A Field Representative for SEIU Local 509 is responsible for:

• Negotiating Contracts and developing contract campaigns
  
• Developing strong worksite leadership and structure
  
• Working with members to enforce their contract and solve problems at work by various methods including the grievance and arbitration process
  
• Working with members to build a powerful political program
  
• Involving members in organizing campaigns in order to bring a union voice to more potential members
  
• Recruiting and mobilizing worksite leaders around issues at the worksite.
  

Candidates should have: experience bargaining contracts, a willingness to work long hours, familiarity bargaining and other types of campaigns, willingness to be part of a team, and the ability to learn. Candidates should have good communication and computer skills, personal discipline and organization, and the ability to work with people from diverse backgrounds. SEIU Local 509 is an equal opportunity employer.

SEIU Local 509 offers competitive salaries and a full range of benefits.

Please mail resumes to:
Jon Grossman
SEIU Local 509
100 Talcott Ave. Building 313
Watertown Ma 02472

or via email to jgrossman@seiu509.org

Deadline: March 5, 2012

SEIU Local 509 is a equal opportunity employer

During the privatization of case management duties in 2009, the department ignored their responsibilities under the state’s privatization regulations, commonly known as the Pacheco Law. The layoff of over 100 DMH case managers has had a serious impact on the services that individuals with mental illness receive in our state.

With the support of our allies at the Disability Law Center, MPower, mental health caregivers in the Local 509 Private Sector Human Services chapter, and the whole of Local 509, the DMH chapter is hopeful that these case managers will be re-hired.

Follow these links to view our press release and the details of the lawsuit

• Pacheco Lawsuit Release
• Lawsuit Details

As the lawsuit progresses, we will work stewards and local union officers to get updates to the membership.

Union files lawsuit over the Privatization of DMH Case Management Services

WATERTOWN – The shifting of state case management duties to the private agencies and the accompanying layoffs of over 100 case managers has caused a serious break in the continuity of service for many of the state’s individuals living with mental illness.

Mental Health advocates, community organizations and human service workers are uniting for the re-hire of case managers that were laid off during the privatization of services in 2009.

“We were troubled when 100 case managers were abruptly let go, causing relationships with clients to be abruptly severed,” said Rick Glassman of the Disability Law Center, a private, non-profit organization responsible for providing protection and advocacy for the rights of Massachusetts residents with disabilities. “DLC is concerned that the Community Based Flexible Supports (CBFS) model adopted thereafter has lacked the staffing and resources necessary to provide quality community based options for people with mental health needs, required by the Americans with Disabilities Act.”

Caregivers represented by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 509 have filed suit regarding the legality of the privatization arrangement that the Department of Mental Health (DMH) established with the layoffs.

Proposals for privatization in Massachusetts must be submitted to the Office of the State Auditor in accordance with Chapter 296 of the acts of 1993, commonly known as the “Pacheco Law.” Despite this requirement, when DMH contracted-out these services, the agency ignored a finding of the auditor’s office, creating a fractured system and leaving many of the state’s most vulnerable citizens cut off from experienced case managers who had provided them services for years.

DMH Case managers coordinate, monitor and provide services for individuals with mental illness. They provide essential support services that allow these individuals to live as independently as possible in the least restrictive setting.

“When DMH transferred case management duties to the private sector and laid off all of those case managers, it really created a disruption in services and a loss in the community,” said Paul Desaulniers, a union steward and private-sector caregiver in Pittsfield. “Bringing those experienced case managers back would restore vital services to the individuals we care for.”

SEIU Local 509 is a labor union representing over 13,000 public and private sector human service workers across Massachusetts.

As state workers and private sector workers for publicly funded agencies, it’s important for SEIU Local 509 members to be involved in the political process to ensure that our agencies maintain an adequate level of funding and that the individuals that we serve and care for are looked after.

With the upcoming Senate and Presidential elections coming up, 2012 is going to be a busy year for our members and being involved in political campaigns is one of the best ways that we can protect our contracts and fight to make sure that all working people in Massachusetts are treated fairly.

Volunteer to work on political campaigns today!

Candidates in attendance were Elizabeth Warren and Marisa DeFranco. Incumbent Scott Brown did not respond to invitations to attend.

Before the candidates went before the crowd, guest speakers Joe Kennedy III, who recently received SEIU’s endorsement in the race for Massachusetts’s 4th Congressional District, and SEIU Executive Vice President Tom Woodruff spoke about the importance of organized labor in a strong progressive movement and encouraged members to be active in this year’s elections.

Warren and DeFranco took the stage separately and each were asked a series of questions from members in the audience. Members attending the event were given scorecards to rate the candidates and evaluate their answers. Over the next few weeks, the results of the evaluations will be compiled and SEIU will announce which candidate will receive our endorsement.

Thank you to all of the Local 509 members who attended, your participation in the political process is important to the strength of our union.

