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NEWS & LETTERS, September-October 2010
Residents support fired workers
Oakland, Calif.--A union contract at Piedmont Gardens, a retirement community owned by American Baptist Homes of the West (ABHOW), expired on April 30. By mid-July contract negotiations were stalled. Of the approximately 170 workers in the SEIU-UHW, 160 participated in a five-day strike, after which 37 of them were "permanently replaced."
The people who first came to support the striking workers were the facility residents. One said:
"Whether we are in the independent living, assisted living or skilled nursing, we understand the labor struggles and we are sympathetic with the efforts of the workers. Many feel that way.
"I know some of the people striking: they either serve us at dinner, or they house-clean for us. Someone called a meeting and the more we talked the more we knew we didn't understand what the issues were.
"The administration, presumably, fired the 37 workers. I just talked with one of the cooks. He has no idea why he was fired."
On Thursday, Aug. 12, the union organized a demonstration in front of Piedmont Gardens to support the fired workers. Some of them spoke:
I am a certified nursing assistant in assisted living. We love and know our patients. It is not just a job, it is a community of love that we show our patients and our patients show us. Some of them have special needs and we know how to give that special care to them. It's not just nursing, it's housekeeping, cooking, serving, we all work together in taking care of them.
We promised our residents that they will see us Saturday morning. They were waiting. When we could not come to give them care, they were heartbroken and we were heartbroken. We have put in years of service together. Since we have not been there, we hear that our patients are not getting the care they need daily from us.
Mrs. Rice: I'm here as president of the Residents' Council of Piedmont Gardens. We have quite a few residents out here, supporting you. We sorely miss you. You are an important part of Piedmont Gardens and we don't want to lose you. We hope you can come back soon and we can all live together as a community.
I have been at Piedmont Gardens for 12 years. In those 12 years I have never seen such a mean-spirited, anti-worker union-busting. We had a strike three years ago. When the strike was over, we came back to work without any further harassment from management. Now 38 workers who have been active in the union have been fired, many with 20 or 30 years experience. Some have not worked anywhere else. How are we supposed to pay rent, feed our children or get healthcare? The fired workers represent over 400 years of service caring for the residents of Piedmont Gardens. Having the same caregivers over a long period of time is beneficial. Our residents have expressed concern that having new people places them at risk. How can the management treat the residents like this?
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