SEIU home care workers reach tentative agreement with state

January 15, 2015 by
Pro-union home health care workers celebrated the results of their organizing election last August.

Pro-union home health care workers and clients celebrated the results of their organizing election last August.

Five months after their historic vote to form a union, home health care workers represented by SEIU Healthcare Minnesota today announced they have reached a tentative agreement on a first contract with the State of Minnesota.

The agreement includes several gains for the new bargaining unit of 27,000 workers in publicly funded home care programs statewide. The contract would raise the wage floor to $11 per hour, fund training opportunities, protect workers against lost wages and provide full-time workers with five days of paid time off annually.

Members of the union will take a ratification vote on the tentative agreement in the coming weeks. If members vote to accept it, the agreement will come before the Legislature for final approval.

Home care workers took an innovative approach to negotiating what could become the first new union contract with the state in decades. The union’s bargaining team for negotiations included not only SEIU Healthcare Minnesota members, but clients who receive home care services as well.

Home care recipients were at the forefront efforts during the 2013 legislative session to extend collective bargaining rights to home care workers. Recipients like Maplewood resident Nikki Villavicencio, who joined the union’s bargaining team, argued that better wages and working conditions for caregivers means increased stability and higher-quality care for clients.

“This is an important step in our fight, so that both workers and care recipients like my family can finally live the lives we choose,” Villavicencio said in a press release issued by SEIU Healthcare Minnesota to announce the tentative agreement.

Funding for wage and benefit advancements in the tentative agreement, the union said, will be included in Gov. Mark Dayton’s budget proposal to the Legislature, expected in the coming weeks.

Home care workers’ union has voluntary membership, meaning there are no “fair share” dues assessments. Voting on the tentative agreement will be open to home care workers who are SEIU Healthcare Minnesota members.

“Home care workers, like workers in other low-wage industries who have raised their voices for a more fair society, are fighting to live, not just survive,” said Francis Hall, a home care worker from Crosby and bargaining team member. “This contract is a critical step towards that goal, but we know that our work of winning dignity, respect and a decent livelihood for home care workers has just begun.”

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Home care workers win election, take momentum into contract talks

August 27, 2014 by
Pro-union home health care workers celebrate the results of their organizing election at the Minnesota AFL-CIO Labor Pavilion on the State Fairgrounds.

Pro-union home health care workers and their clients celebrate the results of their organizing election at the Minnesota AFL-CIO Labor Pavilion on the State Fairgrounds.

Home health care workers in Minnesota have spoken, and they voted decisively to form a union, the state’s Bureau of Mediation Services announced yesterday.

Now the fight to improve the lives of home care workers and the people they serve shifts from the organizing field to the negotiation table – and back to the State Capitol.

“We’ve been waiting for this day for a long time,” St. Paul home care worker Sumer Spika said during a press conference at the State Fairgrounds to announce the election results. “We know this is an industry that needs fixing, and that is why we have come together for this fight.”

In the process, Spika and other home care workers are making history. The BMS mailed ballots Aug. 1 to about 27,000 workers who are paid by the state to provide care to elderly and disabled Minnesotans – the largest union organizing election in state history.

Sixty percent of the 5,872 workers who returned ballots voted “yes” to joining the Healthcare Minnesota local of the Service Employees International Union, which will represent the newly created bargaining unit in contract negotiations with the state.

Yankuba Fadera, a home care worker from Maplewood, also works as an emergency room technician in a union-organized hospital.

Yankuba Fadera, a home care worker from Maplewood, also works as an emergency room technician in a union-organized hospital.

Workers plan to push for a contract that includes wage increases, benefits and training opportunities to better serve their clients.

Yankuba Fadera, a home care worker from Maplewood, knows firsthand the gains health care workers – and patients – make through collective bargaining. In addition to providing home care, Fadera works as an emergency room technician in a union-organized hospital.

“We have fought for and won real gains, both for workers and the patients we serve,” he said, pointing to pay and benefit increases, as well as contract language guaranteeing safe staffing levels and access to proper equipment.

Lack of benefits like health insurance, sick leave and paid time off makes home care a transitional field for many workers.

“I was shocked to discover home care isn’t considered a ‘real job’ despite how important it is to tens of thousands of Minnesotans,” Fadera said. “This work is real, and this work is very important.”

