Our Life & Times

A JOURNAL OF 1199SEIU September/October 2014

THE PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER

5 9 10

1199ERS GET OUT THE VOTE OUR RETIREES FLEX THEIR POLITICAL MUSCLES THOUSANDS MARCH FOR JUSTICE ON STATEN ISLAND

Members lead the way in politics and social justice.

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September/October 2014 • Our Life And Times

Over 1,000 members of 1199SEIU were among the 400,000 people who marched for climate change justice in NYC on Sept. 21.

3 President’s Column

Editorial

Our Life and Times September/October 2014

“ELECTING PEOPLE WHO 4 UNDERSTAND US IS OUR ONLY FIGHTING CHANCE”

In The Regions

Massachusetts Members Fight to Raise the Minimum Wage; Contract Victories in Baltimore and New York; Awe-inspiring Retiree Quilts.

8 Strike at Alaris

New Jersey members illegally locked out.

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Our Powerful Retirees

The Union’s fastest growing division continues to be a force for change.

10 The March for Justice in Staten Island

Police need to be accountable and no one is above the law was the message sent as thousands marched.

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The Work We Do: Corizon Health

Healthcare workers from New York City’s Rikers Island Correctional Facility.

Sept. 21 saw over 400,000 people marching in the streets of New York City demanding that the world’s leaders, who gathered later that week at the United Nations, make changes to address the climate change crisis. Among the demonstrators were over 1,000 1199SEIU members and their families.

“America is finally getting it. People have finally realized that we have to make a stand on this issue.

We have to turn out in record numbers to be heard and to wake people up. It’s fantastic,” said Diane Cantave, a Nassau County pharmacy tech who marched with her two children.

For some at the Climate March, it was their first time demonstrating against anything. But 1199ers know how to move those in power: By hitting the streets, by making noise. And by voting them in and out of office. This issue of Our Life And Times speaks to that hard-won power and to members exercising it.

On Nov. 4 – Election Day – 1199SEIU members in just about every region will head to the polls. Members are helping to get out the vote for candidates who can make differences in working people’s lives and communities.

In Florida, members are getting out the vote for Democrat Charlie Crist’s bid to unseat Republican Gov. Rick Scott.

Our Retired Members Division (RMD) is playing a vital role

in the Union’s GOTV activities: 20 retirees are asked in 10 Florida chapters to contact 40 other retirees. Each of the 40 in turn will be asked to bring five other voters to the polls.

1199SEIU retiree Rev. Oswald Felix is committed to helping Crist win.

“Scott and the legislature’s refusal to accept federal Medicaid funding has caused great hardship for seniors and others in the state,” says Rev. Felix, an ordained minister who also heads the RMD’s North Port chapter.

In Massachusetts and New York, members are also mobilized to support candidates in contests vital to working families. Attorney General Martha Coakley is running for governor of the Bay State, while Andrew Cuomo is running for re-election as New York’s governor.

His running mate for lieutenant governor Kathy Hochul has also been a longtime friend of the Union.

Ketley St. Pre, an RN at Brooklyn’s New York Community Hospital, volunteered in Brooklyn during the September primary and will be out knocking on doors again in November.

“I don’t just do this for myself, you know,” she said. “All of us have an obligation to do this. Making sure we elect people who understand working people and our needs is the only way we have a fighting chance.”

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There Is No Planet B

1199ers at The People’s Climate March.

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The Last Word: Green

Jacqueline Patterson, director of the NAACP’s Climate Justice Initiative, explains why climate justice is a civil rights issue.

Our Life And Times, September/October 2014 Vol 32, 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 secretary treasurer

Maria Castaneda executive vice presidents

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

acting editor

Patricia Kenney director of photography

Jim Tynan photographer

Belinda Gallegos art direction & design

Maiarelli Studio

cover photograph

Jim Tynan contributors

Mindy Berman Aaron Blye JJ Johnson 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.

LUBA LUKOVA

@1199seiu www.facebook.com/SEIU www.1199seiu.org September/October 2014 • Our Life And Times

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THE PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

Letters GET OUT AND VOTE, RAIN OR SHINE would like to kindly remind my brothers and sisters how very important mid-term elections are. The primaries that we voted in earlier this year and the general elections in November are critical to the health and well-being of our country. This is when we elect the state and local politicians who play important roles in making sure there’s money for housing, education and healthcare in our communities.

I’ve heard it said by people that they’re only interested in Presidential elections. I try to explain why every election is important. The progress President Obama was able to make was only because he had a Democratic Congress to work with.

Then people sat out the mid-term election and people didn’t go out to vote and we lost the House to cold-hearted Republicans who block the President’s agenda at every turn. They’re only interested in promoting the causes of the wealthy.

They go after Medicare and Social Security. If they get their way there will be nothing left when future generations retire, my sisters and brothers.

We have to get out, rain or shine, and vote. We have to make sure to elect the right people and keep our Democratic Senate majority.

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YVONNE JACKSON Retiree, Bronx, New York

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1199 RETIREE FIGHTS GENTRIFICATION worked at the Brookdale Multiphasic Clinic from 1968 to February 1971, as a clerk-typist.

In 1971 I transferred to the Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center and became a Union Delegate.

I was 79 years old on October 10th and I wish to share a bit of my journey as an 1199 Union member While working at the Multiphasic Center, I met Rona Shapiro, who was then an 1199 Union Organizer. Together with other employees of the Multiphasic Clinic, we set out to get the 30% signatures of employees working at the hospital in order for Brookdale to become unionized.

Together we won a Victory for 1199 Union. I am now using that experience to fight for my rights to stay in my apartment because of gentrification, which often displaces earlier and usually less wealthy residents in the effort to beautify and rebuild neighborhoods by bringing in middle class or affluent people, according to Webster’s Dictionary.

I never considered myself to be poor because I am a retired working-class citizen.

Unions like 1199 help us to keep our jobs so that we don’t end up being poor. The Union has training funds so that we can upgrade ourselves.

I went from a clerk-typist to a medical records coder to a senior medical records coder. The Union helped with the payment of the cost for the schooling.

I was offered $70,000 to give up my apartment. I live in a stabilized building and the rent is affordable. My social security plus my pension from 1199 Union keeps me from being poor and displaced. I am self-sufficient. I still contribute to the economy. I pay my taxes. I cannot afford to pay the market rate rent of $2,500 a month.