Photos from the Forum:

In the year since, family asks change in group homes

For the past year, Stephanie Moulton’s parents have waited in legislative hearings, wearing buttons bearing her name. They have sat in the front row of the courtroom during hearings for the man accused of killing her, even when he was not there, so she can still have a voice.

On a recent day in Suffolk Superior Court, Deshawn James Chappell seemed to look back at them and made it all worse.

With a new court-appointed lawyer recently appointed to Chappell’s case, Kimberly Flynn and Bob Moulton will have to wait even longer before the case is resolved.

“It’s head-banging,” her mother said in a recent interview as the family prepared for several vigils in her memory. “I just feel she’s getting lost in all this.”

Justice, the family has realized in the year since Chappell allegedly killed Moulton at the mental health group home where she worked, has moved far more slowly than any of them would have liked, ensnared in a labyrinth of legal procedure and government bureaucracy.

In the last year, the family has proposed a bill, to be called Stephanie’s Law, which calls for installation of panic alarms in mental health facilities. That proposal lingers in a committee.

The union that represents social workers has been pushing for a bill that would improve the oversight of community group homes. That legislation, introduced just weeks before the killing, has also stalled.

And the state Department of Mental Health said it is still reviewing recommendations of a safety task force that it created after the killing.

Moulton’s family members and a close-knit community of mental health workers who support them plan three vigils across the state today, which would have been her 26th birthday, to call attention to the tragedy and the cracks they are hoping to fill. They say too much time has passed.

“We just don’t want anyone to forget Stephanie,” her mother said. “We don’t want it to happen to anyone else.”

Moulton’s father added, “It’s Stephanie’s voice.”

The killing occurred Jan. 20, 2011. Moulton, an aspiring nursing student who was engaged to be married, was months into her job as a social worker at a group home in Revere run by the North Suffolk Mental Health Association, a state contractor.

Chappell was 27, had a history of mental illness and violence, including the vicious beating of his stepfather, for which he served a prison sentence. According to court records, his family raised concerns with the group home days before the slaying that he was not taking his prescribed medications.

Moulton knew none of his history and was in the home with him alone.

Chappell stabbed her in the neck several times, prosecutors have said in court. He dragged her to her Chrysler PT Cruiser, and drove her to a parking lot behind St. George Greek Orthodox Home in Lynn, where he left her body partially clad, law enforcement officials said.

His initial attorney, Jeffrey T. Karp, planned to argue that Chappell was not guilty by reason of insanity. Karp expressed sympathy for the Moulton family but also said that Chappell’s mental health examiners should have realized the dangers once they learned that he had stopped taking his medication.

“The system failed both of them, especially her,” Karp said recently.

The Moulton family has filed a lawsuit against the North Suffolk Mental Health Association, arguing that the agency had no system in place for alerting employees to potentially violent clients.

The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, in a rare action taken against a social services company, fined North Suffolk $7,000 for failure to provide a safe work environment, the maximum penalty allowed. The association has appealed the fine.

The OSHA violation raised some of the same issues that were identified by a task force the Department of Mental Health commissioned after the killing of Moulton and the stabbing death a week later of a Lowell homeless shelter worker, Jose Roldan.

Both groups cited a need for changes, including the development of proper safety standards for hospitals and for group homes, better training programs, and more spending on care.

“These were systemic issues,” said Toby Fisher, senior field policy specialist for the Service Employees International Union, the labor organization that represents care workers, who was a nonvoting member of the task force. He said a priority should be a new standard for assessing patients and sharing that information. That has not happened.

Paul F. Healy Jr., a retired first justice of Framingham District Court who cochaired the task force, said in an interview that the group sought to balance a client’s right to privacy with the safety of patients and their caseworkers.

He stressed that the majority of patients do not pose any threat to safety. But he also said he found that the system is unable to hold its clients accountable to requirements such as taking medication, something to which he, as a judge, was not accustomed.

The judge said members of the task force differed on points in the report. But all agreed that changes should be immediate and that more funding should be directed to mental health.

“The recommendations would go a long way to possibly preventing something like this, and that’s what we tried to do,” the judge said.

North Suffolk released a statement saying it could not comment on matters before the courts, but that the task force sparked a discussion about safety.

“The safety of staff and clients is, and has been, a priority,” the statement said. “The tragedy of last Jan. 20 stays with us, as we know it does with the families of Stephanie and all those involved.”

Debra Pinals, acting deputy commissioner for clinical and professional services at the Department of Mental Health, is cochairwoman of a working group the department commissioned to review the task force’s recommendations.

Several recommendations have already been incorporated, she said. The department immediately provided training programs for staff and created jail diversion programs to better identify patients in need of care.

She said her working group is collaborating with vendors to review safety protocol and is reviewing recommendations such as whether to conduct background checks on patients and how to share that information.

