The World We Live In

SEIU Local 509 Members on the Road for “Change That Works”

SEIU Local 509 members and staff have been volunteering in SEIU’s national campaigns to rebuild the middle class in the United States. Here are some of their stories:

Israel Pierre, Eliot Community Human Services, has been working on the Change That Works Campaign in New Hampshire since January.
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We have been focused on Supporting the Economic Recovery Stimulus, The Employee Free Choice Act, and Comprehensive health care reform. We are building grassroots support for US Senators who champion our cause. Let me be honest: This is really hard work! However, the rewards far outweigh the work that is being done.

I have been meeting with the people of New Hampshire at all levels and walks of life. It is almost daily that I come into contact with hard working, law abiding Americans who are being victimized in their jobs because they have no voice in the workplace, or individuals and families who are on the verge of losing their homes because of their inability to sustain their mortgage payments due to rising health care costs. Why should someone have to choose between having a place to lay his/her head at night and going to the doctor? This is not right!!

While the challenges on the ground are hard, I am overjoyed to know that Local 509 has invested resources into fighting this good fight. There are no words I can use to describe the look of hope on people’s faces as I share what we have embarked on. People can feel change in the air. There is a sense of excitement and hope to know that, even in this time of despair, with hard work, we can get back on track.

20041108 Tom Barbera

Tom Barbera, SEIU Local 509 Advocate Liaison, worked for five months in Virginia for Change That Works.
Why should we have the Employee Free Choice Act and Health Care Reform?

I can tell you why.

The lack of adequate health care has decimated my family. My siblings and I attempted to assist our mom and dad to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars of debt. Dad died penniless. My mom and her husband lost their house. My sister was denied medications while dying of pancreatic cancer. And my friend and fellow Local 509 member Jim Thody should have had - but did not have - access to home health aides and hospice as he wasted away from AIDS.

So far, I have survived an illness that took my father from me. I am thankful for my union-provided health benefits, which keep me relatively healthy.

Frank Flynn, a retiree from the DoC, spent four months in New Hampshire on Change That Works.

Frank Flynn isn’t taking his retirement “lying down.” Frank retired from his position at the Department of Corrections two years ago, but it looks like he is working as hard as ever.

After volunteering for SEIU on many workplace organizing campaigns across the country, from January to May, Frank worked long hours in southern New Hampshire, trying to build a grassroots movement to support the Employee Free Choice Act and Health Care Reform. He expected to be able to come home to Needham pretty frequently, since he was not very far, but the work was too consuming and he hardly made it home at all. Still, he says without reservation, “It was a way positive experience. I expected a bit of an adventure, and this was.”

Frank describes a rigorous process of house meetings and leader identification, designed to lead to more house meetings. Though a seasoned member organizer, he says that the political work he did in New Hampshire for “Change That Works” was “not natural” to him. While some of the work was through unions, most was not, and finding leaders was difficult.
“I am always surprised at how hard it is to organize people to take action in their own interest. We’re fighting inertia and fear, and the fear is sometimes well-grounded. We tend to go in overconfident of our own rhetoric and rationality, but people don’t always act rationally.”

Does this sound frustrating? Not to Frank; he says it gave his labor experience “more dimension” and was “instructive and rewarding.”

“I’m in love with it more than ever because it’s not easy. I get better all the time,” he says.

It’s not slowing him down any, either. Next, Frank is off to Chicago to help out on a home care organizing campaign.

Gary Floyd, who works at the recently organized Hampshire Educational Collaborative, spent three days lobbying and learning in Washington, D.C.

The SEIU contingent was a cross section of working Americans who haven’t received the benefits of the new “socialism for the rich” economy: janitors, security guards, nurses, maids, truck drivers, teachers, human service workers, prison guards, communication workers, and nursing home personnel from every state in the union. With passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, unions might actually go from defense to offense for the first time in forty years; those in power have noticed and take this threat seriously.

The stories that our fellow union members told were heartbreaking. Some people had been intimidated while organizing, others were illegally fired, and some still hadn’t gotten their first contract, though they had been confirmed as a union years before.

The SEIU State Council met with Congressman McGovern regarding co-sponsoring the Employee Free Choice Act and signing SEIU's health care reform pledge. Congressman McGovern did both! 509 members Mary Brawn and Marianne Kiely are among those pictured with McGovern.

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