This is unfair to senior citizens after working all those years (in my case 27 years) at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center to end up losing our apartments. But the same way I marched for every other weekend off for the Kingsbrook Nursing Department employees, I will use that zest to speak out against gentrification.

Remember, without Unions you do not get benefits such as the every other weekend off, one hour for lunch, 15 minutes break in the morning, 15 minutes break in the afternoon, sick leave, holidays off and the best of all­—health care. We could go on and on. So, let us find a way to keep stabilized apartments in New York City and State.

STEPHANIE GOVAN Retiree, Brooklyn, NY

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September/October 2014 • Our Life And Times

George Gresham

A Freedom Won Through Constant Struggle We must never take our voting rights—or their power to change society—for granted.

22 Number of states where new voting restrictions are slated to be in place since 2010 election.

*Source: Brennan Center For Justice

We 1199ers have long known how important political action is for our lives.

Our homecare agencies depend nearly entirely for their revenue on federal Medicaid and Medicare dollars. Nursing homes get nearly 85 percent of their income from government funding. And depending on their patient populations, our hospitals get 30 to 80 percent of their revenue from these sources. So, what we win one day at the collective bargaining table can be taken away the next day in Washington or our state capitals. Simply stated, politics—which is to say, elections—matter.

With only a couple of weeks before Election Day, it is appropriate that this issue of Our Life and Times addresses the ongoing attacks by right wing legislators on our very right to vote. Most Americans believe the right to vote in our democracy is explicit in our Constitution and laws. However, our Constitution only provides for nondiscrimination in voting on the basis of race, sex, and age. The U.S. Constitution contains no explicit right to vote. The old spiritual holds, “freedom is a constant struggle.” So too is the fight for voting rights.

After the U.S. Civil War took 500,000 American lives to end slavery, the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provided that the right to vote could not be denied “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” But for decades, the nation’s Southern states legalized disenfranchisement by enacting racist Jim Crow laws, including literacy tests, poll taxes, property-ownership requirements, moral character tests, and grandfather clauses that allowed persons to vote if their grandfathers voted (which excluded most African-Americans whose slave grandfathers had been ineligible).

Many young people don’t know their proud, even heroic, history because so many of us—their parents’ generation—have forgotten it ourselves or at least forgotten to pass it on. Last June, I participated in the 50th anniversary commemoration of Freedom Summer in Mississippi. In 1964, led by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Freedom Summer sought to challenge Mississippi’s intention to preserve its own form of apartheid. With a horrific history of hundreds of lynchings in the decades leading up to 1964, Mississippi’s power structure was not going to give up easily. Only a year earlier, Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers was assassinated in the driveway of his Jackson home.

Freedom Summer aimed to bring hundreds of Northern college students to help register Black voters and start Freedom Schools designed to help educate Black children. Because of the presence of mainly white college students, the media gave the campaign the kind of attention SNCC had not received in its earlier voter registration efforts.

The murders of three Mississippi Freedom Summer workers—James Chaney, a black Mississippian, and Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, both white New Yorkers—became national news. In addition to the three murders, Freedom Summer would suffer four shootings, 52 serious beatings, 250 arrests, and 13 black churches burned to the ground.

Fannie Lou Hamer, a voting rights leader who, as a 13-year-old picked 300 lbs. of cotton a day, was jailed and beaten near the point of death that summer.

She later said, “I guess if I’d had any sense, I’d have been a little scared—but what was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do was kill me, and it kinda seemed like they’d been trying to do that a little bit at a time since I could remember.”

The year after Mississippi Summer, Congress finally passed the Voting Rights Act, but only after Dr. Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and SNCC organized demonstrations in Alabama, including the Selmato-Montgomery march, which included the “Bloody Sunday” police attacks on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge that received worldwide televised attention.

Fannie Lou Hamer died of hypertension eight years later at the age of 59.

Inscribed on her tombstone is her arguably most famous quote: “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.” There should be federal buildings across the country named for Fannie Lou Hamer, but relatively few Americans even know her name today.

Americans owe a debt of gratitude to Mrs. Hamer and the many thousands of unknown sharecroppers, cotton pickers, factory workers—and northern college students—who risked all and sacrificed much to end Jim Crow segregation and build democracy.

We honor them best today by voting ourselves, and by fighting to defeat those who want to take away our hard-won rights and gains; for example, those pushing for voter ID and other voter suppression laws from North Carolina to Ohio that would turn the clock back to 1964.

InTheRegions

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NEW YORK

After Struggle, New Contract at Brooks Memorial

Number of states that in 2014 sought to modernize their voting registration systems and make it easier for people to vote and register to vote.

Bills to modernize voter registration have passed in Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska and Utah.

Brooks Memorial Hospital lab workers Crystal Ingram and Mikki Feeney.

The votes were cast and counted. And after months of difficult and stalled negotiations, on Sept. 10 the 1199SEIU healthcare workers at Brooks Memorial in Dunkirk, NY voted 4 to 1 in favor of ratifying their a new collective bargaining agreement. The agreement maintains quality care and good jobs for the Dunkirk community.

Brooks Memorial is a small, rural hospital in New York’s southern tier which employs 175 members of 1199SEIU who keep the Brooks Memorial safe and clean and provide critical care for members of their tight-knit community. The ratification came after months of arduous negotiations which had Brooks Memorial workers standing up against proposed management staff changes. Workers said the changes would compromise the quality of care at the institution. Members were concerned about proposed service reductions or eliminations that would made some patients travel nearly 50 miles to Buffalo.

“I was very happy to see so many people come out to vote today,” said Ashley Raymond, a personal care aide and a member of the bargaining committee. “After all this time and everything we have been through we are still united and with this contract we can concentrate on providing quality care. That’s what we do.”

The long awaited agreement maintains many of the quality standards that workers at the hospital rely on, including maintaining the same or comparable health insurance benefits for the life of the three-year agreement, and vacation accrual for current employees. The 1199SEIU Training and Upgrading Fund continues to be available at no cost to 1199 members, providing important educational opportunities when the industry is in flux and healthcare delivery is changing quickly.

The new contract also includes much needed improvements to pension contribution rates, a 1% wage increase starting in May 1, 2015 (with maintenance of step progression in 2014 and 2015) and job security language.

“To me it is a relief to have bargaining over and our new contract in place,” says Angel Correa, a dietary aide at the hospital. “Now we can get back to what we truly love to do: caring for our patients and making them smile.”