But she stressed that the department has had to prioritize what changes it could implement in the time since the recommendations were made, according to available funding and the time it takes to properly review them.

Pinals said the department welcomes a proposed increase of more than 3 percent in its budget for next year, at $648 million, but overall spending is still far behind past years. The state spent $685 million for mental health care in 2009, for instance.

The Moulton family is focused on a much more modest figure: about $15 a month. That, according to the family, is what it would cost for a panic alarm that could be placed in a home such as the one where Moulton worked to connect a worker or resident directly to an operator.

Flynn said she understands the complexity of the legislative process and the time needed to assess proposed changes. She understands the criminal justice system, the need for a fair trial.

But if her daughter had known Chappell’s background, she would not have stayed alone with him, Flynn said. If someone else had known, they probably would not have let her, she added.

Flynn was frustrated at the recent court hearing, when a judge asked if Chappell understood what was happening and whether he agreed. “He had this look on his face, like it didn’t matter what he did,” she said.

Original Article

Human service workers, city officials and others will gather Wednesday at 5:30 p.m., at the City Hall plaza at Court Square for a vigil in memory of Stephanie Moulton of Peabody, a case worker who was slain in Revere in January 2011, allegedly by a mental health client.

Candlelight vigils are being conducted in Springfield, Peabody and New Bedford.

Those who are gathering at the vigils will rally to demand that the state take immediate action to protect them and to improve the quality of mental health services, organizers said in a prepared release. City Council President James J. Ferrera III and state Rep. Cheryl A. Coakley-Rivera, D-Springfield, are among the expected participants.

Original Article

This year is shaping up to be a very active and important year for Unions politically as many candidates are openly calling for taking away Unions hard won rights, be sure to learn all you can about someone running for office before you vote.

The Chapter board recently met with Union legal staff (thank you Kate Shea) regarding Civil Service which seems to be the fairest way to administer the promotional process. Exams are given and a list formulated based on passing marks. We would like to hear how the membership feels on this subject before we try to take it further.

We have set up a meeting with Kate Shea a Union Attorney to discuss the problems facing those who have been denied reclassification. The meeting is scheduled for March 1 in Watertown, release time should be available for a few member from each office to attend.
Hopefully some valuable insight can be gained into the classification process.
Unfortunately the line seems to be drawn that case management is an A/B position,
as I have mentioned before we have brought this issue up at Labor/Management, OER, contract talks, and Civil Service to no avail.

Recently there was a lot of wasted negative energy out there about having to wait a few weeks for funding of the new 1.5% pay increase. This is just normal practice as funding needs to be approved at the start of a new contract. I hope these same members will devote half that energy to Union causes. Remember your Union is only as strong as you want it to be, it is in unity that we get things done.

The Local will be offering monthly member education on different topics of use to stewards and members at locations throughout the state. One program of special interest will cover how to supervise and be a good Union member, I hope everyone in a supervisory position will plan to attend. Various levels of stewards training should also be offered. Union release time is available for attendance at these sessions so watch the Union web site for details and sign up.

It’s great to see so many promotional and transfer positions available at DOR. We have been asking for upward movement and worker transfers for a while now and I know members are pleased that management was finally able to respond. We expect to see the transfer process continue.

If you would like to become active in the Union at any level please get in touch.

All the best

John Tortelli

As talks of cutbacks in the US Postal Service continue, the importance of neighborhood post offices often goes overlooked.

Photos from the rally:

This is a training position in which the incumbent will receive on the job training on how to:

• Organize private sector human service employees
• Make initial contact with workers
• Develop worker leads
• Develop organizing committees
• Develop and coordinate a campaign
• File necessary legal petitions for representation
• Other related organizing work

Supervision Received:

• Works under the supervision of the organizing director (or his/her designee) who reviews work for effectiveness, timeliness, scope, and accuracy in accordance with the needs of the campaign.

Examples of duties:

• Assists in developing organizing leads
• Assesses worker interest in organizing a union
• Helps Organizers maintain consistent contact with unorganized workers
• Assists in organizing committee meetings
• Uses Internet and state documents to research targets
• Helps maintains files and organizing lists
• Assist in developing campaign materials for use in campaigns
• Assist in developing community/faith based contacts to build support for organizing campaign
• Helps recruit member organizers to support organizing efforts
• Assists in filing representational petitions and ULPs with the proper agencies
• Attends staff meetings and other related meetings and trainings
• Performs work in a timely fashion
• Keeps accurate records and files of campaigns
• Assists other locals as requested in organizing efforts
• Performs related work as required

Application Process

Interested candidates should submit resume and cover letter to the Organizing Coordinator:

Joao Baptista
SEIU Local 509
100 Talcott Avenue
Watertown, MA 02472
jbaptista@seiu509.org
FAX: 617-924-8248.

The deadline for applications is February 3rd