Our Life & Times by 1199SEIU

A JOURNAL OF 1199SEIU September/October 2009

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ROAD

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TRAVELED Mrs. Coretta Scott King prays with workers during the historic 1969 hospital strike in Charleston, S.C. That strike was the springboard for the Union’s growth into a National Hospital Union. See pg. 10.

OUR UNION

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OUR BUILDING BLOCKS We’ve remained true to our principles. PRESIDENT’S COLUMN Members’ dedication is our cornerstone. POLITICS IS KEY COMPONENT OF OUR WORK It’s how we fight for justice. WINNING THE RIGHT TO COLLECTIVE BARGAINING Our biggest victory. THE WORK WE DO Our professional and technical workers. HOW WE BECAME A NATIONAL UNION Charleston strike was watershed moment. WE JOIN THE PURPLE ARMY SEIU affiliation multiplies our influence. HOME CARE IS OUR NEXT FRONTIER Echoes early hospital organizing campaign. WE REMEMBER SEN. TED KENNEDY He was one of our greatest friends. AROUND OUR UNION Our pharmacy workers carry the torch of our founders.

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Our Life And Times, September/October 2009, Vol 27, No. 4 Published by 1199SEIU, United Healthcare Workers East 310 West 43rd St. New York, NY 10036 Telephone (212) 582-1890 www.1199seiu.org PRES I DE NT :

George Gresham

E DITOR : J.J. Johnson STAFF WRITE R : Patricia Kenney PHOTOG RAPH E R :

Jim Tynan PHOTOG RAPHY ASS ISTANT :

Belinda Gallegos ART DI RECTION & DES IG N :

Maiarelli Studio COVE R PHOTO : 1199SEIU Archive

S EC RETARY TREASURE R :

Maria Castaneda EXEC UTIVE VIC E PRES I DE NTS :

Norma Amsterdam Yvonne Armstrong Angela Doyle Mike Fadel Aida Garcia George Kennedy Steve Kramer Patrick Lindsay Joyce Neil John Reid Bruce Richard Mike Rifkin Neva Shillingford Milly Silva Estela Vazquez

Rehabilitation Therapists at Interfaith Hospital in Brooklyn, NY

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Our Life And Times is published 6 times a year by 1199SEIU, 310 West 43rd St., New York, NY 10036. Subscriptions $15 per year. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and additional mailing offices. ISSN 1080-3089. USPS 000-392. Postmaster: Send address changes to Our Life And Times, 310 West 43rd St., New York, NY 10036.

Top, at far left, artist-activist Ossie Davis, at 1965 rally for Lawrence Hospital workers in Bronxville, N.Y. 1199 Pres. Leon Davis in glasses and black coat is in front of Davis. Bottom, painting that hangs in 1199SEIU Manhattan headquarters depicts early Organizing Director Elliot Godoff (left) at a union meeting.

Heirs to a Proud Tradition 1199SEIU continues on the path forged by its founders. hough signs of improvement are on the horizon, our country has yet to emerge from its severe financial crisis. The August unemployment figures, for example, indicate that President Obama’s economic recovery plan is having some effect, but they also underscore the urgent need to devote more government effort to job creation and to those most acutely affected by the crisis. If we include in the jobless figures the discouraged who have given up looking for work, people working part-time because they can’t find full-time work, involuntary stay-athome parents, forced retirees and recent graduates, the jobless rate doubles. And the crisis is not just of the unemployed. None of us are spared. It affects our communities, workplaces and organizing campaigns. Its cloud hung over our recent marathon contract negotiations in New York with the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes. That we were able to reach a settlement that preserved all our benefits is testimony to our strength and unity. Overcoming formidable obstacles is not new to 1199SEIU. On the contrary, it summarizes our history. Founded as a drugstore union in 1932, 1199 had just 5,000 members when it launched its crusade to organize the then forgotten hospital workers half a century ago.

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“A lot of people thought that our ‘crack of dawn brigades’ were a waste of time,” says John Perkins, president of the 1199SEIU Retired Members Division. Perkins is one of the surviving drugstore members who half a century ago arose early in the morning to leaflet hospital workers in the initial organizing campaign, before going to their jobs in the drugstores. “We’ve had lots of ups and downs since then,” Perkins says, “but we’ve managed to maintain our organization and unity.” That organization and unity has swelled our ranks to 350,000 active and retired members throughout New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland and Washington, D.C. How has 1199SEIU managed to continue its impressive growth and win wages and benefits unmatched in the healthcare industry while it tirelessly campaigns for social and economic justice? he progressive, idealistic founders of our Union understood that organizing at the workplace had to be supplemented by organizing within the communities and against the moneyed interests. The 1959 strike that won unionization could not have succeeded without broad and deep alliances. At the time of the strike, for example, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a three-year relationship with 1199 that

We face major challenges, but our record confirms that there are none we cannot overcome. began with the Union’s support for the 1956 Montgomery bus boycott. his issue of Our Life And Times describes the major initiatives and campaigns that created today’s 1199SEIU. It documents how our leaders never viewed our victories solely as ends in themselves, but as building blocks to greater gains for our members, communities and nation. The issue describes how time and again we overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to transform the lives of our members and their families. This period is perhaps the most difficult in our Union’s history. But our history inspires and informs us. We face major challenges, but our record confirms that there are none we cannot overcome.