Editor’s note: In last month’s Our Life And Times’ article about Brooks Memorial, we mentioned an LPN named Ellen Sherman. Her name is Ellen Franklin. We regret the error.

MARYLAND

Training Fund & Longevity Pay Are Among Gains in Baltimore Contracts Sheena Colbert was among the workers at Baltimore’s Fayette Health and Rehabilitation Center who held a 24-hour strike last May to push management to settle a fair contract.

After working for over a year under an expired contract, caregivers at Baltimore’s Fayette Health and Rehabilitation Center in August overwhelmingly agreed to a new three-year union contract with CommuniCare, the Ohio-based management company.

The struggle for a contract was long and hard-won. Concerned about management’s original proposals to cap wages and slash the training fund, Fayette workers held an informational picket last December, and a

24-hour strike in May. In addition to granting guaranteed yearly raises, the newly-ratified contract backs down from both controversial proposals, keeping opportunities for pay increases and educational development within reach of workers.

The training fund was a key sticking point for many of the caregivers, including bargaining committee member Shawntae Stamper. A CNA who cares for a young daughter, Stamper is studying to become an LPN.

“I need the training fund to help me pay for school, so this was important to me,” said Stamper. “This contract worked out in our favor. We showed unity when we went on strike, and in the end, I feel like management heard us.”

The new contract also protects patients, standardizing care with a new worker orientation process and establishing a labor/management safety committee that will meet monthly to review safety matters.

Other Baltimore contract

settlements in which workers made significant gains include Greater Baltimore Medical Center, where workers won service milestones for the first time ever—for every 10 years of service they’ll get a 1% bonus of their annual pay; Blue Point Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, where workers won 35 across-the-board raises in their new three-year contract; and Northwest Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, where workers won raises totaling 5.5% over a two year contract.

September/October 2014 • Our Life And Times

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19 27 and

Number of states and the number of restrictive voting measures they passed which were ultimately weakened or overturned by the courts, citizenled initiatives or the Department of Justice ahead of the 2012 election.

Top: Massachusetts 1199ers taking “selfies” with gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley, at the March 15 GOTV event in Boston.

“I’m voting for her because she’s about jobs, health care and families. She has a proven record in all these things,” said Annie Abernathy, a CNA for 41 years at Boston Medical Center.

“I want to educate our communities and get them involved in the electoral process,” she says. “We need to get the right folks elected we can benefit from.

I’ve been canvassing since the 2012 election!”

Middle: Member Political Organizer Jay Despinosse (center) and volunteer Roger Auguste, a dietary worker at Einstein Medical center in the Bronx (right) helped NYS Senator Gustavo Rivera win his Primary Election on Sept. 10. They spoke with home attendant Leona Pou at her Bronx, NY home on Primary Day. She had already voted.

Bottom: Ketley St. Pre (in the yellow rain slicker) is an RN at Brooklyn’s NY Community Hospital.

She canvassed in Brooklyn on Primary Day and spoke with Constance Joseph, a Brookdale Medical Center retiree who’d just come from voting. “Voting is my obligation,” said Joseph. “We’re blessed to have the opportunity.

There are those who want it but can’t do it. We need to take that opportunity seriously.”

NEW YORK

Unity Living Members Ratify Agreement Employees of Unity Living Center, a 120-bed nursing facility in Rochester, NY, ratified their first union contract Sept. 19 after negotiating for close to a year. The agreement covers direct care workers within the new Rochester Regional Health System, which was formed by the recent merger of the Unity Health and Rochester General Health Systems. Approximately 125 licensed practical nurses, certified

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nursing assistants, therapy aides, and secretaries are included in the bargaining unit. The ratification vote was nearly unanimous.

The new contract is effective July 1, 2013 and ends July 31, 2016. It provides for two wage increases: workers on the payroll as of April 1, 2013 will receive raises of between 1.5% and 3.0% retroactive to Aug. 5, 2013.

Workers on the payroll April 1, 2014 will receive another raise of between

September/October 2014 • Our Life And Times

2.25% and 3.23% retroactive to Aug. 3, 2014. Union and management representatives will return to negotiate wage rates for the contract’s third year next summer.

Unity Living Center workers voted to form a union in June, 2013.

Their highest priority was to attain a voice on the job in order to best serve the needs of their residents. The new contract provides a labor-management process to address workplace issues,

including concerns about resident care. It also provides protections from discrimination, professional representation, seniority rights, language for discipline only for just cause, and a grievance/arbitration procedure.

Contract negotiations began in October, 2013, and a federal mediator joined the talks in February. Fed up workers staged an informational picket May 30.

InTheRegions

18 This many states have introduced bills either requiring voters to show ID at the polls or making existing photo ID laws more restrictive. And 4 states have introduced bills requiring proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate, to register to vote.

Community members and 1199ers gathered Aug. 27 at Carson Beach in Dorchester, MA to celebrate the launch of the lowwage worker movement in the Bay State.

MASSACHUSETTS

Massachusetts Workers Speak Out About Low Wages at Community Event On a beautiful Saturday on Carson Beach, approximately 1,000 community members gathered to celebrate the launch of the low-wage worker movement in Massachusetts earlier this summer. Hundreds signed up to join the Fight for $15 cause and joined in a week of action for low-wage workers that began on Aug. 27th.

Families turned out in big numbers to enjoy free BBQ, raffles, kids’ games, dance contests, and other free family fun between noon and 6:00 p.m. Free workshops were also held focusing on family budgeting, eating healthy on a budget, stress reduction, and yoga.

At 2:30, workers from across industries – including fast food, transportation, homecare

and more – talked about why they’re joining the Fight for $15 movement and the struggles they face living on low wages.

“I have worked in homecare for 14 years.

I am in the same situation as many low-wage workers. I have terrible wages, no sick days, or vacations,” said Medical Resources caregiver Eneyda Perez during the program. “As a single mother, I’m part of the movement of homecare workers who are joining the Fight for $15.”

“I can’t live off eight dollars an hour, and I only make a certain amount of money. I’ve still got bills to pay, and I’ve still got to make a living for my family. It’s hard out here for everyone who struggles. We’re fighting for $15 not only for ourselves but for our communities and other

workers who cannot speak up for themselves,” explained Darius Cephas, a McDonald’s worker.

