1199SEIU Members And Allies Arrested Protesting Healthcare Cuts

Hundreds of 1199SEIU healthcare workers and community supporters held a funeral procession through the streets of New York City. Mourners, dressed in black and carrying coffins and tombstones, were accompanied by a brass band in the style of a New Orleans second-line funeral.

Then, a group of 1199SEIU members and allies engaged in an act of non-violent civil disobedience in the street in front of the Governor’s office, holding tombstones illustrating what will happen if New York doesn’t invest in healthcare.

“In the spirt of Dr. King, who recognized that injustice in healthcare is the most ‘shocking and inhumane’ form of inequality, we are prepared to put our bodies on the line to protect access to healthcare in New York,” said 1199SEIU President George Gresham. “Cutting funding to safety-net hospitals, reducing wages of low-income homecare workers, and failing to close the Medicaid coverage gap would be disastrous for our healthcare system still reeling from three years of the pandemic. We need Gov. Hochul to recognize the gravity of New York’s healthcare crisis and the life-anddeath issues at stake.”

Three years to the month that the first COVID case was confirmed in New York, patients and workers continue to face the pandemic’s aftershocks. Safety-net hospitals are on the brink of closure, emergency rooms are overflowing, nursing home residents face interminably long wait times for bedside care, and homecare services are becoming ever harder to come by.

—Submitted by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East