Media

Media Contact

Cliff Cohn, Communications Director
email: ccohn@509seiu.com
phone: 617-924-8509 x530
cell: 617-312-8317

Letter to the Editor

ORGANIZED LABOR AND OUR FISCAL WOES
Public unions are pitching in
July 29, 2009

BARRY BLUESTONE (“A future for public unions?’’ Op-ed, July 18) argued that public sector union opposition to reasonable reforms and concessions could endanger us in the long term. I represent human service workers employed by the state and its vendor agencies.
State workers agreed to wage freezes for the past year, recognizing the severity of our fiscal crisis. They actually experienced a significant wage cut, since their share of health insurance premiums jumped 33 percent.
Pensions? Public sector unions have not opposed common-sense reforms. Most state workers contribute more into their pensions than the state does, and are completely dependent on decent pensions, since they are denied Social Security credit for their time as state employees.
Though virtually all Massachusetts state workers are organized, most of the state’s work is outsourced to low-paid workers with minimal benefits. Employees assisting disabled people earn as little as fast-food workers. They often work two or even three jobs to make ends meet.
The decline of manufacturing unions that Bluestone describes was related to their reluctance to organize outsourced workers. Our union is adapting, so I am not worried about our future. I do, however, worry about the future of public services when friends like Professor Bluestone get lost in the anti-government union rhetoric.

Michael Grunko
President, Local 509
Service Employees
International Union
Watertown

WBUR Airs Show on DMH Cuts

Budget Cuts Hit Mental Health Clients
Radio Boston Show aired February 20, 2009

State budget cuts are affecting agencies across the Commonwealth, including the Department of Mental Health, which had to lay off 100 of its case workers this year. Is the state making the right choices when its making budget cuts? Should the Governor be looking for other ways to balance the budget?

Listen to the full show

Layoffs for mental health workers, including six locally

By Cynthia McCormick
cmccormick@capecodonline.com
Cape Cod Times/January 10, 2009

The state Department of Mental Health is laying off half a dozen case managers on the Cape and Islands who help about 150 clients with services such as housing, counseling, disability payments and job interviews.

Advocates for people with mental illness say cuts in DMH staff will result in reduced services and may end with more people being hospitalized, incarcerated and homeless.

The majority of DMH clients served by case managers have chronic or severe mental illness, said John Labaki, unit chapter president for the DMH workers in the SEIU Local 509. He said the cuts will reduce the number of DMH case managers by 20 to 25 percent statewide, posing a problem for clients who are too ill to advocate for themselves.

» Read more

Mental health liaisons laid off

By Carey Goldberg, Globe Staff
January 8, 2009

The state Department of Mental Health, facing a more than $9 million cut in its budget, yesterday laid off nearly one quarter of the case managers who supervise people with severe mental illness and make sure they get the services they need.

About 100 case managers received their pink slips or will get them today, said John Labaki, president of the Department of Mental Health chapter of local 509 of the Service Employees International Union...

Pamela Colton ... was laid off yesterday, eight months shy of the 10 years she would have needed to be vested in the state retirement system. But it is not herself she is worried about, she said. It is the mentally ill children.

"I understand that the state has to balance budgets and do what they need to do," she said. "I just don't like it hurting children and their families. Some of these families are not going to have access to a lot of the resources that workers are extremely aware of."

Labaki ... said vulnerable clients are facing a big loss. "We don't know for sure how it will end up for them. They may end up back in the street, back in the hospital, or, unfortunately, back in prison."

» Read more

DMH axes 100 case managers assigned to help the mentally ill

Thursday, January 8, 2009
By Lee Hammel TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
lhammel@telegram.com

The state Department of Mental Health, which chronically has too few case managers to serve its clients, will lay off 100 case managers.

Pink slips went out yesterday to 100 case managers and 20 administrators as part of budget-cutting announced in October to offset a $1.4 billion deficit in the state budget, according to Kristina Barry, a state Health and Human Services spokeswoman. Eleven of the case managers to be laid off work in Central Massachusetts.

Those positions will be eliminated by the end of the month, she said. Those case workers served 3,444 clients, according to Michael Grunko, president of Service Employees International Union, Local 509, which represents 900 DMH employees among its 11,000 members.

The 22 percent cut in case managers will leave 350 case managers to serve a caseload of about 10,000 clients

» Read more

Food stamp demand on rise

Thursday, October 16, 2008
By Kate Augusto, Globe Correspondent

In today's poor economy, more people are turning to food stamps to make ends meet.

But increased accessibility to food stamps, and more demand for the program, has translated into longer lines and longer wait times for recipients. And caseworkers in some high-unemployment areas are now calling for more hands to keep up with the demand.

"Our lines are out the doors some days," said Linda Domingo, a caseworker at the Department of Transitional Assistance office in Lawrence.

» Read more

Eldridge is SEIU 509 “Legislator of the Year”

Littleton Independent, October 15, 2008

SEIU Local 509, the Massachusetts Union for Human Service Workers, has named State Representative Jamie Eldridge (D-Acton) their 2008 “Legislator of the Year.” The union cited Representative Eldridge’s consistent commitment to fighting for economic opportunity for working families across the Commonwealth and his leadership in working to improve the quality of services for Massachusetts most vulnerable residents.

» Read more

Strain on social workers rises

Sunday, October 5, 2008

By Matt Murphymmurphy@lowellsun.com

BOSTON -- Some days Melissa Geoffroy can spend more time driving in her car than meeting with families or catching up on office work.

Her schedule can take her from Lowell to Baldwinville all in a day as she meets with children, parents, teachers, doctors, foster families and court officers to provide the services needed to the clients under her supervision.

Geoffroy is a social worker in the Lowell office of the Department of Children and Families, formerly the Department of Social Services. Since she started five years ago, her case load has increased from about 17 or 18 families to 26.

The same can be said for the other 93 case workers in the Lowell office

» Read more