The #WageAction coalition, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, Jobs with Justice, MassUniting, the NAACP, and other progressive organizations hosted the free community fair.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, 1199SEIU’s endorsed candidate in the state’s governor’s race, was among the elected officials who visited the Community Fair. On the heels of the national fast-food strikes, workers winning a $15 minimum wage in Seattle, and the #WageAction event held in Boston on June 12, advocates also participated in a Week of #WageAction that was held around Labor Day.

FLORIDA

Florida Workers to HCA: “Invest in Communities, Not Executive Pay.”

Members from Florida’s Aventura Medical Center at Sept. 17 demonstration.

Close to 225 healthcare workers, elected officials and community supporters from across Florida marched almost a mile to Aventura Medical Center in Miami on Sept. 17 and called on the hospital to invest in its workers, not executive pay.

“Invest in our hospital by putting profits back into our community,” said David Herron, a CT technician at Aventura Hospital. “Healthcare workers need to focus on caring for patients and cleaning our hospitals without having to worry about how they can afford to keep the lights on. These jobs demand focus.”

Aventura is one of 19 Healthcare Corporation of America (HCA)-affiliated institutions where 1199SEIU represents 10,000 members in the state of Florida.

Workers have been in talks with HCA hospitals since last February 2014.

Lee Stirrat, a unit secretary at Aventura Blake Medical Center for 36 years, says workers have continually received pushback on wages. Many HCA caregivers working at HCA-affiliated hospitals in Florida earn less than $10 an hour or have a hard time keeping up with the rising cost of living because their wages are capped.

“Our hearts are in this. People are very supportive,” said Stirrat. “We just don’t want HCA our hospitals to put profits before people.”

Nurses and caregivers from HCA-affiliated hospitals around the state along met with elected officials who gathered in solidarity with Aventura Hospital workers.

“I represent you and all hardworking Floridians,” said Florida State Senator Oscar Braynon at the Sept. 17 event. “I stand with you here today because we must fight to change the current wave of economic inequality that plagues our communities. Today represents a right step in ridding what has become a national crisis.”

September/October 2014 • Our Life And Times

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NEW YORK

Workers Win at Wingate at Ulster and Dutchess Center Over 300 workers said yes to 1199SEIU in two organizing victories in New York State’s Hudson Valley this summer. Workers at Wingate at Ulster, a nursing facility in Highland, NY, scored a trifecta, winning three votes for 1199SEIU representation at the institution in July and August.

And at Dutchess Center in Pawling, NY, workers voted 86-0 for representation by 1199SEIU in an Aug. 8 election.

The victory at Wingate at Ulster began with a June organizing campaign among 122 CNAs and LPNs at the institution. They voted 51-29 for representation in a July 24 election. Workers say they were continually struggling against short staffing and being pressed to keep up their high standards of care with fewer resources.

Wingate workers knew their pay is out of line with area standards; many have experience as 1199SEIU members.

“Things were getting worse and worse,” says LPN Sheila Van Pelt, who previously worked at Vassar Brothers Hospital. “They kept mandating the nurses. I was to the point where I was getting mandated twice a week. I’m sixty years old. I physically couldn’t

do that. I had to get a doctor’s note saying I couldn’t work more than eight hours a day.”

The institution’s registered nurses began their own campaign after the CNAs and LPNs voted Union. The RNs were driven by staffing needs and the astronomical costs of Wingate’s health plan. Family health coverage includes a $1,000 deductible and copayments, making it simply too expensive for many workers.

On Aug. 27 the RNs voted 7-6 to join 1199SEIU. One day later the institution’s housekeeping and dietary workers followed, with an 18-2 vote. At press time workers were preparing to negotiate their first contracts.

“We faced a lot of opposition, but we voiced our concerns and we won,” says CNA Tenea Green, an organizing committee member. “I told people not to be afraid. We needed to get moving and it was going to be hard, but we did it and we still have more to do.”

At Dutchess Center in Pawling, workers began an organizing campaign in early June. The 122-bed facility is one of the few non-Union institutions owned by Specialty Centers for Healthcare, which operates nursing and rehabilitation centers throughout New

RETIRED MEMBERS DIVISION BIANNUAL QUILT EXHIBIT

Awe-inspiring quilts, handmade by 1199SEIU retired members, were on display in the penthouse of 1199SEIU’s 42nd St. headquarters in Manhattan during the second biannual quilt exhibit, held Sept. 2 through Sept. 5. The quilts were created in the Division’s quilting class, some by expert quilters, others by first time crafters. For more information about the class or other Retired Members Division Programs, call (646)473-8666.

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September/October 2014 • Our Life And Times

50% York City and Westchester.

Workers were fed up with the low pay and expensive healthcare coverage.

“I’m being paid $4.00 an hour less than people who have the same job as me. Someone who starts after me and who has no experience is making more money than me. That’s just not fair,” says Josh Birdsell, cook at Dutchess Center. “Our health insurance was costing me $92 a paycheck, so I gave it up. I can’t afford that on $12.00 an hour.”

Frank Angelico is a wax stripper and works in maintenance and housekeeping at the institution. He was a member of 1199SEIU and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters for 30 years before coming to work at the rehab. Enough was enough for him.

“I just told everyone that we had to do this and as we continued to meet, everyone’s passion grew,” says Angelico. “We have people here making $10.00 an hour. In this day and age that’s insane. No one can live on that.”

At press time, workers were getting ready to negotiate their first contract. “We have to remember that the battle is not over,” says Angelico. “We have to let them know what we want and stick together.”

Unless the current restrictive voting measures currently in place are overturned, many citizens in this much of the nation could find it harder to vote this year than 2012.

Contracts

23 At least this number of states has in 2014 introduced bills that would introduce or expand early voting opportunities.

Alaris Health Locks Out Workers,

Putting Profits Before Resident Care

“Our patients rely on us, and we need to get back to work.”

“ IF I DON’T TEACH MY CHILDREN THAT I CAN STAND UP, WHO’S GOING TO DO IT?” A rally Sept. 17 in support of striking workers from four New Jersey facilities owned by Alaris Health drew hundreds of 1199SEIU members; Alaris illegally locked out 26 strikers when they went back to work.

Twenty six caregivers who work at four facilities owned by Alaris Health in New Jersey were locked out when they tried to return to work after a series of three-day strikes that began Sept. 16 and ended Sept. 19. Some caregivers were locked out when they went back to work on Sept.

19. Others were locked out Sept. 20. The strikes were to press Alaris Health to negotiate a fair contract with 450 1199SEIU members who have been without an agreement for more than six months.

