by Amy Thigpen Medical Social Worker Kaiser Permanente Fremont
After your mother has a stroke, who cares for her so you can work? A Long-Term Care worker does. Who connects your mother with the programs that provide this care? A Medical Social Worker does. I am one of those Medical Social Workers and a member of United Healthcare Workers-West, a 150,000 member-strong SEIU local. On July 14, our proposal to unite all of California’s healthcare workers into one union will be heard in Manhattan Beach.
Hospital workers, nursing home, and homecare workers should be united in one union because we are united in our purpose: improving our patients’ lives. Together, the care that we provide enables people to lead independent and productive lives.
The natural alliance among healthcare workers goes beyond the care we provide. For example, we are united in our efforts to improve the healthcare system in California. In years past, we have successfully defeated the governor’s efforts to slash homecare workers’ salaries and deny them medical benefits. What happens in a nursing home can and does affect what happens in a hospital and visa versa. If there was a decrease in homecare workers because they weren’t paid a living wage, your mother might have to go to a nursing home. Not only do most of us prefer to live in our own homes, there wouldn’t be enough nursing home beds due to the huge increase in need. The ER’s would be full of patients whose families couldn’t care for them at home. Many would end up in the hospital until we could find a safe place for them. The cost of healthcare would rise and be passed on to every one of us fortunate enough to be able to afford the already exorbitant premiums.
If workers from just one part of the healthcare industry had taken on this challenge, rather than uniting around this issue, the governor’s proposal might have passed. The impact on California’s healthcare landscape would have been enormous.
At the hearing in Manhattan Beach on July 14, SEIU will consider our proposal for uniting all healthcare workers in California. Also on the table will be another plan, which would split nursing home and homecare workers from their natural sisters and brothers in hospitals and clinics. That proposal runs counter to the theme of unity that came out of the 2008 SEIU Convention last month. Dividing healthcare workers diminishes our power to influence our jobs, our patients’ lives and healthcare in California.
We’ll be having a series of events on Monday to show how strong healthcare workers in California will be once we’re united. That includes a rally outside the hearing, live blog updates on the proceedings, daily video reports, and more. I encourage you to visit www.seiuvoice.org next week to keep up with what’s going on.
[ Cross-Posted at Openleft ]