POLITICAL ACTION

THE PRESIDENT’S COLUMN George Gresham

Our Union’s Cornerstone Is Our Members’ Dedication This issue of Our Life And Times is devoted to the “building blocks” that have made 1199SEIU the special organization we have become. In this, our 50th anniversary year as a healthcare union, it is appropriate that we revisit the road that we’ve traveled. It is a story worth telling—and repeating: how we grew from a 5,000-member New York City drugstore union in 1959 to a 350,000-member multi-state union that today represents every sector of the healthcare industry. While much of the labor movement is shrinking, we continue to grow. In fact, we are the largest union local in the world—and we’re not done yet. The magazine you are holding in your hands—and every issue of Our Life And Times—tells you all you need to know about our Union. It is about the members. Of course we are very proud of our hardworking, dedicated staff. And our officers are as good as they come. But 1199SEIU is, in the first place, about our members. (Actually, with few exceptions, our organizing staff and officers rose to their positions from rank-and-file members.) Our employers, the news media, and our elected officials often talk about us as a political powerhouse. But if we are so, it is because our members are motivated, committed, mobilized and organized. Of course it is impressive when we turn out 10,000 members to Get Out the Vote on Election Day, or put 40,000 members in the streets to demand fairness for our families and our patients, or when 150,000-plus members contribute every month to our Martin Luther King, Jr. Political Action Fund. But too often it goes unrecognized that these are voluntary efforts by our members. Nobody is paid to demonstrate or to work on Election Day. Incidentally, our Political Action Fund has 150,000 members —more than any other union, including the international unions, in our country. Our members mobilize in such great numbers because we share a social vision of a more just country and world where people—especially those of us who do the work—come first. This was, as it happens, Dr. King’s “dream” and why 1199 was his favorite union. For our entire history, our mission has been about protecting our families, our patients, and our jobs. But 1199 and now 1199SEIU have also been about human solidarity—about coming to the aid of victims of oppression, about building partnerships with our neighbors in our communities, about marching alongside our union and non-union sisters and brothers on behalf of civil rights and workers rights. Nor does solidarity for 1199SEIU stop at our borders. Our solidarity extends to workers worldwide who struggle for a more just life—whether in Ireland or Iraq, Haiti or Honduras. Toward the end of this year, we will formally celebrate the 50 years since a small union primarily made up of Jewish men set out to organize New York’s massive hospital industry, whose work force was primarily African-American and Latina women. The principles and dedication that were forged five decades ago continue to this day, with the merger of some 17 locals into 1199 to form 1199SEIU, fighting as one for justice for healthcare workers. You can see it every day: thousands of New York Cityarea hospital workers “walking in on the boss” this summer to save our benefits for our future; dedicated new organizers working 24/7 to grow our Union and give tens of thousands of new workers a voice on their jobs; homecare, nursing home and hospital workers taking weeks and even months off from their jobs to go to other states to work for change that we need. Those of us who work every day on behalf of the sisters and brothers of 1199SEIU could not be prouder. Happy 50th Anniversary to all of us.

Letters CAPITALIZE ‘BLACK’ m an active member of 1199SEIU and extremely proud to be recognized as a member. I received a copy of the 50th Anniversary edition of Our Life And Times and I found the history of the Union to be a source of inspiration relative to the struggle of its founders and the development of 1199. I was disturbed by how the word Black was referenced along with Jewish and Hispanic cultures. The word Black was spelled with a lowercase B as opposed to the uppercase letters used to spell the names of other ethnic groups. Blacks in your article refers to a cultural group and not a color of the spectrum. May I suggest that you start using a capital B when you refer to Black culture? Or use AfricanAmerican. Avoid being perceived as being racist like the New York Post or the Daily News, both of whom always refer to Black culture with a lowercase b. I still applaud the brilliant achievements of 1199SEIU in becoming one of the strongest unions in the nation. My opinion is strictly my own and I just felt a need to express my concerns regarding this subject.

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Robert Morris St. John’s Riverside Hospital, Yonkers, N.Y.

Editor’s note: In most cases of style, we defer to journalism stylebooks such as those of the AP and the Service Employees International Union, which use a lowercase b when referring to Americans of African descent. We remain open, however, to revisiting the issue. CALL TO YOUNG MEMBERS uring the recent League contract negotiations, I noticed that few Negotiating Committee members were young. Our future leaders were absent. That indicates to me that

we’re not doing enough to involve them and to get them to appreciate our glorious history. Our younger members need to understand that our great benefits and strength at the workplace did not come easy. Nothing was given to us. At one time, we, the employees, weren’t treated any better than toilet paper. It was our leaders, including many young leaders, who changed that. In my period, I can speak of Dennis Rivera, our former president who led us to many victories. His leadership began while he was a young man. Mr. Rivera passed the torch to George Gresham, who led us during negotiations and is now the president of the most powerful union in the country. These leaders and others who came before them improved conditions for all 1199ers. But they did much more. They improved conditions for all Americans. Going way back to the 1930s, our Union worked with social pioneers to change the conditions for all working people. Names like Paul Robeson, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are among the leaders we worked with. Many of our young members came forward to help elect the 44th president of our United States – Barack Obama. But the struggle doesn’t stop there. We ask our future leaders to take that energy and enthusiasm to make sure that the activists and leaders of our Union are continually replenished. Not only are the other members depending on you. The whole movement for equality and justice depends on 1199SEIU. The voices of our predecessors are calling you to join us. TYRONE WILLIAMS Isabella Geriatric Center, Manhattan