Home care recipients and advocates for people with disabilities cheered the election results as well. Nikki Villavicencio of Maplewood said better wages and working conditions for her caregivers would increase the stability of her care.

“The high turnover in this field, from the low pay and lack of benefits, causes turmoil for families,” Villavicencio said. “When we undervalue the workers, we undervalue families like mine.”

Whatever gains workers and clients achieve on paper in a bargaining with the state are subject to one last – and potentially major – hurdle: approval from the Legislature.

Home care workers and child-care providers paid with state subsidies lobbied successfully for a new law granting them union rights in 2013, but they faced stiff opposition from Republicans. Returning a pro-worker majority to the Minnesota House in 2015, then, is likely a priority for the new bargaining unit – and the 30,000 SEIU Healthcare Minnesota members statewide.

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St. Paul home care worker Maggie Doran: Why I’m voting ‘yes’

July 24, 2014 by

mug-voices0814On July 8, home care workers from across the state came together to file a union petition that triggered what will be the largest union election in the history of our state. Ballots will go out to more than 26,000 home care workers on August 1, and we will have our election results before Labor Day.

We’ve fought for years to get to this point, and there are thousands and thousands of workers from every corner of our state who are part of our movement. Each has a story about why they are joining our campaign to form our union and finally make our work “Invisible No More.”

My story is that I’m a home care worker for a sweet girl who suffers from Rett Syndrome. It is a joy to care for this beautiful child, but it is also challenging work. On a daily basis, she requires tube feeding, dressing, bathing, administration of meds and lots of mobility issues including a split-level entrance at her house.

Despite the important work being done by home care workers like me, we face a reality of low pay, no benefits and lack of training and support. When we win our Union, we will be continuing our fight not only for higher wages and benefits, but things like body-braces for caregivers to help ensure safe and quality care for those we serve. Things like this should not be considered luxuries for the Minnesotans who need care. Our campaign is fighting for a better quality of life for workers and the people we serve. Families in Minnesota deserve better than our current situation.

I provide care for my client through the Consumer Directed Community Supports program. Like most home care workers, I do not get paid mileage and many important parts of my job end up having to be done “off the clock.” Home care workers care immensely for the people we serve, and too often our dedication means we are working many hours longer than we are paid for and sacrificing our health to take care of someone else. With the current situation, turnover is incredibly high and the people who receive services end up suffering. As we face a growing number of Minnesotans needing care, this crisis will only get worse. That is why we need our union.

I will be voting “yes” for a Union to move our industry forward, both for workers and the people we serve. By the end of August, we will have our results and will have won the largest union election in state history. This will be a historic moment, but it will only be the beginning.

When we win our union, we will have achieved a groundbreaking step toward our goals of making our work “Invisible No More.”

– Maggie Doran is a home care worker who lives in St. Paul. She plans to vote “yes” this month to form a union of home care workers statewide, represented by SEIU Healthcare Minnesota.

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Home care workers ‘invisible no more’ after filing for historic union election

July 8, 2014 by
Nikki Villavicencio (L) and home care worker Sumer Spika lead a celebration outside the Bureau of Mediation Services after workers filed for a historic statewide election.

Nikki Villavicencio (L) and home care worker Sumer Spika lead a celebration outside the Bureau of Mediation Services after workers filed for a historic statewide election.

When home care workers in Minnesota launched their campaign to form a statewide union less than two years ago, they set out to raise wages, improve working conditions and bring legitimacy and respect to a career path seen as critical to meeting the needs of an aging population.

They may not have set out to make history, but home care workers did just that today, formally petitioning the state to conduct what would be the largest union election in Minnesota history.

SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, the union seeking to represent an estimated 26,000 workers in state-funded home care programs, presented the Minnesota Bureau of Mediation Services this morning with more than 9,000 cards signed by home care workers requesting representation, exceeding the 30 percent threshold needed to trigger an election.

Afterward, workers gathered outside the BMS’s St. Paul offices, where union supporters like Jaycee Berens celebrated the grassroots organizing behind today’s historic filing – and looked forward to voting “yes” in the near future.

“I knocked on hundreds of doors each day,” Berens said of her involvement in the organizing effort. “I found behind those doors were caring, hard-working, dedicated people who love what they do.

