Our Perspective
Headline
Housing Works,
Respect Your Workers
and Negotiate!
By Stuart Appelbaum, President
Retail, Wholesale and Department
Store Union, UFCW
Twitter: @sappelbaum
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.
www.rwdsu.org
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Schneps Media March 3, 2022 9
/www.rwdsu.org
/www.rwdsu.org