Let’s Hear From You Our Life And Times welcomes your letters. Please email them to jamesj@1199.org or snail mail them to J.J. Johnson, 1199SEIU OLAT, 330 West 42nd St., 7th floor, New York, NY 10036. Please include your telephone number and place of work. Letters may be edited for brevity and clarity.

Member Tyrone Williams wrote to urge young 1199ers to become Union leaders.

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POLITICS IS KEY COMPONENT OF OUR SUCCESS It is how we fight for social and economic justice.

1199’s founders understood that victories at the bargaining table could be negated by actions in legislative chambers. So political action joined bargaining and organizing as the three key components of the Union’s work. Today 1199SEIU is one of the nation’s strongest and most effective political forces. In the past half century, 1963 was perhaps the most important juncture in 1199’s political history. That was when, after a campaign of strikes and lobbying, New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller signed a bill giving collective bargaining rights to New York City hospital workers. Later campaigns, most notably at Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville, N.Y., won extension of bargaining rights to New York State hospital workers. As 1199 grew in size and influence, it became a leading political force in New York State for funding and legislation for workers and their families. It lead the campaigns to win healthcare coverage for millions of New Yorkers by championing bills such as the Health Care Reform Act and Family Health Plus. Its campaigns have saved billions of Medicaid dollars from the New York State budget axes. Massachusetts members were instrumental in passing healthcare insurance legislation that has brought the level of insured individuals in the state above 97 percent, the highest in the nation. Maryland members in 2006 were among the leaders of a coalition that won passage of the first bill in the nation that required a corporation with at least 20,000 workers to contribute a minimum of eight percent of its payroll to its employees’ health benefits. The measure was later overturned on appeal. The 1199SEIU Martin Luther King, Jr. Political Action Fund has been crucial to the Union’s political success. More than half the Union’s members contribute each month, making the Fund the largest in the nation. Through the judicious use of those funds, broad alliances and mass mobilization of its members, 1199SEIU has helped many pro-worker candidates, including underdogs, win important local and national elections. And in recent years, it

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has elected some of its own members to office. New York City Council members Anabel Palma and Melissa MarkViverito are former 1199ers. 1199SEIU Vice Pres. Celia Wisclow, is an appointed member of the Massachusetts Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector, an independent state agency that guides implementation of the state’s universal healthcare law and that helps residents find healthcare coverage. Maryland-D.C. 1199SEIU staffer Veronica Turner is a member of Maryland’s House of Delegates and chairwoman of the Maryland General Assembly’s Legislative Black Caucus. Pres. Barack Obama’s political director, Patrick Gaspard, is a former 1199SEIU executive vice president for politics and legislation. Dennis Rivera, 1199SEIU’s president from 1989 to 2007, in his capacity as chair of SEIU Health Care, is credited with leading the organizing campaign and holding together the coalition for national healthcare reform. His work has been documented in recent articles in The New York Times and Crain’s Business Report. The articles mentioned the army of SEIU members who are working in key states to help build Congressional support for healthcare reform. “I’ve been doing door-todoor canvassing since April in Baton Rouge (Louisiana) to convince voters to contact Sen. Mary Landrieu to urge her to support Pres. Obama’s initiative,” says Kenya Knight, an 1199SEIU

member political organizer and a rehab aide at Parker Jewish Geriatric in New Hyde Park, N.Y. “I’m doing this for the present, but also for my children’s future,” Knight says. Knight is one of dozens of 1199ers doing such work in key states across the nation. They continue 1199’s long history of political activism.

Today 1199SEIU is one of the nation’s strongest and most effective political forces. New York City Council members Melissa Mark Viverito (top) and Anabel Palma are former 1199SEIU members.

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Members at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan conduct their League contract ratification vote.

