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Down Home N.C. fire local organizers BY CORY VAILLANCOURT POLITICS E DITOR ver the past few years, political action group Down Home North Carolina has made a name for itself in Western North Carolina by championing issues important to working families, but a recent spate of staff firings in the midst of a unionization drive by its employees — along with allegations of hush money — suggests Down Home doesn’t practice what it preaches when it comes to standing with workers. “Over the last year I’ve spent so many hours in addition to work hours demanding transparency and accountability from an organization that demands transparency and accountability from people in power,” said Jesse Lee Dunlap, a (former) community organizer with Down Home’s Haywood County chapter. “It’s pretty whack that they are saying that the three people that were let go aren’t working, because we work our butts off and we’re trying to hold Down Home to the ideals that it professes to have.” Dunlap, along with Haywood-based statewide organizer Chelsea White-Hoglen and another organizer based in Alamance County were unceremoniously terminated late last week. Dunlap found out when they couldn’t get into their company email account and then received an email saying they were terminated with cause, citing “performance history.” The “with cause” stipulation means Dunlap won’t be eligible for unemployment
Smoky Mountain News
August 18-24, 2021
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benefits. White-Hoglen, mother of a newborn and a four-year employee of Down Home, said she’d been given the same reason for termination. Both Dunlap and White-Hoglen say the terminations are unwarranted, and stem from animosity by Down Home North Carolina Co-director Todd Zimmer. Dunlap said they’d filed several formal grievances against Zimmer, including one about a policy that states that grievances against Zimmer would be investigated by Zimmer. White-Hoglen said she’d received a written disciplinary warning from Zimmer about her performance giving her until September to meet certain deliverables, but was given an unachievable corrective plan and was terminated after filing grievances against Zimmer for creating a hostile work environment and failing to follow Down Home’s own rules about performance feedback. That, and the feeling of being overworked, led to a unionization campaign by Down Home that began last fall. As the effort progressed, Dunlap says Zimmer agreed to voluntarily recognize the proposed union while at the same time hiring a “union-busting” attorney to stymie the effort. “We’ve been a headache as far as that goes, trying to assert our rights, fighting for our rights within a workers’ rights organization,” Dunlap said. Dunlap and White-Hoglen both received
First responders ‘Tired, frustrated, angry, fearful’ The resurgent Delta variant of COVID-19 has created a dangerous situation across the country and across the state, and now Western North Carolina’s first responders are speaking out. “After months of decline, the State of North Carolina is experiencing a rapid increase in the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations,” said Sarah Henderson, Haywood County’s health director. “The Delta variant, which is now the predominant strain of COVID-19 in North Carolina and in the U.S., is more aggressive and much more transmissible than previously circulating strains, and we know that our unvaccinated population is at greatest risk.” Henderson’s comments came during an Aug. 17 press conference held in conjunction with the county’s emergency services department, Haywood Regional Medical Center and Haywood County Health and Human Services Department, but they largely echoed what Henderson and others told Haywood Commissioners on Aug. 16. “We are tired, we are frustrated, we are angry and we are fearful of what lies ahead,” Henderson said. “If we continue the path we’re on, we will fail.” Pre-vaccine, Haywood’s EMS call volume peaked at 1,058 calls in January — until 1,309 people placed calls in July, a 24% increase. Currently, EMS is down four full-time paramedics, a condition EMS Director Travis Donaldson called unsustainable. Wait times at HRMC have exceeded two hours on at least one occasion and have exceeded one hour on “many” occasions, according to a Haywood County press release. On Aug. 16, one ambulance waited four hours for a bed at HRMC. As of press time, multiple patients were waiting for admission.
formal severance agreements, each containing a provision that they’re equating to “hush money.” Although Dunlap uses “they/them” pronouns, the agreement refers to Dunlap throughout as “she,” and offers Dunlap $10,000 so long as “she will not disclose to anyone other than members of her immediate family, her attorney, or her financial advisor who will agree to keep such matters confidential, any and all facts relating to the negotiations leading up to this Separation Agreement, the terms and contents of this Separation Agreement, the amounts to be paid under this Separation Agreement, and the circumstances leading thereto.” White-Hoglen was offered more than $20,000. Both Dunlap and Hoglen have refused to sign the agreement, and therefore forfeited the money. “I refused the money because for one, I didn’t have time to seek legal counsel,” White-Hoglen said, noting that the agreement was received in the morning but had to be signed and returned by 5 p.m. the same day. “I also wanted to be able to tell my story.” The firings leave Down Home without any organizers in the entire western part of the state. At one time, the group was very active in both Haywood and Jackson counties, opposing the proposed Haywood County jail expansion while also advocating for a living wage and calling for Medicaid expansion.
