and low income in this country, we see an overrepresentation of people of color, particularly Black people, who are women, queer or trans, at the bottom of the economic ladder, with few if any opportunities for advancement. The fastest growing industries in our economy, including the care sector, tend to be low wage work, highly exploitative and dangerous work, with few regulations and high concentrations of women and people of color, with a specific focus on Black people.

For example, 30% of the workforce in the homecare industry are Black women.

What is BLM movement’s relationship to the fight for democracy in the nation as a whole?

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The #BlackLivesMatter network understands that the fight for democracy, which we understand as the fight to have control over our own destinies, is central to this movement. In a country where we have been systematically denied access to democracy, first through the constitution that counted Black people as 3/5th of a person, to the denial of the rights of Black people to vote and participate in democracy, and now through increasing attacks and restrictions on voting rights, we understand the fight for democracy as being critical to the wellbeing of Black people in the United States. To that end, the #BlackLivesMatter movement, which includes yet is not limited to the #BlackLivesMatter network, is engaged in this arena and will continue to be so. We have been pushing candidates on both sides of the political spectrum to state their positions on the right of Black people to access the democracy we all supposedly enjoy. That has taken the form of bird-dogging candidates, developing policy platforms like the one released from particular segments of the movement recently, and engaging candidates on the issues we care deeply about. Moving forward, we as a movement will likely be engaging our people in different ways.

The #BlackLivesMatter network will be participating in voter registration, voter education, and voter mobilization – but we will not be endorsing candidates.

Representatives of BLM have been criticized for interrupting meetings of Democratic Party presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley.

What is your response to this?

Democracy would be incomplete without freedom of speech, and without the ability to disrupt business as usual in order to bring about the changes that we seek. The Boston Tea Party was a disruption that was heavily criticized. The Civil Rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s were heavily criticized and scrutinized. CodePink regularly disrupts politicians during Congressional sessions. #BlackLivesMatter is no different, yet we are subject

September/October 2015 • Our Life And Times

to increased scrutiny because many in the movement (despite being intergenerational) are young, Black and refuse to be engaged solely in the politics of compromise that has dominated our political system. Without these disruptions, it’s unlikely that [Bernie] Sanders, [Martin] O’Malley, or [Hillary] Clinton, or even the Republican candidates for that matter, would have been forced to show their best ideas for criminal justice and ending racial disparities in the criminal justice system. These are issues of great importance for Black people, who are disproportionately impacted by these disparities.

What can unions like 1199SEIU learn from BLM as well as non-traditional workers’ organizations such as the National Domestic Workers’ Alliance?

As a labor movement, we need to turn the corner from the old models of labor organizing and embrace new ones that meet the needs of workers today.

The nature of our workplaces is shifting dramatically, and with a shifting demographic within our workforce, it’s imperative that we take on questions of race and gender alongside class if we hope to organize more workers into the movement. Worker centers and other non-traditional workers organizations have been doing this for years. In fact, it’s the very reason that we exist. We are glad that #BlackLivesMatter has forced these critical conversations within organized labor—particularly as our memberships become more heavily concentrated within the working class of color. It’s important to remember that the separation between labor and community is a false one.

Workers, especially workers of color and immigrant workers, are facing interlocking challenges in relationship to jobs and the economy, community safety, access to education, rebuilding and regenerating a social wage, and transforming the criminal justice system. If we are successful, we can rebuild a vibrant labor movement that speaks to the majority of workers in this country, and can begin to reflect the vibrancy of a global labor movement.

“ THE SEPARATION BETWEEN LABOR AND COMMUNITY IS A FALSE ONE.” – Alicia Garza, Co-founder #BlackLivesMatter

THE BACK PAGE

Three Gallons of Gasoline for Your Car

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same.

This notice about the importance of $1 contributions to our Political Action Fund appeared on the back cover of a 1945 edition of 1199’s publication, Drug News. Here’s what today’s $10 contributions to our Political Action Fund can buy.

$10

Two Designer Coffees

Four Notebooks for Back-to-School

One Half the National Average for a Doctor Visit Co-Payment ($23) With the help of today’s PAC contributions, we’re still fighting: • Healthcare For All • Good Jobs • Fair Wages • Affordable Education • Affordable Housing • Equal Rights for All