1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East is the largest social justice health care union in the United States with 400,000 members in NY, FL, MA, NJ, MD and DC. I served as director of its Education and Leadership Development Department 2012-2018.
1199SEIU UNION
Coretta Scott King (center) and Doris Turner, president of Local 1199, marches in Charleston, South Carolina during the hospital workers 1969 strike. © Jim Tynan. For more on civil rights and unionization in hospitals, visit here
History and Impact of 1199
Agents of Change: How Allied Health Care Workers Advance Structural Competency,” in Structural Competency in Mental Health and Medicine : A Case Based Approach to Treating the Social Determinants of Health. Helena Hansen and Jonathan Metzl, eds. (Springer 2019).
Abstract
This case offers a “bottom up” view of the health care industry through the voices of workers essential to the industry’s operations, including unskilled and semi-skilled titles. Allied health care workers are often invisible members of the health care workforce, revealing the industry’s own internal hierarchies of class, race, gender and status. This case illuminates their struggles, successes and challenges to end structural inequality in the workplace as they fight to transform low-wage, exploitative jobs into dignified, fairly compensated careers. Non-clinical members of the team are essential to improving patient care and obtaining structural change. Their knowledge and insight as partners are central to new innovations in care delivery. The case concludes with four ways to forge effective ties with worker and labor organizations to deepen structural competency within health care organizations. Read the full publication here: Structural Competency in Mental Health and Medicine – Apr 23, 2019
Contact me to receive the full text of the article.
Education materials developed on Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court Case 2018
- The Court Case Threatening Our Right to Unite at Work Video (with Spanish sub-titles)
- Two Faces of Janus
- Janus: What You Need to Know
- Union Busting 101 (English / Spanish)
- “Right to Work” Laws: A Trap for America’s Minorities 1969 (re-issued 2017), Bayard Rustin and Cesar Chavez
“Agents of Change: How Allied Health Care Workers Advance Structural Competency,” (available 2019).
Abstract
This case offers a "bottom up" view of the health care industry through the voices of workers essential to the industry's operations, including unskilled and semi-skilled titles. Allied health care workers are often invisible members of the health care workforce, revealing the industry's own internal hierarchies of class, race, gender and status. This case illuminates their struggles, successes and challenges to end structural inequality in the workplace as they fight to transform low-wage, exploitative jobs into dignified, fairly compensated careers. Non-clinical members of the team are essential to improving patient care and obtaining structural change. Their knowledge and insight as partners are central to new innovations in care delivery. The case concludes with four ways to forge effective ties with worker and labor organizations to deepen structural competency within health care organizations.
“Introduction,” Special Issue: Labor and Racial Justice, Labor Studies Journal. Vol 42(1): 5-9. (2017.)