Members Overwhelmingly Approve League Contract

HOW WE WON THE RIGHT TO BARGAIN COLLECTIVELY “It was our ticket out of poverty.” he 46-day strike in 1959 established 1199 as New York’s voluntary hospital union and won significant gains for workers at seven hospitals. The agreement that ended the strike included a 40-hour workweek, a minimum wage of $1 an hour, time-and-a-half for overtime, and rules for seniority and job grades. But it did not include union recognition. Instead it included the establishment of an arbitration panel, the Permanent Administrative Committee, consisting of six management and six public representatives – none of whom had any connection to the labor movement. Then-Pres. Leon Davis urged the members to accept what he termed “backdoor recognition,” adding, “We’ll be in the front door before long.” 1199ers made it through the front door in 1963. It took a strike by members at Beth El (now Brookdale) and Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat hospitals and 30 days in jail for Davis for refusing to call off the strike, before Gov. Nelson Rockefeller intervened. In the spring of 1963, Gov. Rockefeller signed into law the bill granting collective bargaining rights to New York City hospital workers. Those early victories were won by gaining the support of key allies. From its inception, for example, 1199 had allied itself with the civil rights movement. In 1937, it launched a successful campaign to secure jobs for black pharmacists and to promote porters to the higher position of “sodamen.” In 1949, the Union created a fair employment committee, and in 1950 it observed the first of its annual “Negro History Week” celebrations. In 1956, it collected funds in support of the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott, thereby developing a friendship with the boycott leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And on Aug. 28, 1963, the Union chartered a train to transport more than 1,000 members to the civil rights March on Washington. So when, in 1965, Union leaders called on

its allies in the civil rights movement to assist with the organizing of Lawrence Hospital in suburban Bronxville, our allies did not hesitate. The late Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee often joined the workers during the hard-fought 55-day strike. On the eve of a planned civil rights march in Bronxville, N.Y., management agreed to hold an election. The Lawrence elections was not held, but a month following the strike, in 1965, Gov. Rockefeller signed a provision of the 1963 collective bargaining law extending bargaining rights to hospital workers throughout the state. 1199 reached its next collective bargaining milestone when in 1968 it announced via full-page newspaper ads “that starting midnight, June 30, when our contracts expire, we will no longer work unless we win a minimum wage of $100 a week.” Many argued that this was tough talk from workers who for the most part were earning about $32 a week nine years earlier. Not only did the members win the $100-aweek minimum a year into the contract, they also won for the first time employer-financed pensions and job training and upgrading funds. The victory also served as the springboard for another important stage in 1199’s history, the formation of a national union. n doing so, Local 1199 committed itself to a campaign that married union power with soul power. It formed a national organizing committee with Coretta Scott King as its honorary chair. 1199 met with much success in its national organizing campaign. As have other unions, it found that the South was not quite ready for unions of any bent. While the Union was winning members and negotiating contracts from New England to as far away as Washington State, New York 1199ers built on its victories even during the New York fiscal crisis in the 1970s. But following Leon Davis’s retirement in 1981, internal divisions within the union

Not only did the members win the $100-a-week minimum a year into the contract, they also won for the first time employer-financed pensions and job training and upgrading funds.

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severely limited its gains. A failed six-week strike and tampering with the Union’s district leadership election in 1984 were perhaps the low point of the troubled period. But the end of the decade saw 1199 rise from the ashes. Newly-elected Pres. Dennis Rivera and the “Save Our Union” slate that had recaptured leadership of the Union ushered in a era in which 1199 would achieve unprecedented growth and political influence. In 1989 after winning a hefty 42 percent wage increase for its very low-paid homecare members and while leading the campaign for the New York City’s first African American mayor, David Dinkins, the Union waged a six-month campaign to win a 24 percent raise for 50,000 members in a three-year League contract. Newspaper headlines announced the rebirth of 1199. Since then, the Union has employed selective work stoppages, pickets, lobbying and, as always, mass mobilizations to win groundbreaking settlements in and beyond its New York City base. fter year-long negotiations, 25,000 Massachusetts Personal Care Attendants voted by mail ballot last November to approve their first collective-bargaining agreement. It includes wage increases form $10.84 to $12.48 per hour and increased benefits, including health insurance for the first time. At press time, 1199SEIU was mobilizing union-wide support for 350 caregivers at four Omni Corporation New Jersey nursing homes whose owner fired members who struck for three days in August for a fair contract. Last year union-wide support secured victory for Kingsbridge NH workers in the Bronx who struck for six months to force the home owner to abide by the contract. As usual, the victory was won by unity, organization and mass mobilizations.

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Union founder Leon Davis confronted police countless times during hospital organizing campaigns.

Voting at their institutions, New York Cityarea members in August overwhelmingly approved the extension of their collective bargaining agreement with the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes. Some 29,503 League members – 40 percent of the membership – voted 27,430 to 1,529 to approve the contract extension. Some The Union and the League re-opened the 544 ballots were either collective bargaining challenged or voided. agreement to address The Union and the the challenge to the League re-opened the members’ pensions collective bargaining and benefits resulting agreement to address the from the economic challenge to the members’ downturn. pensions and benefits resulting from the economic downturn. Negotiations dragged on for almost two months with negotiating committee members keeping their co-workers informed and taking part in walk-ins at their institutions to press their settlement demands. In the end, pension, health and other benefits were preserved by extending the contract to 2015 and diverting all of one and part of another raise during the life of the agreement. Negotiating committee member Dawn Rose, a senior patient account rep at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in Brooklyn, was a member of the small subcommittee elected by the larger negotiating committee. Rose, a single mother, says that she saves material from the Union, especially about 1199SEIU’s history, for her daughter. “I want her to understand the importance of what I do when I’m away from her,” Rose says. “Negotiating has been a challenging learning process that has taught me patience and the importance of solidarity.”