Just two days before, workers held a rally at Alaris Health at Castle Hill in Union City, where hundreds of 1199SEIU members turned out, calling on the company to bargain fairly and end its unfair labor practices. In addition to Castle Hill, the company owns Alaris Health at Harborview in Jersey City, Alaris Health Boulevard East in Guttenberg and Alaris Health Rochelle Park in Rochelle Park.

Lovette Howard is a CNA at Boulevard East. She’s the single mother of two teenage daughters and the sole provider for her family. It’s virtually impossible to get by on what she makes, she says. At the rally, she said she’d had enough.

“Alaris has continually refused to acknowledge us.

They’ve refused to acknowledge the contract we bring to the table. They refuse to acknowledge the work we do,” she says. “They would rather pay an agency worker $15.00 an hour than pay us a decent wage. That’s not right and we have to stand up against it. If we don’t stand up for ourselves, who will? If I don’t teach my children that I can stand up, who’s going to do it? If I just sat there and said that I didn’t want to walk this picket line, who would walk it for me?”

Alaris, which posted $40 million in profit in 2012, is formerly known as Omni.

Five years ago, Omni took on a contract fight with 1199SEIU members. That brought hundreds of 1199ers marching through the streets of Jersey City.

At the Sept. 17 rally, 1199ers were joined by numerous state and local officials, including NJ State Senate President Steve Sweeney and Mayors Steve Fulop of Jersey City and Brian Stack of Union City. Stack was with Alaris’s Health Castle Hill workers on Sept. 19 when they attempted to clock in for their 7:00 a.m. shifts.

“This is a disgraceful and despicable act by the owners of this facility, and I will do everything in my power to rally

all of the other elected officials in Hudson County to help these workers,” said Stack.

Under federal labor law, an employer is barred from locking out or permanently replacing workers for participating in an unfair labor practice strike. The union notified Alaris ten days prior to the strike that its members would be returning to work the morning they were locked out.

Claudia Soldana, a certified nursing assistant at Alaris Health at Castle Hill, was among the locked out workers.

“I’ve dedicated the past 13 years of my life caring for the residents at Castle Hill. We went on strike to call attention to Alaris’ unfair labor practices, short staffing levels, and low pay, she said. “But now, residents are being taken care of by temporary workers who they don’t even know. Our patients rely on us, and we need to get back to work.”

At press time, the Union had made it clear to Alaris that they were in violation of federal labor law and that workers would be returning to their jobs and patients. 1199 New Jersey members were planning another rally and continuing to pressure Alaris to return to the negotiating table and bargain in good faith.

September/October 2014 • Our Life And Times

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Our Retirees

Our Retirees Flex Their Political Muscles They are central to Florida GOTV drive.

83 Approximate number of bills introduced during the 2014 legislative session seeking to restrict voting rights introduced in statehouses around the country. *

Members of 1199SEIU’s Retired Members Division (RMD) represent a key component of the Union’s overall election strategy.

Throughout the Union’s divisions­—from Florida to Massachusetts— they have locked arms with their 1199SEIU sisters and brothers who are still on the job. “Retired, but active” is their rallying cry.

“Some of us canvass when we can. Others phone bank. And we make a difference,” says New York City retiree Vickie Owens, who coordinates the political and legislative work for the RMD. “I joined staff and members on Primary Day in the Bronx,” she says.

“We knocked on doors to get out the vote for the (Gov. Andrew) Cuomo ticket and for New York State Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson.”

In addition to electing a governor in November, New Yorkers will be voting for their representatives in the State Senate, Assembly, and US Congress. They’ll also elect an attorney general and state comptroller. 1199SEIU retirees in the Empire State are getting out the vote for candidates who will work to pass legislation that’s important for healthcare workers and the communities they serve, including adequate funding for facilities, increased protection from assaults to frontline caregivers and a career ladder for homecare workers that will allow them to provide the best care to seniors and people with disabilities. Other big issues on the minds of New York voters as the election draws near include living wage laws, the Dream Act, campaign finance reform and women’s rights, as well as tenant rights and education opportunities.

Throughout the nation, though, legislatures controlled by extremist Republicans have slashed funding for essential needs such as health care, education, housing and other social services. The attacks on services have been coupled with attempts to demonize and bust the unions of workers who provide the services and bust their unions.

Wisconsin under Gov. Scott Walker is among the most notorious examples. North Carolina, under Republican Gov. Pat McCrory is another.

McCrory and the state’s first Republican legislature in more than 100 years have passed draconian state budgets which have resulted in major cuts to basic programs, including healthcare and education. The same budgets increase profits for corporations and for the rich. They’re also chipping away at women’s, labor and voting rights.

“That is why we joined the Moral Monday protests,” says Nonnie Perry, the RMD Carolinas chapter chair. “Our South Carolina retirees joined our North Carolina retirees at the marches.”

One of those North Carolinians was Clifton Broady, who retired with his wife, Josephine, a former nurse, to Rockingham after years as a leading delegate at the now-closed St. Clare’s Hospital in Manhattan. Broady says he spreads the union message whenever and wherever he can.

“North Carolina is a right-to-work state, so unions don’t have the clout they do in places like New York,” Broady says. “That makes it harder to organize, but we’re still making progress. People, including white workers, are beginning to see that the Republicans have gone too far.”

Broady and other retirees in the state are turning their attention to the Senate race in which Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan is attempting to fight off a challenge by State House Speaker Thom Tillis, one of the architects of the Republican slash and burn budget. The race is seen as important to the Democrats holding the majority in the U. S. Senate.

In the face of an obstructionist Congress, the fight over issues such as the Affordable Care Act, immigrant, labor and women’s rights, education and the environment is being fought out in the states. This is so in Florida where former Gov. Charlie Crist, running as a Democrat, is challenging Republican Gov. Rick Scott.

“Scott and the legislature’s refusal to accept federal Medicaid funding has caused great hardship for seniors and others in the state,” says Rev. Oswald Felix, an ordained minister who also heads the RMD’s North Port chapter.

Rev. Felix is among the 1199SEIU retirees who are leading a campaign to bring 48,000 voters to the poll in November to support Crist.

The plan calls for 20 retirees in 10 Florida chapters to contact 40 other retirees. Each of the 40 in turn will be asked to bring five other voters to the polls.

