10 • February 24, 2022 - March 2, 2022
THE NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS
Union Matters 1199 SEIU’s new campaign pushes for guaranteed fair pay for homecare workers By STEPHON JOHNSON Amsterdam News Staff 1199 SEIU took their issues about fair pay for homecare workers public this week. Using television, digital and radio ads, the union leaders have made the push statewide to gain support for an increase in homecare worker pay seeking more money in the soon-to-be-revealed 2022-2023 state budget. They’re calling for a permanent increase and have spent seven figures in ad money to get their point across. Rona Shapiro, executive vice president of 1199 SEIU’s homecare division, stated that unions that represent frontline employees during the pandemic have the right and the leverage to push for more pay. “This campaign is a chance for patients, family members, labor leaders and advocates to stand together with homecare workers, and call for a sustainable and permanent pay raise,” said Shapiro. “Too many of our workers have reached a breaking point where they have to choose between barely scraping by to do a job they love or
(Photo courtesy of 1199 SEIU)
Homecare workers want the pay they feel they deserve.
leaving the profession altogether. We can’t afford to lose one more homecare worker to low wages. We cannot afford to be silent.” The union has already released several ads online with each focusing on a homecare worker or patient extolling the virtues of the job. “Today, I’m able to stay in my home because of home care,” said an elderly woman named Sally in one of the ads. “Right now,
there’s a shortage of home healthcare workers and that’s because they don’t have a decent hourly wage.” “As a homecare worker, I look after my clients in their homes,” said homecare worker Sandra Diaz in another ad. “Then I come home to look after my son and elderly father. “With the pandemic it’s scary, but I still have to work. I have bills to pay,” Diaz said. According to the language of the Fair Pay
For Home Care Act (Senate Bill S5374A), sponsored by State Sen. Rachel May and co-sponsored by senators Joseph P. Addabbo Jr., Fred Akshar and Alessandra Biaggi, it “enacts provisions to provide minimum wages for home care aides; requires at least 150% of minimum wage or other set minimum; directs the commissioner of health to set regional minimum rates of reimbursement for homecare aides under Medicaid and managed care plans.” The bill would pay homecare workers a living wage of at least $22.50 an hour. That is $10 to $12 more than the average homecare workers make now, according to 1199 SEIU officials. Working with the elderly and the disabled took on a new significance when the COVID-19 pandemic shut the city down. Nurses, doctors, subway workers, doorpeople and homecare workers alike were still expected to head to their jobs. They were labeled heroes by the public and now want to be treated as such. “Home healthcare is not an easy job. The commute is difficult—whether it snows or there’s sunshine, you have to be there. Without us, without me, the person cannot survive for the day,” stated worker Lilleth Clacken. “We were doing this work before the pandemic. We will be doing this work after the pandemic. So we ask the governor and Albany to raise our wages permanently.”
Alabama Amazon workers sue Amazon, claim misconduct in election rerun By STEPHON JOHNSON Amsterdam News Staff Alabama Amazon workers are crying foul, once again, at the corporate giant for interfering with the union vote. They’re accusing management of removing pro-union literature from non-work areas where anti-union literature had been posted. Amazon’s Bessemer’s management had also been accused of organizing “Captive-Audience Meetings” which workers were coerced into joining to hear about the reasons not to join a union. They’re also being accused of promulgating a new rule that limits workers’ access to the facility for more than 30 minutes before and after their shift. It’s not in the job’s policy handbook. “Being forced to attend the captive-audience anti-union trainings was degrading,” stated Roger Wyatt, a BAmazon Union Worker Organizing Committee member and Amazon BHM1 associate. “Amazon treated us like mindless robots, downloading mis-information to us. And the irony is, these meetings are the longest I’ve ever gotten to sit at work. If it’s impossible to allow me adequate break and bathroom time, why is it possible, let alone mandatory, for me to sit through hours of anti-union trainings? It should be our choice if we have to sit through one side’s arguments or not, it’s protected under the law and needs to be stopped permanently.” An Amazon spokesperson said they haven’t seen Tuesday’s filing and that
into their decision to let Bessemer workers get a second chance at a vote. “By installing a postal mailbox at the main employee entrance, the employer essentially hijacked the process and gave a strong impression that it controlled the process,” read part of the NLRB’s solution. “This dangerous and improper message to employees destroys trust in the Board’s processes and in the credibility of the election results.” Over the past year, Amazon’s organizing workers have received public support from elected officials, Amazon workers in Bessemer claim that the company interfered with elections again. the NFL Players Association, the Writers Guild of America “we’re confident that our teams have fully Last year, workers in Bessemer had orga- East and West, and U.S. President Joe Biden. complied with the law. Our focus remains nized what they felt were enough people to Biden’s support marked the first time a on working directly with our team to make vote but were thwarted when they lost the president publicly advocated for unions. Amazon a great place to work.” election to form a union. This brought about “Removing union literature from break In late January, members of the BAmazon accusations of interference against Amazon rooms, limiting workers’ ability to talk with Union Worker Organizing Committee held for violating Section 7 of the National Labor each other, compelling attendance at capa media briefing on the filing of the union’s Relations Act. Workers called out Amazon tive audience meetings to listen to anRequest for Review of the National Labor for moving the needle on election results by ti-union messages—all of these actions Relations Board (NLRB) Notice of Election. installing security cameras to monitor the expose Amazon’s undisguised efforts to In the Notice of Election, there was not a suf- voter collection box in the job site’s parking stifle workers’ voices and its contempt for ficient remedy to the mailbox, which was lot, threatening workers with layoffs and their rights to join together,” he stated. the main focus of the objections to the first with closing the facility, and threatening “What’s Amazon afraid of?” said Wilma election and the NLRB’s decision to grant workers with docked pay and less benefits. Liebman, former member and chairman, workers a re-run election. It’s something NLRB officials factored NLRB. “What’s Amazon afraid of?” (Photo courtesy of Lawrence Glass via iStock