THE WORK WE DO

Our Professional & Technical Workers

n 1964, members of 1199 approved the creation of the Guild of Professional, Technical, Office, and Clerical Hospital Employees to address the unique concerns of 1199’s professional and technical workers such as pharmacists, registered nurses, respiratory therapists and research assistants. Today, 1199SEIU represents tens of thousands of skilled, educated, and trained professional and technical workers. They work in a wide variety of settings, including research facilities, operating rooms, and of course, at patients’ bedsides. New titles for these workers are being created regularly with health care’s rapid advance. Existing classifications are growing in complexity and demand increased levels of education and certification. The Guild no longer exists, but now the 1199SEIU Professional and Technical Dept. keeps focus on their issues, which include compensation, education and legislation and licensure. It also helps give these workers voices on how work is done in their challenging fields - proof that professionalism and unionism go hand-in-hand.

4 1. Rehabilitation Therapists at Interfaith Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y include dance, art, drama, and music therapists. Their clients, who are from a largely underserved area, include substance abusers, the elderly and the chronically mentally ill. The therapists participate in a weekly peer group where they share their practices and get some much-needed stress relief.

5 2. “I had been a dancer and a performance artist,” says dance therapist Linden Moogan, a senior psych rehabilitation therapist at Interfaith Hospital Brooklyn, N.Y. “I felt like I was just making art for my colleagues and I wanted to bring art to the community. Here I focus on groups. I provide safe and comfortable settings where people can have insights into themselves.”

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3. Physician Assistant Tom McIntyre works the night shift in vascular surgery at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. “With the night position it’s pretty much all peri-operative and post-operative care,” he says. “When I come in they’re pretty much done in the operating room, so I do the postoperative checks. I also have a lot of interaction with the families. They want to know what’s going on with their loved ones. In a way that’s the most rewarding part of the job.”

4. Surgical Tech Michael Tiepner preps an operating room at the Beth Israel Phillips Ambulatory Care Center for surgery. “Prior to this I worked for Land’s End [clothing company] and everything was life or death,” says Tiepner. “After a few years of selling khaki pants I just couldn’t take it anymore. I figured I’d do something that’s really about life or death.”

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7 5. “We do a lot of tactile and visual stimulation, getting people to hold things that are soft or rough,” says Art Therapist Karen Vaden, one of Interfaith Hospital’s rehabilitation therapists. “We also do murals. It gives people a sense of togetherness. They don’t feel so alone.” 6. “I’ve worked in various programs and on the floor as a nursing assistant and in the ER,” says Darrell Sadler, a surgical tech at the Beth Israel’s Phillips Ambulatory Pavilion in Manhattan. “But I really like working in the OR. It’s always something different.”

7. “The whole experience of seeing how they do stuff to the body, how it breaks and how they fix it is amazing,” says Fred Baretto, a surgical tech at Beth Israel’s Phillips Ambulatory Care Center, who started in 1199 as a nursing assistant at St. Luke’s Hospital in Manhattan. “A hundred years ago this was voodoo, it was witchcraft. Healing was all about potions.”

STRONGER TOGETHER

A NATIONAL UNION

OUR MERGERS AND AFFILIATIONS “We have a broader future to look forward to.”

Becoming A National Union The 1969 Charleston strike was a watershed moment.

n 1969 ten years after the historic 46day strike that won 1199 recognition at seven New York City hospitals, a group of 500 Charleston, S.C. service workers - mostly young, black women went on strike protesting the dismissal of 12 activists at the Medical College Hospital of the University of South Carolina and Charleston County Hospital. They called upon 1199 for help. In doing so they forever forged the link for 1199 between racial equality and workers’ rights. And as 1199’s first out-of-state charter, Local 1199B, they also laid the groundwork for the 15-year chapter of the Union’s history as a national healthcare union. “It was not an isolated case,” says Mary Moultrie, one of the Charleston strike’s leaders, who is today still a labor activist in Charleston and working to organize the city’s environmental service workers. “There were a lot of racial tensions between the nurses and the doctors and the aides. The aides were being asked to do things that were illegal and our pay was $1.30 an hour.” The Union had already formed a national organizing committee, with Mrs. Coretta Scott King as honorary charirperson. It took up the challenge of a strike in the Deep South and with it nationalized 1199’s message of “Union Power, Soul Power.” “She was essential,” says Moultrie of Mrs. King. “She kept people motivated. She so often spoke about the strength of the women.” “1199 and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference were there for our civil rights and our labor rights,” Moultrie continues. “Most of the time in any labor struggle your civil rights are being violated.”

Labor activist Marty Moultrie (in large photo top) was among the leaders of the 500 Charleston, S.C. hospital workers who held a historic strike in 1969. In smaller photo is Carmen Boudier, president of 1199 New England, who says 1199’s history is “one of the deepest and richest in the labor movement.”

