BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Several former employees
of Housing Works claim that
the Downtown Brooklyn nonprofi
t fi red them during the
COVID-19 pandemic as retribution
for their involvement in an
ongoing unionization effort.
The Housing Works organizing
group, represented by
the Retail, Wholesale and Department
Store Union, plans
to fi le Unfair Labor Practice
complaints with the federal National
Labor Relations Board
on Friday, alleging company
leadership tried to rid four of
their rank-and-fi le for being
outspoken unionizers.
“I feel that I was targeted in
a lot of ways because after we
did go public with our union
drive, I was not reserved and
quiet about my involvement,”
said Rebecca Mitnik, a former
Housing Works case worker
and one of four workers in the
ULP complaints.
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Mitnik — who worked to
connect clients who have HIV/
AIDS and are experiencing
homelessness to various government
support services —
was among the early organizers
of the push to unionize,
talking to her co-workers in
small sessions about working
conditions.
The labor organizers eventually
contacted RWDSU and
launched their public campaign
with a walkout from their Willoughby
Street headquarters
and a rally at Borough Hall in
October.
As the pandemic hit the city
in March, Housing Works laid
off Mitnik after the company
offi ces and stores closed their
doors due to the viral outbreak,
allegedly saying her position
no longer existed — a claim she
quickly cast doubt on.
“My position could not have
been made redundant because
they always need case managers,
we have such high caseloads,”
Mitnik said.
Within days she saw a posting
for a new case manager role
at Housing Works pop up on
LinkedIn — furthering her suspicion
that she was unwelcome
at the company because of her
collective bargaining push.
“It’s very clear to me, ‘We do
not want you specifi cally,'” the
Coney Islander said.
The sudden move left Mitnik
stranded in the middle of
a global health crisis, with her
company health insurance
expiring a day after she was
laid off. She also couldn’t contact
her clients because she
was locked out of her company
email account.
“I couldn’t terminate relationships
with my clients, I
couldn’t tell them I wasn’t abandoning
them,” she said.
Housing Works employees claim they were fi red for their efforts
to unionize. File photo by Kevin Duggan
Another former employee,
who was also a prominent fi gure
in the union drive, was furloughed
around the same time
as Mitnik, before the company
let him go entirely soon afterward
without offering him a
new position, he claims.
“I applied for four positions
at the bookstore in Manhattan
— never heard back,” said Eric
Fretz, who worked part-time at
the Housing Works Park Slope
thrift store on Fifth Avenue.
Housing Works chief executive
offi cer Charles King told
Gay City News in August that
“every single person who Housing
Works laid off” was offered
“alternative positions,” but
both Fretz and Mitnik say that
wasn’t the case for them.
Fretz had gone door-to-door
to other Housing Work outposts
to sign people up for the union
drive, and — along with Mitnik
— was among a handful of
workers to drop off the more
than 400 signed union authorization
cards out of some 600
employees at the district offi ce
of the National Labor Relations
Board in Downtown Brooklyn
in February.
“My face was known by all
these different store managers
as the person going around
doing this,” Fretz said.
Former Housing Works
staff say they were laid
off for union organizing
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