“I love 1199,” says Yahaira Vasquez, a team assistant at Brooklyn’s Visiting Nurse Services (VNS). “The Union is the main reason I’ve been at VNS for the last 11 years. The family benefits are great. I got my college degree through the Union.”

The First Chinese Presbyterian Church Home Attendant Corporation has stopped paying for healthcare for over 750 New York City homecare workers, which could result in their current benefits being cut off. Caregivers say the agency’s actions will negatively affect the elderly and people with disabilities, because many workers may be forced to seek other jobs if they do not have access to medical treatment for chronic health conditions.

In an effort to prevent premature births and help the thousands of babies who are born at a low birth-weight and often very sick, 1199SEIU members in the NY metropolitan region are once again “tightening up their shoe laces” for the annual March for Babies, sponsored by the March of Dimes. This year Eli Manning, two-time Super Bowl MVP, will serve as its 75th Anniversary Celebrity Chairman in New York City. Manning will lead March for Babies in Manhattan.

Carmen Ramos, a Lenox Hill Hospital emergency room registrar, is eagerly awaiting and preparing for June 9th. That is the day when the National Puerto Rican Day Parade (NPRDP) will step off with 1199SEIU President George Gresham as International Grand Marshal. Gresham will be followed later in the parade by an 1199SEIU float with musicians and scores of members.