“Rick Scott is not fit to be governor,” says Gifford Allyson, co-chair of the RMD Tampa chapter. “Charlie Crist used to be a Republican, but that party has become so extreme that he had to get out.”

“Our Union has never left the retirees behind,” says New York RMD officer Sylvia Williams, who worked in Brooklyn on Primary Day. “We retirees will continue to fight the good fight for all.”

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September/October 2014 • Our Life And Times

Monnie Callan, a retiree from New York City’s Montefiore Medical Center, at a Sept. 17 rally in New Jersey. “The retired members are an important part of our Union’s strength,” says Callan. “It’s critical that we continue to participate in political action and all kinds of other activities after we retire and continue to help build the Union and a better society. We depend on the strength of the Union and our brothers and sisters who are still working and they depend on us.”

THOUSANDS MARCH FOR JUSTICE IN STATEN ISLAND They demand an end to police killings.

Aug. 23 was a day like no other on Staten Island, New York. Marchers came by the thousands by car, bus caravans – many organized by 1199SEIU – and even by sea to demand justice for Eric Garner, the unarmed African American who was choked to death July 17 by a New York City police officer In a video taken by bystander Ramsey Orta during Garner’s arrest for selling loose cigarettes, NYPD Eric Pantaleo is shown administering the chokehold. The city’s medical examiner ruled Garner’s death a homicide, caused by the chokehold and chest compression.

Chokeholds have been banned from use in the New York City Police Department for more than two decades.

“We Will Not Go Back, March for Justice” was the theme of the Staten Island event. Placards, banners and chants made clear that Garner’s death was not an isolated event, but part of a shameful pattern that has claimed the lives particularly of young men of color across the nation.

Marchers referenced past victims

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Justice

“ Police need to be held accountable. No one is above the law.”

of police killings such as Bronx residents Amadou Diallo, a Guinean immigrant, and Anthony Baez, both of whom were killed outside their homes.

Many marchers focused on the case of Michael Brown, the unarmed 18-yearold Black youth who was killed Aug. 9 in Ferguson, Missouri, by white police officer Darren Wilson. Community protests of the killing met with brutal police repression.

“Justice for Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Ramarley Graham and many others,” read the placards carried by many 1199ers. Graham, who was killed in his Bronx home in 2012 by police, is the son of 1199er Constance Malcolm, a rally speaker who called for a U.S. Justice Department investigation of the Garner killing.

Marchers of various ages and ethnicities and from labor, social justice and the faith-based community gathered outside Tompkinsville Park near the site of the Garner killing.

They proceeded past the office of the

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Richmond County district attorney, Daniel Donovan, who has promised to bring the case before a grand jury.

During the march, many held their hand in the air and shouted, “Hands Up. Don’t Shoot,” in solidarity with Michael Brown and the marchers in Ferguson.

Many chanted “I can’t breathe!” referring to the 11 times Eric Garner said those words as he was pinned to the pavement and choked to his death by the officers.

Finally, the thousands of marchers gathered just past the 120th Precinct where the rally was held on a stage from which a large 1199SEIU banner read, “We Care for New York.” Chants and applause of approval in response to the speeches reverberated for blocks.

For some the speeches were a painful reminder of their own grief and heartache. “I’ve been going to demonstrations like these since my son was murdered in 1996,” said Brenda McWhirter, a Lenox Hill Hospital secretary, who boarded the Staten Island ferry in Lower Manhattan to the march.

September/October 2014 • Our Life And Times

“I go to the demonstrations because I want to do my part to stop the killing of our young men,” she stressed. “My son, Keith Hill was just 26. He had never been in trouble, never arrested or jailed.

He was married with four children at the time. The youngest was six weeks old. Keith’s wife was a New York City police officer.

“In January of 1996, Keith decided to visit my youngest son, John, who was a student at Norfolk State in Virginia.

Keith never made it out of Maryland. He was stopped by Maryland state troopers and shot three times under the arm.

The trooper who shot him was never prosecuted. I was devastated.”

McWhirter has turned her pain and sorrow into action to help prevent similar killings. “I try to attend all the demonstrations that I can. I marched for Sean Bell, whose mother is also an 1199er and I got arrested protesting the murder of Amadou Diallo.”

McWhirter made it a point at the rally to seek out Kadiatou Diallo, Amadou’s mother. “Police need to be held accountable,” McWhirter said. “No one is above the law.”

Every speaker echoed McWhirter.

“We are not anti-police. We are anti-police crimes,” declared 1199SEIU Pres. George Gresham, one of the rally speakers.

“We cannot be Dr. King’s favorite union and not raise our voice against injustice,” Gresham proclaimed to thunderous applause. He reminded the marchers that both Ramarley Graham and Sean Bell, who was killed by police in Queens in 2006, were children of 1199SEIU mothers.

United Federation of Teachers Pres.

Michael Mulgrew and National Action Network Pres. Al Sharpton also drew sharp distinctions between being antipolice and anti-crime. “Most police do their jobs, but those who break the law must be held accountable, just like anyone else,” said Rev. Sharpton. “The only way to protect good apples is to take the rotten apples out.”

Retired police detective Carlton Berkeley, who was joined on stage by fellow retired officers, also called for the Officer Pantaleo and the other officers involved to be held accountable.

Former NY State Gov. David Paterson briefly traced the history of police brutality in New York City, mentioning the unprovoked 1934 police pistol whipping of his dad, the late Basil Paterson, who was a close friend and legal counsel of the Union.

Esaw Gardner, Eric Gardner’s widow, wiped away tears as she approached the stage microphone with family members. Gardner was the father of six. Mrs. Gardner as did Gardner’s mother, Gwen Carr, called for continued calm as well as a federal investigation of their loved one’s killing.

The spirited march and rally concluded without incident, belying predictions of violence and vandalism.

The NYPD announced in September that it would institute reforms to address abuse. The city council of Ferguson also in September announced that it would establish a civilian review board and institute court reform.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, the father of two teenagers of color, did not attend the march but said on the following day, “We have a lot of work to do, a lot of history to address, but I know we can get there. I know we can bring police and community together.”

Speakers and marchers often talked about defending the next generation. Shelton Thompson, a habilitation counselor and delegate at Cerebral Palsy in New York, stood behind an 1199SEIU banner with Aidan, her 10-year-old son. “I tell my son that he has to be vigilant and careful, and that he should walk with is head high,” Thompson said, adding, “brutality has to stop.”

