BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Employees at a Downtownbased
non-profi t are asking
Uncle Sam to oversee their
unionization efforts, after the
company’s chief executive refused
to recognize a companywide
vote to organize under the
Retail, Wholesale and Department
Store Union.
“Workers stood before their
employer yesterday, with a majority
of workers supporting the
union; but their so-called progressive
employer leaned back
and said no to recognizing their
union,” said RWDSU president
Stuart Appelbaum. “Charles
King is gaslighting his workers
when he says he is ‘neutral’,
and the workers won’t stand for
it any longer.”
About half a dozen employees
of the organization and
reps for the union dropped off
signed union authorization
cards by 402 of the roughly 650
Housing Works employees to be
represented by RWDSU at the
federal National Labor Relations
Board offi ces Downtown
on Friday, asking the agency
to hold a companywide election
for union representation.
King dismissed a plea by a
group of his employees to voluntarily
COURIER L 10 IFE, FEBRUARY 21-27, 2020
recognize the union
drive in a tense confrontation
at the organization’s Lawrence
Street headquarters, the Daily
News reported.
Employees of the company
— which hosts a number of
thrift shops around the city and
offers homeless services to New
Yorkers suffering from HIV
and AIDS — have grown frustrated
with too large case loads,
low pay and a paid time off policy
that demands they use up
their hours on federal holidays,
according to one worker.
“If the offi ce is closed on
Christmas, you have to use
eight hours of your PTO for
federal holidays, and I’m Jewish,
I don’t care about Christmas,”
said health and home
care manager Moriah Engelberg.
“I’ll ask to work in the
fi eld that day and they’ll say,
‘No you’re required to take
those days off because the offi
ces are closed.'”
Last October, more than 100
employees walked out and rallied
at Borough Hall demanding
better working conditions.
Engelberg said she joined
Housing Works employees fi led for a unionization election with the National
Labor Relations Board on Feb. 14 Photo by Kevin Duggan
Housing Works because she
supports its activism, but accused
King of neglecting his
principles when it comes to his
own employees.
“It’s a slap in the face to ask
us to come to advocacy meetings
and events that are required
as part of the job and for
him to be like ‘do civil disobedience’
and then for him to be so
hard-headed with the worker’s
advocacy,” she said.
Organizers previously tried
to get King to pledge neutrality
in union negotiations, supported
by a letter signed by a
slate of local electeds.
They questioned King’s
claims of neutrality after the
company hired Chicago-based
labor law fi rm Seyfarth Shaw
LLP, which advertises itself as
keeping workplaces “unionfree,”
according to its website,
and has a decades-long history
of anti-labor cases.
Housing Works leaders also
sent out a link to the unioncritical
website unionfacts.com
to supervisors, according to a
case manager.
King reiterated that the company
would remain neutral and
would accept a union if the majority
of employees vote for it.
“Throughout this union’s
long effort to organize Housing
Works’ employees... we
have protected the rights of our
employees,” he said in a statement.
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