“We are eager as home care workers to take care of clients that live in their homes, but we also need to be able to better provide for ourselves and our families.”

Many workers at the celebration stood alongside the clients who rely on their care. Nikki Villavicencio of Maplewood said she expects the quality and reliability of her care to improve when workers are at the table, participating in decisions that affect the home health care field.

Villavicencio said she’s long wondered, “Why is this field so undervalued? Why are the workers who support my family so invisible?”

“When workers receive better wages, benefits and training, it makes the whole community stronger,” she added.

Pat Winick said she wouldn’t have been able to remain in her South Minneapolis home after suffering multiple brain injuries if it weren’t for the care she receives from state-subsidized home health workers.

Pat Winick said she wouldn’t have been able to remain in her South Minneapolis home after suffering multiple brain injuries if it weren’t for the care she receives from state-subsidized home health workers.

Political, legal hurdles

Today’s filing marked another milestone on home care workers’ uniquely challenging path to collective bargaining – a path that became even more complicated with the Supreme Court’s Harris v. Quinn ruling last month.

When their organizing drive began two years ago, state law prohibited workers who provide self-directed care – workers hired directly by their clients but paid with state funds – from forming a union, treating them more like independent contractors.

Backed by SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, workers lobbied to change the law last year, and in May 2013 Gov. Mark Dayton signed a bill passed by DFL majorities in the Legislature extending collective bargaining rights to both home care workers and child care providers.

Home care workers’ campaign to gain the signatures needed to file for an election kicked into high gear over the winter. Workers, organizers and supporters from the labor community fanned out across the state to collect more than 9,000 signed cards.

But the SEIU waited to file those cards until after the Supreme Court handed down its ruling on Harris v. Quinn, a case that tested the authority of another state, Illinois, to extend collective bargaining rights to workers in state-subsidized home care programs.

The court’s decision was bad news for unions. It exempted home care workers in Illinois from having to pay so-called “fair-share fees,” but kept in place requirements that unions represent all workers in a collective-bargaining unit – even those who choose not to pay dues.

Not giving up

Outside the BMS, however, home care workers like Sumer Spika pledged to move forward with the organizing election, even if their union would not be able to collect fair-share revenue. “This ruling will not stop the home care workers in Minnesota who are joining together,” the St. Paul resident said.

After scrutinizing the authorization cards, the BMS will conduct an election by mail, likely later this summer. If more than half of workers who participate in the election vote “yes,” SEIU Healthcare Minnesota will be authorized as the workers’ exclusive representative.

Nicole Taras, a recipient of in-home care who has muscular dystrophy, traveled to the BMS with her partner and part-time care provider, Tyler Frank.

Nicole Taras, a recipient of in-home care who has muscular dystrophy, traveled to the BMS with her partner and part-time care provider, Tyler Frank.

That’s the celebration Nicole Taras, a recipient of in-home care who has muscular dystrophy, said she looks forward to most. Taras, who traveled to the BMS with her partner, Tyler Frank, said low wages and high turnover rates make it difficult to find caregivers she can rely on.

“Right now this is a throw-away job,” Taras said. “Because turnover is so high, I hardly ever get a fully trained person before they leave for a Walmart job or something better, and then Tyler has to do it.”

With a union, Frank said, comes better pay, more training opportunities and, hopefully, greater stability for home care clients like Taras, which would free him to pursue his own career aspirations.

“I’ll no longer have to choose between my goals and hers,” Frank said.

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Judy Wahlberg: The sexist agenda hidden in Harris v. Quinn

June 5, 2014 by
AFSCME Council 5 President Judy Wahlberg

AFSCME Council 5 President Judy Wahlberg

Any day now, the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on Harris v. Quinn, the most important labor law case in decades. The lawsuit is another attempt to kill off public employee unions. It centers on a small group of Illinois home care workers who sued to avoid paying fees to the very union that would negotiate their wages and benefits. Their lawyers are asking the high court to go even further and rule against the right of all public workers in America to choose a union.

While that’s troubling enough, the case is about more than workers’ rights. It potentially opens up yet another front in the nationwide war on women now raging from state legislatures to our doctor’s office and our bank accounts. Here’s why.