It is for mothers like Thompson that Brenda McWhirter said she marches. “I’ve not only lost my son, I’ve also lost a daughter to cancer and a 14-month-old little girl,” she noted. But she draws strength from her Union, she said, stressing her joy at belonging to a union that through its participation in such protests helps her honor the memory of her son.

“Seeing all the members and the banners at the march made me so proud. I don’t think there is another union like 1199.”

CORIZON HEALTH WORKERS ON RIKERS ISLAND

The Work We Do

Corizon Healthcare, Inc. contracts with the City of New York to provide healthcare services in the Correctional Facility on Rikers Island in the Bronx.

1199SEIU represents over 200 healthcare workers in the prison’s clinics, pharmacies, and other medical facilities.

New York City’s Department of Corrections has recently come under fire for fostering a culture of violence among its guards and abdicating all responsibility for those in its care. In this edition of The Work We Do, Corizon members discuss the challenges of providing care to detainees on Rikers Island.

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5 1. Gwendolyn Watson Physician Assistant, and delegate, since 2006: We have a lot of people who don’t belong in jail. They belong in hospitals where they can get treatment for mental illness. We need to open up more hospitals that can treat people with these conditions. A lot of our people are here for minor things — trespassing or sleeping in public—and then they get in the system and they have a problem and they do things to escalate their time.

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2. Gina Willis Brooklyn House of Detention, Medical Records/Mental Health Clerk (Transferred from Rikers Women’s House to Brooklyn in 2013), 18 years: One of the reasons I had to get off of the Island was that I was starting to feel incarcerated. I don’t even know how to explain it.

Before you even get on the clock, you’re hostile. When I worked in a nursing home I felt different. I just made 18 years; not being able to walk outside, or go get a cup of coffee—I can tell you it definitely takes a toll on you.

September/October 2014 • Our Life And Times

3. Eric Yates Patient Care Associate, 10 years: It’s a hospital in a jail. It’s sick people and you have to help them and that’s it. My job as a PCA is a lot of work; it’s PCA work and nursing assistant, so it’s a lot of caretaking.

Where I work our patients are pretty sick, sometimes they’re hurt pretty bad—they come in with broken legs or things like that and require a lot of care.

4. Chandra Chakraverty Pharmacy Specialist, 25 years: Security is an issue nowadays. I wasn’t always like this. This started last year. It’s a little scary for everybody. When we talk to the inmates they say it’s not about us. I feel great taking care of our patients. I have no problem with them. We’re just stuck in between the patients and the Department of Corrections, and we have to handle that, which is hard sometimes.

6 5. Sharon Hunt Pharmacy Tech, 22 years: From day to day we deal with each and every kind of individual in our healthcare system: from people with severe medical conditions to others with very serious mental illnesses. We treat women, who often require a special kind of empathy for their health issues. We treat adolescents. We even treat disabled and elderly patients.

On Rikers we see patients from every walk of life.

6. Everton Jackson Pharmacy Tech, 36 years: There are a lot of mental health issues coming to the forefront that aren’t being addressed by the city and the state. People aren’t equipped to handle it. The Department of Corrections and Corizon need to hire more people.

We don’t have enough counselors or infrastructure to properly effect what people are doing. I try not to judge patients. I’m there to provide a service and I go in and do my best every day.

Environment

180 Number of restrictive voting measures introduced in 41 states between 2011 and the 2012 election

1199ers march in world’s largest demonstration against climate change at the Sept. 21 People’s Climate March.

There Is No Planet B

Over 400,000 marched in NYC on Sept. 21 at the People’s Climate March.

Over 1,000 1199SEIU members were among them. It was the largest environmental justice demonstration in history.

More than 400,000 people marched through the streets of New York City on Sept. 21 in the largest demonstration against climate change the world has ever seen. Among them was a contingent of purple-clad 1199SEIU members, who marched not just as Union members and healthcare workers, but as parents, grandparents and as residents of neighborhoods affected by pollution, industry and environmental disasters like Hurricane Sandy.

“The planet is our lives. We need a clean earth, clean water and clean air. I have children and grandchildren.

They need a safe world to live in.

I want a healthy planet for all the future generations,” said Raymond Outerbridge, a dietary worker at Michael Malotz Nursing Home in Yonkers, NY. “I work on a vent floor. A lot of the illnesses I see are environmental. We need cleaner air so we don’t continue to have these kinds of problems in our communities.”

1199SEIU joined hundreds if not thousands of contingents from around the country and around the world. Members, who came from across New York and from as far away as Baltimore and Washington, D.C., carried signs that read “Green Jobs=A Healthy Planet” and “Climate change is a healthcare crisis.” Members’ children carried one of the Union banners – a reminder of just what’s at stake if the effects of climate change aren’t reversed.

and services, healthcare, technical and academic. Resident physicians, represented by SEIU’s Committee of Interns and Residents wore fresh white coats and scores of nurses represented by the New York State Nurses Association donned brightly colored red scrubs. Leaders reminded the City that climate change is matter of environmental, economic and social justice for all working people.

1199SEIU Pres. George Gresham spoke at pre-march labor rally and he was joined on stage by Myrtle Williams, a CNA Far Rockaway Nursing Home in Far Rockaway, Queens. Williams shared her experience of Superstorm Sandy and the blizzard that followed not long after.

In an appropriate lead-in to the following week’s summit on climate change at the United Nations, demonstrators represented every political, cultural, spiritual, and familial stripe; even a couple of different species could be seen marching. The event felt more like a festival at times. As the massive, colorful column wended southward down the island of Manhattan, handmade creatures occasionally rose up above the parade or enormous nylon birds took flight on wires. Marchers hoisted a garden of gigantic, sunny flowers.

Every kind of music filled the air, as innumerable bands played and marchers and spectators danced. It was clearly the People’s March.

In the labor contingent, scores of unions were represented: trades

Diane Cantave, a pharmacy tech at Rite Aid #10611 in Albertson, NY, marched with her children Rachel, 10 and Glenn, 20. Glenn is a student at Wesleyan University who was also a field organizer for the March. Cantave, who grew up in Manchester, England, expressed pride in her son’s dedication to the vital work and the immense turnout at the March.

“America is finally getting it.

People have finally realized that we have to make a stand on this issue. We have to turn out in record numbers to be heard and to wake people up.

It’s fantastic,” she said. “Look around.

The majority of these people are working class people. If they aren’t coming from work, they have to work tomorrow. We have finally put our voices together around this issue and this proves it.”