The Union had already formed a national organizing committee, with Mrs. Coretta Scott King as honorary chairperson. It took up the challenge of a strike in the Deep South and with it nationalized 1199’s message of “Union Power, Soul Power.”

nfortunately, the 110-day strike did not win union recognition for the Charleston workers. Though they did get their jobs back, increased wages and a new sense of themselves, some of the Charleston workers’ gains were short lived. Management made difficult even the simplest terms of the strike settlement including dues check off and the grievance procedure. Outside support for the workers waned as the Union moved on to other issues. There were some hard lessons about regional organizing. Still, Charleston’s momentum made possible rapid organizing successes in Philadelphia by 1199C and Baltimore by

1199E. In less than a year 1199E represented more than 6,000 workers at six Baltimore hospitals, including Johns Hopkins. By 1974, the National Hospital Union counted 80,000 members in 14 states and the District of Columbia; 1199’s National Union represented workers in chartered locals in regions including Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Mexico, California, and Washington State. “Nationally we had a great opportunity,” says Carmen Boudier, president of 1199 New England. “Folks that didn’t have anything, they were out there doing [organizing]. They were in dead end jobs with no voice and no respect and the Union made a tremendous difference in their lives with these organizing drives across the country.” The Union was a force for change for workers at all levels, says Diane Sosne, president of Seattle’s 1199NW. “There wasn’t any other union with a vision of uniting healthcare workers,” says Sosne, a former RN who has been a member of that local since it left the Washington State Nurses Association in 1983 to join 1199. “The fact that it had an RN Division made us feel like they understood nursing issues. We felt they had a leadership that believed in progressive and social justice issues. They had nurses and women in positions of leadership. It was the right home for us.”

“1199ers are dedicated,” says June Bennett, a CNA at the Jewish Home and Hospital in the Bronx, N.Y. “Last year when we had the strike at Kingsbridge we came out in numbers and there was no turning back. When you call on 1199ers we come from all over the world.” While 1199SEIU may not be global, it is increasingly national, with 350,000 members in regions from Massachusetts to Maryland whose combined strength makes the Union the force it is today. The Union’s most recent growth spurt began in 1998 when 1199 took the bold step of affiliating with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The Union had previously been part of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) from which it disaffiliated in 1991. The decision to join SEIU made 1199 part of the nation’s largest and fastest growing union organizing health care workers. It also paved the way for mergers from Massachusetts to Maryland that created a new level of solidarity among healthcare workers in the northeastern United States. “If there is division and we are fighting among ourselves it de-

The years following 1199’s merger with SEIU saw a flurry of mergers and affiliations. In 1998, the 30,000 hospital and nursing home workers represented by New York City’s SEIU Local 144 voted to affiliate with 1199. In 1999, members voted to approve mergers with Long Island, N.Y’s 15,000-member SEIU District 1115 and with SEIU Local 32-BJ144, which represented some 22,500 homecare workers in New York, New Jersey and Florida. Local 1199 Upstate, now Health Systems 7, was also formed that year when 14,000 members of SEIU Locals 200A and the AFLCIO Hospital and Nursing Home Council in New York State voted to merge. 1199-Rochester was also part of that affiliation. In 2001 some 3,500 members from Local 200D in the Albany, N.Y area voted to join 1199. Several thousand LPN’s in Local 721 followed suit in 2004.

That expansion came with growing pains, but they were worth it, says Colleen Cozzolino, a dietary worker at Nathan Littauer Hospital in Gloversville, N.Y. “A lot of people were afraid to make a change. We had been 200D for so long,” says Cozzolino, a delegate who has been at Littauer for 35 years. “But when we got into 1199 we decided it was a good change. We were let in on things. Things were more open. And I started getting more involved. We saw all the support we had. We had large turnouts at our meetings.” After becoming the most powerful a statewide Union in New York, 1199SEIU in 2005 made the bold move of joining with newly merged Locals 1199 E-DC and 1998 to bring 9,000 Maryland and Washington, D.C.- area registered nurses and service workers into the Union. Some 12,000 hospital, nursing home, homecare and clinic workers from Massachusetts Locals 2020 and 9 would follow shortly thereafter. In 2006 nearly 1,200 more New York City workers would join 1199SEIU’s ranks when re-

Former Local 200D member Colleen Cozzolino, a dietary worker at Nathan Littauer Hospital in Gloversville, N.Y.

search technician and clerical workers represented by Local 698 at Columbia University Medical Center voted to merge with 1199. And finally, in 2008, some 7,000 nursing home and home care workers from 1199 New Jersey voted overwhelmingly to affiliate with 1199SEIU. Delegate Pam Honeyghan is a patient care technician from Maryland General Hospital in Baltimore who’s been an activist and Union member for 35 years. Honeyghan is among the hundreds of Maryland/D.C. members who regularly travel to other regions to support their 1199SEIU brothers and sisters in their struggles. “We were just 6,000 members at one time. We’re so much bigger now. We have thousands and thousands of members now, and we can take on bigger fights,” says Honeyghan. “And we have more people to back us up. New York members come down in busloads to help us and we have a broader future to look forward to.”

he uneasy relationship between 1199 and the National Hospital Union fell apart in 1984 over a multitude of issues including a proposed merger with SEIU. Some locals later voted to go into SEIU, others voted to go into AFSCME. Still, says Boudier, it was a historic time for workers that should be remembered. “To build the Union that way took work,” says Boudier, who started in 1969 as a nurse’s aide at St. Mary’s Home in West Hartford, Conn. “It took tons and tons of strikes. People weren’t just given contracts. Nothing came easily. People sacrificed to build the Union the way it is today.” “It’s one of the deepest and richest histories in the labor movement,” she says. “There are so many stories that can make you cry. Partnerships don’t mean that you can’t fight with each other.”

