Local hospital workers speak out
about a better future
What kind of city will Boston become? Will only the very well-off be able to live here? Or will Boston’s working families be able to have secure lives, raise healthy children and send them to college? This question is at the center of Boston hospital workers’ call for free and fair elections. One out of every six Boston jobs is in a hospital setting, and that means the hospital industry sets the tone for all other employers and, ultimately, the entire city economy.
MGH Dispatcher Billy Timmons explained why he and his coworkers are uniting to form a union:
Recently, Boston hospital workers met with members of the Boston City Council to inform them about their struggles and hopes. Hospital workers spoke about the struggle to make ends meet as the costs of housing, food, school, utilities and gas continue to rise. Many hospital workers cannot afford health care for their own children and are forced to use the state health care system. Workers also lack retirement security and access to education and training opportunities which would allow them to advance.
Caregivers also told the city council members about the intense hospital workforce shortage. They explained how raising job standards would help recruit and retain qualified staff, thereby protecting the quality of patient care.
These quotes are from Boston-area hospital workers during their meetings with the Boston city council:
I’ve got a friend at MGH making $12 an hour who’s been working at our hospital for 30 years. In fact, he just got up to $12 with a 0.6% raise. Now, that’s zero-point-six percent – not six percent. There’s another friend I work with who has been working there about 30 years also. He had a heart transplant. After about six months he was fully cleared to come back to work. The day he came back, they brought him into H.R. and fired him. Just like that. But I do want to say that H.R. was nice enough to show him how to go online to look for a new job. A few days later, I found a transplant doc I know and told him about it. He went to the administration and got the poor guy his job back. But my knowing a transplant doc who would have done that was a fluke. What isn’t a fluke is that they would have treated the man with no respect to begin with. I understand why respect is a huge issue for my Boston hospital coworkers.”
I have been a housekeeper at Newton Wellseley Hospital for about two decades. I'm just now making $13 per hour. My daily work is very difficult. I'm doing work that at least two people should be doing. As a housekeeper you feel like you are at the bottom and everybody is stepping over you. Housekeepers are human beings and deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, and we should be able to raise our families with dignity.”
The management doesn’t care about their people – they care about dividing us. By unionizing, we’re trying to do the opposite: to bring all of us together for our patients and to support each other.”
Until I came here, I worked union all my life. I have never seen conditions like this. I’m from Alabama. I started in the civil rights march, and we were demanding respect. That’s what we have none of at Carney. Here we often can’t take our breaks or lunch. Sometimes we can’t even leave to go to the bathroom. They don’t have enough of us on staff. If we go to the bathroom, calls just go unanswered. I have a coworker who’s barely making more than $10 an hour after 20 years. That’s not the way to treat a person. By coming together as a union we can change that.”
We need things to be fair. In addition to my regular work, I had to train someone new. That would normally be ok, except I come to find out that they were being paid more than me. I felt so disrespected. With a union contract, wages would be based on years of service and fairness.”
I want a union because right now we get no respect. The wages are poor here at Faulkner. I’m not even making $20 an hour and I’ve been working at the same hospital for almost 30 years of my life. We get no breaks. There aren’t enough of us, and we’re ordered around by everyone with no respect, and can’t be everywhere at once. My sister is a union nurse and she has a voice and respect at work.”
I work in the Dietary department at Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center. I believe that every person who works in our hospital does an important job but we do not all get treated equally. Every year, my rent and health insurance go up and my wages don’t keep up. I know that talking to my supervisor will change nothing and that I need a union to gain the respect we deserve.”
I’ve been a Patient Care Aide (PCA) for over a decade at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. I want a union so we can win job security, respect and more staff. I’m the only PCA for 16 patients. The people above us PCAs are so rude. They will say at us in front of patients and their families, “I am your boss. You will do what I tell you,” right after another supervisor just ordered us to do something else “right this instant” for another patient. They talk to us like we are children. There are not enough of us to be everywhere at once. We are short staffed. But they don’t fix it. If we do a good job, you know what they do? They don’t give us a pay raise. They give us a $5 gift certificate… to their own cafeteria, and they call it a 'present.'"
In our lab, we're overburdened with work. They have consolidated four individual departments into our one department. Many categories of tests that used to be sent out to an outside lab we now perform. We took on these new categories of work without an increase in staffing or in pay. We tried to obtain raises, after they increased our scope of procedures and our volume. We didn't get a pay raise at all for two years, and then we got just a 2-3 % increase. We're saying, give us more people and pay and we can handle the increased workload and demands.”
The main reason we want our union is respect and equality and a voice to be heard. And better compensation. You can't talk to H.R. or administration. You can bring problems to them but nothing's ever dealt with when you do. By joining together as a union, we can create a voice for ourselves and for our patients. If there isn't good morale between us and those who manage us, how do you think that affects our patients? The workload has increased but the pay hasn't. I've got kids, and I need this job. But I'm going to do what's right, and support our union.”
1199SEIU: We make healthcare better.