“The Rockaways was hit very hard. Our nursing home was hit as hard. We had never seen anything like it. The nursing home lost power. My coworkers and I had to remained behind to make sure that every resident was cared for and had a sense of security and a sense of safety,” said Williams.

“Today I’m very glad that 1199 leads the march in representing climate change,” Williams continued. “It’s important that everyone wake up and understand that what happened yesterday can happen tomorrow. The way to stop this is to get involved. Everyone—no matter how rich, poor or standard— we’re all affected.”

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The Last Word: GREEN Jacqueline Patterson, director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Initiative, discusses climate change as civil rights issue, its disastrous effects on women of color, and why we need to examine closely the language we use when talking about solutions to the problem, like “green” and “clean.” Patterson has served as director of the NAACP’s Climate Justice Program since 2007. Before that she was an activist, advocate, researcher and director of numerous programs dedicated to the intersection women’s rights, racial justice, climate change, and macroeconomics. She is the author of numerous scholarly articles and journals and serves on the advisory boards of several national and international organizations dedicated to the causes of environmental justice and climate change education.

What do you mean when you say climate change is a civil rights issue?

Both the drivers and the results of climate change have a disparate impact on certain population groups including communities of color, indigenous communities, low-income communities, aging persons, children, women, differently abled people, etc.

Therefore, by definition, these groups are not receiving equal protection under the law, which is the measure for civil rights violations.

The NAACP and 1199SEIU were among the hundreds of unions, social justice movements and human rights organizations that endorsed the People’s Climate March. Why is it important for the labor and social justice partner with the environmental movement?

All of these struggles are interconnected. The issues are interlinked so advancements or setbacks in one area, affects the others. For example, climate change results in job loss, particularly to the most vulnerable. Also, effective climate change solutions, including both job creation in many arenas and job losses in others, particularly fossil fuel related areas. Therefore, in order to advance a justice based transition that uplifts all rights and all needs, we must link arms in designing and implementing solutions.

It’s indisputable that climate change disproportionately effects communities of color in both urban and rural settings.

What does this mean for these regions and the health of the people who live in them?

Examples include 1) coal plants, which are disproportionately in communities of color and also are the number one contributor to carbon dioxide emissions and also exacerbate myriad health conditions from heart disease to asthma, to birth defects, to attention deficit disorder and more; 2) extreme weather which strikes politically, socially, and economically vulnerable communities hardest through pre-existing situations such as poor infrastructure, and through less allocation of resources in disaster aftermath; 3) shifts in agricultural yield which particularly affect rural farmers, and black farmers especially who tend not to have the same level of resources to cushion their businesses from impacts.

You’ve written extensively about disastrous effects of climate change on women of color. What 15

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does this mean for women, children, families and even for our economy?

Women, particularly those with preexisting vulnerabilities that assail communities of color, face differential challenges from impacts of pollution on their reproductive systems due to the fact that women experience spikes in domestic violence and sexual violence in the aftermath of disasters. Additionally, though least responsible for climate change and more likely to engage in sustainable practices, women are grossly underrepresented in the energy sector and in leadership and decision making around issues related to climate change.

Not only do the life challenges affect a woman’s ability to parent optimally, but the democracy issues deprive the nation of the talents women offer differentially that can steward a just and ecologically sound transition.

We’re not just seeing this racial divide in the U.S. How are these issues played out on a global scale?

Climate change affects countries in the global south first and worst even though they, like most impacted communities in the US, are least responsible for the emissions that drive climate change. Also, the pattern of disenfranchisement from decisionmaking around all policy making and more so the political decisions around designing and implementing mitigation of climate change, is similar.

Countries in the global south as well as communities of color and low income communities are being excluded from discussions and decision making which is dominated by monied interests, most prominently the fossil fuel industry and big agriculture.

“Green” and “clean” are often used in conjunction with reducing emissions and reversing climate change. What are some of the problems with this language?

How can we think about it in a different way?

Because of the co-opting of this language, we have situations where coal can be labeled “clean” and “natural gas” can be labeled “green.” The problem isn’t so much with the terms of themselves as much as with how they are often too broadly defined. We need to take a hard line to ensure that proposed “solutions” including “clean coal,” “natural gas,” nuclear, biofuels, biomass etc., undergo rigid analysis to examine all sides of the impact of adopting these technologies/practices, including impacts on our ecosystem

and the human and civil rights of the people who dwell within it.

What can people do to make changes in their own communities? How’s the NAACP Climate Justice Initiative helping?

People can start educating and raising awareness by holding community forums with special speakers, holding film screenings, doing educational activities in the schools, etc. People can insert ecological/environmental/ climate justice principles, policies and practices into the agenda of the groups of which they are already a part, whether it’s civic associations, sororities/fraternities, churches, professional associations, parent-teacher groups, etc. Furthermore, people can start with actions in their households like recycling, saving energy, carpooling, and then advance to community level actions such as organizing community gardens, organizing transportation collectives, spearheading community owned solar/recycling, ensuring that there is an equity-based climate action plan, etc. An essential action all should take is that people must vote and hold the folks they put into office accountable so the interests of their communities are represented in decision making by elected officials.

The NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Initiative is engaging in two main areas: Advancing a justice-based energy agenda which transitions from fossil fuel-based energy production to energy efficiency and clean energy based on foundational principles, policies, and practices of energy democracy. This work includes working with our state conferences, branches and chapters on closing coal plants while stewarding a just transition for workers, protection and defense of the Clean Air Act, gaining commitments for strong emission targets as part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, establishing city/municipality-based clean air ordinances/resolutions, as well as passage of energy efficiency and clean energy policies, and establishment of demonstration projects in community owned solar. Advancing equity-based models of adaptation and resilience includes working with our state conferences, branches and chapters on establishing pilot ecodistrict sites, as well as working with communities on other resilience/adaptation projects including justice-based emergency management, community-owned recycling, local food projects, local transportation equity initiatives, storm water management, etc.

THE BACK PAGE

Lockout at Alaris Health Hundreds of 1199SEIU members held a rally Sept. 17 in support of 450 workers at four New Jersey nursing facilities owned

by Alaris Health who have been without a contract for six months. Alaris workers were in the midst of a series of three-day strikes that began Sept. 16 and ended Sept. 19. After the strikes, Alaris Health illegally locked out 26 workers when they tried to return to work. See page 8.

Photo by Jim Tynan