September/October • Our Life And Times

stroys the power we have in health care and our political power,” says Annie Bryant, a CNA at Regency Extended Care in Yonkers, N.Y. Bryant, an 1199SEIU Executive Council member, is a former District 1115 member.

“If there is division and we are fighting among ourselves, it destroys the power we have in health care and our political power,” says Annie Bryant (left), a CNA at Regency Extended Care in Yonkers, N.Y.

September/October • Our Life And Times

OUR MEMBERS

Home Care’s Battle Is Our Next Frontier Helping these workers echoes historic struggle of 50 years ago.

1199SEIU’s Homecare Division represents some 70,000 workers. It’s the Union’s largest and fastest growing division. Homecare workers have made enormous strides over the years, but like the hospital workers of 50 years ago, they’re still struggling to break barriers and build better lives for themselves and their families. “We know we have powerful voices,” says home attendant Beverley Gordon-Wells, a delegate and activist at New York City’s All Metro agency. “But at the same time we’re underdogs.” Most of 1199SEIU’s homecare members in New York are concentrated in New York City and its suburbs. The Union also represents homecare workers in Washington, D.C. and New Jersey as well as 25,000 personal care attendants in the Massachusetts Division who voted to unionize in a historic 2007 election. “When I first started this was really seen as a demeaning job. A lot of people didn’t have compassion,” says Lisa Kelleher, who has been a PCA in Massachusetts for 25 years. “But now that

people are starting to speak up more, people can stand up. We still have a long way to go in homecare work. If it wasn’t for the Union we’d still be back in the dark ages.” The modern homecare industry was born from nursing home industry scandals and government funding changes in the 1970’s. With home care’s advent, large numbers of African American and Caribbean women began entering the workforce to care for people who had previously been cared for by their own family members. The homecare workforce reflects the nation’s immigration trends and is extremely diverse. Today, West African, Armenian and Nepalese are among the major immigrant groups becoming homecare workers. In the early 1980’s 1199 and several other unions organized homecare workers in New York City who were making as little as $2 an hour and had no benefits. The workers included

TODAY, WEST AFRICAN, ARMENIAN AND NEPALESE ARE AMONG THE MAJOR IMMIGRANT GROUPS BECOMING HOMECARE WORKERS

home health aides, home attendants and housekeepers. Many gains have come with the Home Care Division’s tremendous growth. Home attendants’ wages have increases to nearly $10 per hour. Homecare workers have won funding for the creation of the Homecare Benefit, Pension and Education Funds. Massachusetts PCAs have unionized and won wage increases from $10.84 to $11.60 per hour and also helped win creation of the Quality Workforce Council, a committee dedicated to improving the PCA system. “When I started we didn’t know anything about a union at my shop. We had to pay for our health care out of our pocket and I was making $5.75 an hour and working four hours a day,” says Wells. “I signed that union card and I mailed it and I have no regrets to this day.” Over the years, homecare workers have had powerful allies in their battle for progress, including former New York City Mayor David Dinkins, Rev. Jesse Jackson, the late Cardinal John O’Connor, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and the late Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. They’ve also been among the Union’s most active and militant members. The Homecare Division regularly turns out the largest numbers for demonstrations and rallies. Homecare workers have the highest contribution rate to the Union’s Political Action Fund. “Home care is powerful and rewarding work,” says Wells. “Our clients know they can stay in their homes. They know they have aides they can rely on and that they have people they have a relationship with.” “What it comes down to is the employers,” continues Wells. “Sometimes we’re just seen as the people who keep the companies afloat instead of the backbone of the agencies.” Homecare workers indeed face tremendous hurdles. Their pay is low. They must work long hours to make ends meet. In many cases, those hours aren’t available. Their work is isolated and sometimes hazardous. Largely women and largely immigrants, homecare workers are often afraid to speak up for themselves. Funding structures for home care vary from state to state. “Workers are really struggling. They’re afraid. They have rent to pay. They have car insurance. They’re losing their homes. What we need to do is pull together,” says Kelleher, who is a member political organizer in addition to being a PCA activist. “I’d like to get something going in every state to unite people who do homecare work because we’re all doing the same work, it’s just under different labels.”

Far left: PCA Lisa Kelleher of Fall River, Mass. At left: Beverley GordonWells, a home attendant with New York City’s All Metro Agency.

