Our Perspective
Headline
Housing Works,
Respect Your Workers
and Negotiate!
Housing Works — which employs over 600
RWDSU members at housing units, thrift
stores, healthcare, and other locations
throughout its sprawling operations in New York
City — is hurting its employees by failing to negotiate a union contract in
good faith, which the RWDSU has alleged in a new unfair labor practice
charge filed with the NLRB. It’s outrageous conduct, but unfortunately, fits
the recent pattern from an employer that has fought its workers — and
betrayed the organization’s progressive roots — throughout the workers’
entire organizing campaign.
Housing Works was founded in 1990 by several members of ACT UP to
provide supportive services for people living with HIV/AIDS. But during the
workers’ organizing campaign, Housing Works has behaved more like an
insensitive corporate behemoth than a progressive organization with activist
roots. And now, during negotiations, we are seeing Housing Works’
management dive back into the same big-business anti-union playbook.
For almost a year, Housing Works employees have been trying to
negotiate their first union contract. They are seeking safer workplaces, a
voice on the job, and more manageable caseloads so they can give Housing
Works clients — some of the most vulnerable members of our
communities — better care. Housing Works is stalling on even the most
basic foundations of a union contract, including agreements on sufficient
layoff notice and protections and guaranteed livable wages for workers in
New York City. They fail to appreciate the bargaining committee’s concerns
on important issues, such as creating manageable caseloads, health and
safety training, safe workplaces, and providing unpaid mental health leave
for workers who may suffer mental health traumas on the job.
They reject the union’s wage demands but employ high-priced lawyers
as their contract negotiators. Management even showed its contempt for
workers by taking too long to engage productively in conversations about
workers’ preferred pronouns, which is painfully ironic considering Housing
Works was founded by LGBTQ activists during a global health crisis. Over
30 years later, amidst another global health crisis, Housing Works is
dismissing workers’ health and safety proposals and proper staffing
concerns, and making it clear that despite the workers’ successful union
organizing drive, management wants to pretend that nothing has changed.
On top of it all, Housing Works has wasted valuable time by providing
the bargaining committee with bad data for wage negotiations. As a result,
the RWDSU filed an unfair labor practice charge against Housing Works on
February 22, 2022 with the Brooklyn office of the NLRB for bad faith bargaining.
Housing Works employees started their grassroots campaign to
unionize with the RWDSU because they wanted to be able to do their jobs
better and provide better care for Housing Works clients.
These workers make a real difference in the lives of the
people they serve, and now, they want a union
contract to make a real difference in their ability to
provide for themselves and their families, and
provide proper care to their clients with the
protection, safety, and respect that they deserve.
BRONX TIMES R 34 REPORTER, MAR. 4-10, 2022 BTR
BY FRANK VERNUCCIO
Americans opening up their latest
energy bill are, in some cases, being
forced to choose between paying it or
putting an adequate amount of food on
the table.
The shock and hardships endured
by Americans from their current energy
charges, at home, at the gas station,
and even in the products they
buy is directly due to the infl uence of
environmental extremists, who have
caused massive harm to both personal
and national fi nances, and international
relations.
The reality is that “alternative” energy
sources can, currently, only provide
about 20% of the world’s energy
needs, and that will not change until
major technological innovations occur,
which will not happen for many
years. It is as if, in the year 1776, someone
had suggested that in a century or
so the automobile would be invented
and proceeded to shoot all the horses.
Despite that reality and that timeline,
the extremists have successfully
assaulted fossil fuels and nuclear energy
without regard to the harm they
are causing. It is apparently of no consequence
to them that they have fueled
— pardon the pun — international crises,
harmed national economies, and
devastated family budgets.
The dramatic increase in both
your energy bills, and the infl ationary
prices in everything else, are the
specifi c and direct result of the Biden
administration’s assault on American
energy independence at the behest of
environmental extremists. On day one
of his reign, Biden killed the Keystone
XL pipeline. He then stopped energy
development in a portion of Alaska,
and forbade further energy development
on federal lands. This left the
U.S. dependent on foreign nations to
fulfi ll our energy needs.
It also dramatically started an infl
ationary cycle. Everything you eat,
buy or use takes energy to produce,
manufacture and transport to you or
your store. The hike in food prices is
as related to energy policy as much as
the cost of gasoline for your car.
The leftist politicians who buy into
anti-fossil fuel policies cannot feign
ignorance of the devastating impact
they have on the population. In 2008,
Barack Obama clearly stated “Under
my plan … electricity rates would necessarily
skyrocket.” He should have
added that the price of everything else
would “skyrocket” as well.
Bureaucrats haven’t been coy about
this, either. Also in 2008, Energy Secretary
Steven Chu said he was attempting
to “fi gure out how to boost
the price of gasoline to the levels in
Europe.”
There is no practical way in which,
under current technology, “zero emissions”
can be achieved in any realistic
manner. A total reliance on solar and
wind, even if possible, would require
that up to 20% of the entire U.S. landmass
would have to be covered in solar
panels and wildlife-killing wind
turbines, an environmental disaster
in and of itself. Since solar panels and
wind turbines have relatively short
lifespans, the problem of disposing of
those used and non-biodegradable devices
will result in a further crisis.
A Wall Street Journal analysis reports
that:
“Costs will continue to rise if politicians
remain bent on achieving
net-zero emissions globally. Bank of
America fi nds that achieving net zero
globally by 2050 will cost $150 trillion
over 30 years — almost twice the combined
annual gross domestic product
of every country on earth.”
In addition to massive infl ation,
extreme environmental policies are
responsible for deteriorating international
relations.
The late Sen. John McCain once
said that “Russia is a gas station masquerading
as a nation.” Biden’s antifossil
fuel policies are a gift-wrapped
present to Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin’s
aggressive actions towards Russia’s
neighbors are fueled by the vast
riches it has gained from the sale of
energy.
As environmental extremists slash
energy production in the West, Putin
gets wealthier, and he uses that wealth
to build his military.
CIVIC CENTER
Community Action Civic
Association
By Stuart Appelbaum, President
Retail, Wholesale and Department
Store Union, UFCW
Twitter: @sappelbaum
www.rwdsu.org
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