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An Invigorating Union Conference

It is always energizing to be with 1700 members organizers from all over the country and Canada. It is amazing to share experiences with workers from so many different backgrounds. At the SEIU International Organizing Conference last month I realized that our struggles are basically the same - we fight for better working conditions, better wages, or decent health insurance coverage.

One of the member organizers from Florida gave an inspiring talk at the first session. Originally from Haiti, she is a home health care worker. She described her working conditions and that of thousands of her coworkers: salaries barely at minimum wage, no overtime, no health insurance. She began her presentation by these three words: “I am mad!” It startled quite a few of us! After all we were supposed to celebrate SEIU’s organizing accomplishments for the last few years. As she continued her presentation, it was amazing to hear how she was able to get so much energy focused on a very difficult organizing campaign and share with her coworkers what having a contract means for them.

I am mad too. I am mad about how UIHC administration treated us during this last bargaining session. Yes, the stakes are different. We are not fighting for a living wage, or health insurance coverage. We are fighting for the ability to retain and recruit good coworkers so that we can provide safe and quality patient care. The UIHC administration refused to engage in across-the-table discussions. They rejected most of our language changes that promoted recruitment and retention of qualified health care staff. They even refused to start bargaining until we greatly downsized our retention ladder, which ultimately disappeared altogether.

Now we need to move on and focus our energy on recruitment and retention for safe, quality patient care. We will need to work hard between now and the next contract negotiations in order to accomplish what we were not able to do during those last few months of bargaining. I hope that those of you who are mad will also become active and help! Come to our membership meetings, recruit new members, and share your ideas on how we can continue to be the voice of change and progress. We cannot rest on our contractual gains and believe we will do better in 2 years. We need to continue to keep UIHC administration accountable through a variety of innovative, creative, and effective actions.

I believe we will reach an agreement with UIHC to form a staffing committee. It will not have “the teeth” of our original proposals, but it will be a forum for us to educate UIHC administration about staffing issues and what other health care workers in the rest of the country are accomplishing to avoid the devastating damages of staff shortages.

Our union needs your help in the organizing efforts that will be starting soon across Iowa. Union density - many organized hospitals in the same area - is the single most important factor in improving wages and staffing. In Minnesota, Wisconsin and the East and West Coasts where union density rules, contracts include staffing ratios and the highest wages in the country. Unless we are able to have more organized health care workers making the same demands that we are across Iowa, UIHC administration can continue to discredit our proposals!

Anne Gentil-Archer