September/October • Our Life And Times

Battle for Living Wage at NJ Nursing Homes SOME 375 WORKERS AT FOUR New Jersey nursing homes owned by the Omni Corp. have been without a contract since 2007. Many workers at Castle Hill, Harbor View, Palisade and Bristol Manor Nursing Homes, which are all located in Hudson Co., make as little as $7.37 per hour and can’t afford basic health coverage. Omni’s multi-millionaire owner Avery Eisenreich has refused to bargain fairly, harassing and intimidating union activists. Workers held a rally on Sept. 1 in Jersey City and a three-day strike at the nursing homes from Aug. 7 through Aug. 9 in efforts to get Eisenreich to negotiate a fair contract with a living wages and benefits. Eisenreich unsuccessfully sought a legal injunction to shut down one of the picket lines. New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, Union City Mayor Bryan Stack and a host of community leaders pledged their support and picketed

with the striking workers. “I am a strong supporter of workers’ right to organize around the effort to attain a livable wage and healthcare benefits,” said Corzine. “The jobs at risk here are among the most fundamental in society— and those doing the work deserve equitable compensation.” The Omni workers’ struggle is reminiscent of last year’s battle at Kingsbridge Care Center in the Bronx. Kingsbridge workers won a bitter nine-month strike against millionaire owner Helen Sieger who steadfastly refused to bargain a contract and left Kingsbridge workers without health benefits. “We need to keep up the fight. We’re going to keep on struggling until we get a fair contract,” said Isabel Padillo, a CNA at Palisade Nursing Home who walked the picket line with her three children, Melissa, 3, Jimmy, 12, and Elizabeth, 14. “We’ll stay united until the very end. We are stronger together.”

“I am a strong supporter of workers’ right to organize around the effort to attain a livable wage and healthcare benefits.” At a rally held Sept. 1 in Jersey City, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine showed his support for struggling workers at four New Jersey nursing homes owned by the Omni Corp. Workers at the homes have been without contracts for two years. Many make as little as $7.37 per hour and can’t afford health benefits. “America isn’t right when some people are making millions and millions and other people have to fight for basic health care,” said Corzine.

No Greater Friend

AROUND OUR UNION

“The spark still glows. The journey never ends. The dream shall never die.” EDWARD MOORE KENNEDY, 1932-2009

Pharmacists Founded Our Union Buying Union PreservesJobs 1199 was founded by a small group of dedicated New York City druggists and drugstore workers in 1932. Today, 1199SEIU is a political powerhouse representing 350,000 workers in every sector of health care. “Through the hard work of our members our Union has grown into something incredible,” says Pres. George Gresham. “But we should never forget where we came from.” Some five decades after a group of pharmacists helped the service workers at seven New York City hospitals stage a sevenweek strike and win 1199 recognition, the Union still maintains their core values of fairness, justice and solidarity. “I like helping my patients here and I liked it when I had my own retail pharmacy,” says Manny Horvitz, a clinical pharmacist at NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan. “Pharmacy is a service where we do the best we can and we help people. I’m able to do all that and make a living to provide for my family. I find that very rewarding.” While the majority of pharmacists that 1199SEIU represents are now in the hospital and clinical setting, 1199SEIU still represents a large number of retail pharmacists and pharmacy workers at outlets such as Pathmark and Rite Aid. “I urge members of the 1199SEIU family and all consumers to buy Union and to shop at drugstores where there are good, unionized jobs,” says Gresham. “Doing so preserves the future of our Union as well as the legacy of our founders.” To find an 1199SEIU-represented pharmacy in your area, log on to www.1199SEIU.org and click the Buy Union link or type the web address http://1199seiu.org/members/occupations/drug_store/union_phar macies.cfm into your browser.

Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy succumbed to brain cancer Aug. 26, bringing to an end 47 years of incomparable leadership. He was responsible for more progressive legislation than any senator in our nation’s history. 1199SEIU Pres. George Gresham said on the occasion of Sen. Kennedy’s death: “1199ers in Massachusetts have lost their staunchest ally and beloved senator, but all 1199ers and those who value social and economic justice have lost their greatest champion. . . . No elected official has done more for the cause of civil rights, peace, education, adequate housing, immigration reform, women’s rights and the rights of workers and their unions than has Sen. Kennedy. He stood with 1199SEIU at every important juncture.” In his statement, Gresham vowed to continue the fight for what Sen. Kennedy called “the cause of his life”—national health care. In the words of the late senator: “The spark still glows. The journey never ends. The dream shall never die.” Log onto 1199SEIU.com for further coverage and photos of Sen. Kennedy.

September/October • Our Life And Times

“I urge members of the 1199SEIU family and all consumers to buy Union and to shop at drugstores where there are good, unionized jobs” George Gresham 1199SEIU President

A small group of druggists and drugstore workers founded 1199. Rite Aid pharmacist Michael Morelli, right, is one of thousands of pharmacists and pharmacy workers the Union represents today.

THE BACK PAGE Angie Obas has been a surgical tech at Beth Israel for three years. Obas says she’s always been fascinated with the workings of the human body. “It’s like art seeing inside a person,” she says. “And it’s very serious when they take a specimen or have to do an amputation because it’s your job to make sure everything is handled and labeled the right way.” See story on p. 7.