These conditions aren’t much different in Jackson County, where Dr. Ben Guiney, an ER doctor at Harris Regional and a Sylva commissioner, said during an Aug. 12 commission meeting that people who aren’t vaccinated should stay home, and people who can’t stay home should wear a mask. “Take care of people around you, take care of your community, take care of us in the hospital that are seeing this surge coming,” Guiney said. “If you are vaccinated, you’ve got your armor on and you can feel a sense of security, but make sure you’re still taking care for your kids who are unable to be vaccinated.” Unlike during the winter surge, the hospitals were already seeing a pretty high level of non-COVID traffic prior to the arrival of the Delta variant. Trying to care for those with non-COVID injuries and illnesses on top of the growing number of unvaccinated and seriously sick COVID patients has the local healthcare system “pushed to the breaking point,” Guiney said. “In this current state of surge, the cases, the hospitalizations and suffering we’re seeing is limited to the unvaccinated,” he said. “Again, this, for the unvaccinated, is your pandemic.” More than 90% of COVID-19 admissions are unvaccinated people. At Harris, the COVID-positive patient count is ranging from 9 to 17, but has been as high as 21. There is, however, a silver lining. “The good news is that if you’re vaccinated, you’re protected from the Delta variant. The other good news is that vaccination is going up,” Guiney said. “People are starting to get the message, mainly because they are starting to know folks that get sick, are winding up in the hospital, and they are realizing they need to get vaccinated because this is real.” Between Aug. 2 and Aug. 17, people receiving a first dose of vaccine in Jackson County grew by 7,074, according to state data, making it the most-vaccinated county in the westernmost seven
The timing of the firings and the fact that Dunlap and White-Hoglen were designated as the union’s bargaining unit representatives could spell big trouble for Down Home; White-Hoglen said that the first collective bargaining contract negotiations between Down Home’s administration and its workers took place at 3 p.m. on Aug. 11. By noon on Aug. 12, both had been terminated. Alan Jones, an organizer with the United Steel Workers, has been helping Down Home’s organizers navigate the unionization process, with plans to incorporate the group as an entity distinct from USW 507 in Canton. He said that he’s requested information from Down Home for review, and that the findings of the investigation could lead to next steps with the National Labor Relations Board. White-Hoglen said whatever comes of the process, she wouldn’t stop advocating for the issues that led her to become a community organizer in the first place. “If anything, this makes me feel much more dedicated because to have these injustices in an organization that’s dedicated to fighting for social and economic justice, it just shows how nefarious they are,” she said. “We cannot give up.” Down Home North Carolina Co-directors Todd Zimmer and Dreama Caldwell both failed to return multiple messages from The Smoky Mountain News seeking comment for this story.
counties with 56 percent of residents at least partially vaccinated and 50 percent fully vaccinated. By contrast, state data showed only 40 percent at least partially vaccinated as of Aug. 2. That increase is partly because the state is now capturing all federal vaccinations such as Indian Health Services into its data. Jackson and Swain counties have a significant number of residents who are also tribal members, and their vaccinations were not previously counted in state data. However, said Jackson County Deputy Health Director Anna Lippard, there has also been a “drastic increase” in vaccinations, with a 635% increase in vaccinations administered through the health department between July 1 and Aug. 13. Between Aug. 2 and Aug. 17, Swain County’s partial vaccination rate climbed five percentage points to 38%, while Macon increased four percentage points to land at 53% partially vaccinated. Meanwhile, Haywood, Graham, Cherokee and Clay counties saw more modest gains of 1 or 2%. New vaccinations won’t help much with this current surge, because it takes six weeks for two-shots to become fully effective. In both India and Great Britain, the Delta variant caused a surge in cases that kept growing for about two months before starting to recede. If the same holds true for North Carolina, cases will continue to grow for the next three weeks or so before starting to go back down. While daily new cases are now largely between 4,000 and 6,000 statewide, the number of deaths associated with those cases is far lower than it was last winter when daily new cases were of a similar magnitude. In February, daily new cases fluctuated mostly between 2,000 and 5,000, while daily deaths hovered mainly between 30 and 60. During the first week of August, new cases also wavered between 2,000 and 5,000 daily, but deaths stayed in the teens. — Staff reports