The face of the working poor is a mother struggling to feed, shelter and educate her children. She’s working multiple jobs, but still can’t get by. She can’t put healthy food on the table and she can’t afford to live in a safe neighborhood. That’s because her profession is undervalued and her hard work isn’t recognized with a decent paycheck. Chances are she is a caregiver, one of millions of women who help us raise our children and care for our aging parents.

There are now more than 3 million home care and family child care providers in the United States, and more than 90 percent are women. With Americans living longer and baby boomers entering their golden years, it is expected that more than 5 million providers will be needed in the next five years to assist our growing, aging population.

Caregivers are with us from cradle to grave. Child care providers make sure our kids are healthy, learning and safe. Home care providers assist the elderly and people with disabilities who want to live in their own homes instead of an institution. These workers cook, clean, make beds and do laundry. Many also provide health-related care like changing bandages, monitoring medical equipment, and administering medication. It’s physically demanding work. Anyone who thinks that lifting children and helping a client in and out of bed every day isn’t work has probably never done it.

Yet many of these jobs pay too little, have inadequate benefits, and don’t provide women with a path out of poverty so they can support their families.

That’s why so many women have come together to form unions. The average salary for home care workers and child care providers is about $20,000. But caregivers represented by a union have seen their salaries increase by as much as 65 percent, reflecting the grueling demands of the work.

It’s simple. When women join unions, we gain a voice on the job. That gives us the power to get the fair and equitable compensation we deserve. We close the income gap. We climb out of poverty.

A ruling undermining unions in the Harris case would bring that progress to a halt and deal a significant blow to pay equity for women, as well as fair treatment in the workplace.

Let’s be candid about why cases like Harris v. Quinn are rising to the Supreme Court. Women make up 45 percent of union membership and will become the majority by 2020. That has anti-worker forces worried. They know that if women enjoy collective bargaining rights and have a strong voice in the workplace, the inequalities of the past will begin to fade away. Nearly 60 percent of women would earn more if they were paid the same amount as men, and the poverty rate would be cut in half.

We have already lost too much time and too much compensation owed for our work.

Caregivers have a better shot at the American Dream when they choose a union to represent them. The evidence of that is clear. The question now is whether the Supreme Court will side with hardworking women, or put the judicial seal of approval on income inequality.

– Judy Wahlberg is president of AFSCME Council 5, a union of 43,000 public service workers in Minnesota.

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Crystal Care workers: ‘We’re not going to stop fighting until we get our money’

October 18, 2013 by
SEIU organizer Brandon Nessen talks with a Crystal Care worker seeking unpaid wages from the company.

SEIU organizer Brandon Nessen talks with a Crystal Care worker seeking unpaid wages from the company.

The union working to organize home-care workers statewide is lending its support to employees who accuse Richfield-based Crystal Care Home Health of failing to pay their wages. Some claim they worked up to three months for the company without pay.

SEIU Healthcare Minnesota helped organize a picket Wednesday morning outside Crystal Care, and more than a dozen workers, including nurses, personal-care attendants and home-health aides, demanded the company pay them the wages they’re owed and stand accountable for state funding the company received.

“Any workers would want their wages,” said Annette Ilgen, a licensed practical nurse who claims the company owes her more than $1,000 in back wages. “You depend on a paycheck to live. We all have to pay bills. As a worker, I’m owed my wages, and I want my wages.”

Crystal Care, which received more than $20 million in state reimbursements over the last three years, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Sept. 16. The company continues to pay a reduced staff.

“I want to know: what happened to the money?” asked PCA Kimberly Berguhl. “I have struggled to make ends meet for months, but Crystal Care continues to make money while hundreds of us to go without pay and wait for a bankruptcy hearing.”

That hearing is scheduled to take place Oct. 28 at the federal courthouse in Minneapolis. With the support of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, workers have requested documents from Crystal Care that would ensure their claims for unpaid wages come before the bankruptcy court.

“Three workers came here last week and asked for documents to fill out bankruptcy claims,” said union organizer Brandon Nessen. “Crystal Care called the police on them.”

Nessen said the local union learned what was happening at Crystal Care in the course of organizing home-care workers for a statewide union election. The trouble at Crystal Care, he added, shines light on a complex labyrinth of funding streams for home health care, one in which workers’ concerns sometimes get lost in the shuffle.

