10 • March 3, 2022 - March 9, 2022
THE NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS
Union Matters Nurses speak of worker shortage at medical center By STEPHON JOHNSON Amsterdam News Staff While the mayor has lifted the mask mandate in schools and other businesses, the nurses who went through the worst of the pandemic need reinforcements of the humankind. Last Thursday, nurses at the Maimonides Medical Center held a rally on the corner of 48th Street and 10th Avenue denouncing staffing shortfalls at the facility that day. From the emergency room to ICUs to Med-Surgical floors, Psychiatric care, etc., members of the New York State Nurses Association have also battled COVID-19 variants. NYSNA President Nancy Hagans, RN, said that her constituents are being spread thin.
“As a safety net hospital, Maimonides plays a central role in the delivery of care to Brooklyn patients,” stated Hagans. “But the hospital is understaffed on virtually every unit, impeding essential care to patients. As nurses, we are entrusted by law as patient advocates. We are duty-bound to call out Maimonides management to address RN staffing by hiring more nurses, to put in place effective retention policies and put the hospital on a path to ensuring quality care for all patients.” Nurses spoke on how their colleagues have quit due to being overworked and are struggling with retention. “We do not have enough nurses to do the job—a job that has become extremely difficult, even dangerous at times,” stated Kristen
Housing Works, respect your workers and negotiate! Stuart Appelbaum President, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, Twitter: @sappelbaum. www.rwdsu.org
Housing Works—which employs more than 600 RWDSU members at housing units, thrift stores, healthcare, and other locations throughout its sprawling operations in New York City—is hurting its employees by failing to negotiate a union contract in good faith, which the RWDSU has alleged in a new unfair labor practice charge filed with the NLRB. It’s outrageous conduct, but unfortunately, fits the recent pattern from an employer that has fought its workers—and betrayed the organization’s progressive roots—throughout the workers’ entire organizing campaign. Housing Works was founded in 1990 by several members of ACT UP to provide supportive services for people living with HIV/AIDS. But during the workers’ organizing campaign, Housing Works has behaved more like an insensitive corporate behemoth than a progressive organization with activist roots. And now, during negotiations, we are seeing Housing Works’ management dive back into the same bigbusiness anti-union playbook. For almost a year, Housing Works employees have been trying to negotiate their first union contract. They are seeking safer workplaces, a voice on the job, and more manageable caseloads so they can give Housing Works clients—some of the most vulnerable members of our communities—better care. Housing Works is stalling on even the most basic foundations of a union contract, including agreements on sufficient layoff notice and protections and guaranteed livable wages for workers in New York City. They fail to appreciate the bargaining committee’s concerns on important issues, such as creating manageable caseloads, health
and safety training, safe workplaces, and providing unpaid mental health leave for workers who may suffer mental health traumas on the job. They reject the union’s wage demands but employ high-priced lawyers as their contract negotiators. Management even showed its contempt for workers by taking too long to engage productively in conversations about workers’ preferred pronouns, which is painfully ironic considering Housing Works was founded by LGBTQ activists during a global health crisis. Over 30 years later, amidst another global health crisis, Housing Works is dismissing workers’ health and safety proposals and proper staffing concerns, and making it clear that despite the workers’ successful union organizing drive, management wants to pretend that nothing has changed. On top of it all, Housing Works has wasted valuable time by providing the bargaining committee with bad data for wage negotiations. As a result, the RWDSU filed an unfair labor practice charge against Housing Works on February 22, 2022 with the Brooklyn office of the NLRB for bad faith bargaining. Housing Works employees started their grassroots campaign to unionize with the RWDSU because they wanted to be able to do their jobs better and provide better care for Housing Works clients. These workers make a real difference in the lives of the people they serve, and now, they want a union contract to make a real difference in their ability to provide for themselves and their families, and provide proper care to their clients with the protection, safety, and respect that they deserve. Housing Works needs to live up to its progressive roots and ideals and stop behaving like the worst of corporate America. The message is clear to Housing Works: stop stalling and start taking your employees’ concerns seriously and pay them what they deserve.