“If these workers had a union, we’d have had a much better chance of stopping this from happening in the first place,” Nessen said. “These workers would have a seat at the table.”

“If I wrote a bunch of bad checks that bounced, I’d be in jail,” Ilgen said. “Why isn’t Crystal Care’s Owner, Sally Knutsen, being held to the same standard?”

There is strength in numbers, Ilgen added, urging other Crystal Care workers who believe they are owed unpaid wages to join the fight by calling Nessen at 651-236-0919.

“We’re not going to stop fighting until we get our money,” she said.

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Health care local celebrates 80th anniversary, welcomes PCAs into union

September 27, 2013 by
Jamie Gulley, president of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, and home-care provider Karen Urman answer questions during a press conference on the union's efforts to organize PCA's.

Jamie Gulley, president of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, and home-care provider Karen Urman answer questions during a press conference on the union’s efforts to organize providers statewide.

The nation’s oldest union of health care workers marked its 80th anniversary Sept. 20 by welcoming a new group of members, home care workers, into the local.

For the first time ever, roll call to open SEIU Healthcare Minnesota’s convention included a unit of personal care attendants who are hired by their clients and paid by the state, or “consumer-directed home care” workers.

Nicole Villavicencio and Ziggy Norberg talk about why they support their home health care providers’ efforts to join SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. “If my PCA has a better quality of life, I will have a better quality of life,” Villavicencio said.

Nicole Villavicencio and Ziggy Norberg talk about why they support their home health care providers’ efforts to join SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. “If my PCA has a better quality of life, I will have a better quality of life,” Villavicencio said.

These workers had been barred from collective bargaining by state law, but Gov. Mark Dayton and DFL majorities in the Minnesota Legislature lifted those restrictions last spring, setting the stage for a massive organizing drive that could nearly double the 15,000-member union’s rolls.

“Home care workers provide care for our seniors and people with disabilities,” local President Jamie Gulley said. “Yet today they have the same struggles the hospital workers who founded our unions faced 80 years ago – low pay, lack of benefits and lack of respect. We look forward to their inclusion in our great tradition of improving people’s lives.”

Gulley said the organizing effort is likely to kick into high gear later this fall.

At a press conference during the convention, home care workers expressed optimism that forming a union would improve their wages, benefits and training opportunities – changes that would improve not only their own standard of living, but their clients’ as well.

“The PCA system is a blessing when it works,” Shaquonica Johnson said. “But in my years as a PCA, I see it’s not working because of turnover and a lack of training opportunities. Our clients should never wonder, ‘Is my PCA trained, and will he come back tomorrow?’”

Karen Urman, a PCA for her son, called her profession a workforce in crisis, pointing to studies that show Minnesota’s changing demographics will result in a care gap of more than 53,000 workers needed to provide home care services over the next decade.

“We need to grow the field,” Urman said. “To attract workers to do this work, we need to provide livable wages and benefits.”

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Organizing bill extends child-care, home health workers ‘the respect we deserve’

May 21, 2013 by
After the union organizing bill passes the House, Jamie Gulley (left), president of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, and AFSCME Council 5 Executive Director Eliot Seide lead a celebration in the Capitol hallways.

Jamie Gulley (left), president of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, and AFSCME Council 5 Director Eliot Seide lead a celebration in the Capitol hallways after House passage of the organizing bill.

Child-care providers and in-home health care workers celebrated a hard-fought victory for their professions yesterday, after the Minnesota House joined the Senate in passing a bill that would allow them to vote on whether to form a union.

The celebration spilled from the House gallery into the Capitol hallways, as pro-union child-care and home-care workers hugged each other, sang together and cheered the DFL authors of the legislation, Rep. Michael Nelson of Minneapolis and Sen. Sandy Pappas of St. Paul.

Authors of the legislation, Rep. Mike Nelson and Sen. Sandy Pappas, hug after the House vote.

Authors of the legislation, Rep. Mike Nelson and Sen. Sandy Pappas, hug after the House vote.

“This is incredible,” said Sumer Spika, a home care worker from St. Paul. “Home care workers deserve the same right as other workers to form a union, and now, because of this bill, we will soon have that right to choose for ourselves if we want a union.”

Gov. Mark Dayton has pledged to sign the legislation, which passed the House 68-66 and the Senate 35-32 last week.

During prolonged debate on the House floor, supporters said the bill was a step toward recognizing the value of workers who provide state-subsidized child care and self-directed home health care. Rep. Carly Melin, DFL-Hibbing, reminded opponents of the bill that workers in established professions like teaching and nursing fought similar battles in years past.

“When teachers tried to form a union, they heard the same arguments against it: ‘You can’t do that, you can’t form a union,’” Melin said. “But they did.”

Lynn Barten, a child-care provider who traveled from Alexandria to watch lawmakers debate the bill last weekend, said some of the arguments revealed just how far she and her colleagues have come – and how far have yet to go.

“This week we were called glorified housewives,” Barten said. “There’s nothing that makes me more angry than not being recognized as the professional I am. For me, this fight is about getting the respect child-care providers deserve.”

Republican lawmakers vigorously opposed granting home health workers and child-care providers the right to vote on forming a union – and offered amendment after amendment in an attempt to delay voting on the bill. Debate on the Senate floor lasted a record 17 hours, and the House tabled the measure twice over the course of three days before voting on the session’s last day.

Republican efforts to amend the bill ran the gamut from absurd – a lengthy debate over the size of the font printed on union sign-up cards – to offensive. An amendment offered by Rep. Kurt Zellers would have required union organizers and volunteers to pass background checks before making house calls.

When their stall tactics failed, Republicans claimed the bill amounted to “forced unionization” of home care workers and child-care providers – an argument DFL Rep. Erin Murphy of St. Paul dismissed.

“This is about giving the people who care for our loved ones the opportunity to vote,” Murphy said. “They may choose to organize. They may choose not to organize. As Minnesotans we should give them that right.”

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Home care workers rally as lawmakers consider their union rights

March 22, 2013 by
Streamers drop as Zev Nicholson speaks at a rally in the Capitol rotunda. Each cutout represents a home-care worker who has signed up to join SEIU Healthcare Minnesota.

Streamers drop as Zev Nicholson speaks at a rally in the Capitol rotunda. Each cutout represents a home-care worker who has signed up to join SEIU Healthcare Minnesota.

Working to change a state law denying them the right to form a union, home health care workers “made it rain” at the Capitol yesterday, streaming more than 1,000 purple cutouts – each representing a home-care worker who has signed up for the union – from the second level onto the rotunda floor.

It was a powerful backdrop for a rally that drew home-care providers and their clients. Together, they called on lawmakers to pass legislation granting workers who provide so-called “self-directed” care the right to decide for themselves if they want to form a union.

“If my workers have a better quality of life, then I have a better quality of life,” Nikki Villavicencio-Tollison, a recipient of home care programs, told the crowd.

Clara Nakumbe, who cares for her adult son with multiple sclerosis, said having a union help legitimize the home health care profession and ensure workers are treated with the respect they deserve.

“There will probably come a point where I will no longer be able to care for my son anymore,” Nakumbe said. “That’s why I’m here today, to advocate for the union so we can attract people to this career, … quality people we can trust.”

Currently, state law grants organizing rights to workers employed by home health care agencies, but not to workers providing so-called “self-directed” care, who are considered more like independent contractors.

Klara Nakumbe talks about why she signed up to join

Klara Nakumbe believes forming a union of home-care workers will help attract “people we can trust” to the profession.

A bipartisan bill making its way through the Legislature would eliminate that distinction – and open the door for an estimated 12,000 home-care workers to choose whether or not to form a union.

But many home-care workers aren’t waiting for the law to change. Many already have signed up to join SEIU Healthcare Minnesota – enough to make it rain with cutouts in the Capitol rotunda.

A union of more than 15,000 workers statewide, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota has been the driving force behind the legislative push to enable home-care workers to organize. Members like Nakumbe and Zev Nicholson, a home care worker from Minneapolis, have been prominent at committee hearings, delivering testimony in support of the bill.

Nicholson said so many home-care workers are signing up to join the union because they understand the power of speaking with one voice.

“Without a union we are going to be invisible,” he said. “But that’s why we’re here today. We’re invisible no more.”

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , , ,
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