Curley, RN, Stepdown/Telemetry. “We work under a threat to patient safety.” Holding up placards that read, “Safe staffing saves lives,” NYSNA officials, nurses and supporters lamented the lack of support they’ve received while handling the city’s sick individuals. The New York Post reported that, according to records, Maimonides’ CEO Kenneth Gibbs made $3.2 million in 2020; Jacob Shani, chief of heart surgery, made $3.5 million; Patrick Borgen, department of surgery, made $2 million; and the chair of cardiothoracic surgery, director of interventional cardiology and a cardiologist made just below $2 million dollars. Michelle Williams, RN, Mother-Baby Unit, said that there are no breaks for her or her colleagues and it leaves them exhausted.
“With four couplets [mother and baby] I am able to provide care to both mother and baby,” stated Williams. “Unfortunately, on the night shift, I have a caseload of 6 couplets. That’s why I call the RN staffing ‘very poor’ in the unit. To care for all the mothers and babies we sometimes have to split the work. With couplets split up, I have ended up with as many as 15 babies assigned to me. This is wrong, because we run a risk of not getting all necessary care to the babies.” Charmaine Malcolm, RN, Medical-Surgeon, said that if feels like no one is listening to them. “The work has been soul crushing,” said Malcolm. “There has been a sense of intimidation. If you mention you’re short-staffed, you a get a look. I felt silenced.”
32BJ praises Biden for Supreme Court nomination By STEPHON JOHNSON Amsterdam News Staff U.S. President Joe Biden nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for the U.S. Supreme Court. She’d be the 116th associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. 32BJ leader Kyle Bragg was quick to praise Jackson, a Black woman, for her record and the president for his pick. “Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is an exceptional choice by President Biden to serve on the Supreme Court,” stated Bragg. “She is an incredibly qualified jurist and a universally respected legal mind whose record demonstrates her respect for civil rights, voting rights, worker rights, and human rights. Jackson was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Miami. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and graduated cum laude at Harvard Law School. While attending Harvard Law School, she became the editor of the Harvard Law Review: the same publication that former president Barack Obama became the first Black editor of in the publication’s history. “Through her exemplary service, Judge Brown has climbed the judicial ladder—a career she set out to achieve the moment she graduated from high school and stated that her life goal was ‘to receive a judicial appointment’ one day,” continued Bragg. “Her ascension to the highest court in the land will send an unmistakable message to the American people that the circle of opportunity in this country now extends a little wider, and that young Black girls can achieve their grandest dreams.” On Wednesday, Jackson held her first meetings with elected officials Senate Judiciary Committee Chairperson Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky). Officials at the Democratic National Committee called Jackson’s appointment another example of Biden delivering for the Black community especially in the judicial realm. The president has hired nine Black women to federal appellate courts.
Nicole Austin-Hillery, president and CEO of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Incorporated (CBCF), said the appointment was the perfect way to end Black History Month. “Her nomination is timely as we end Black History Month, celebrating the contributions of Black Americans and march into celebrating outstanding women for Women’s History Month,” read their statement. “Milestones like these have been hard-won by years of back-breaking, often unrecognized work of ordinary women and activists and should be celebrated. This moment is a step along the path towards equality, and even though we have a long way to go, inspiring women like Judge Jackson and this ground-breaking nomination gives us hope.” But not all were happy with her nomination. Judicial Watch, a conservative legal watchdog group, said that Jackson’s nomination was an affirmative action hire and called for an investigation into Biden’s “discrimination” and a rejection of the nominee. “President Biden has bowed to pressure from his radical base and has selected a judicial activist to fill Justice Stephen Breyer’s seat on the Supreme Court,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a statement. “Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has a long record of left-wing activism both on and off the bench. “Disturbingly, President Biden seems to have selected Judge Jackson under a process that excluded potential nominees simply because of their race and sex.” But other (local) political figures came out in support of Biden’s nomination. Rep. Tom Suozzi (D–Long Island, Queens) said that Jackson’s nomination was a tip of the cap to her hard work. “An outstanding and historic choice! An accomplished lawyer, Judge Jackson will be a phenomenal Supreme Court Justice,” stated Suozzi. Bragg agreed. “Our country is stronger when everyone can reach their highest aspirations and Judge Brown is an example of what America, at her very best, can be,” he stated. “We strongly support her appointment and urge the U.S. Senate to confirm her nomination—without delay.”
