Seven more clinics in Maryland have voted to unite with 1199, joining fellow Planned Parenthood members in New York and Massachusetts

In August, nearly 100 workers at seven Planned Parenthood clinics in the Bal- timore area voted to form a union with 1199SEIU.

Shante Harris-El, a Nurse Practi- tioner at the Towson clinic, is excited to be one of the newly organized workers there. She says her passion for providing reproductive healthcare dates to her teen- age years when she had to have an abor- tion herself. Ever since then, she wanted to work and teach in women’s healthcare, and “help teenagers learn about their bodies and [give] them control and power over themselves and their decisions.”

Planned Parenthood is both a symbol for feminist resistance and a frequent punching bag for Republican politicians, but it remains a healthcare facility like any other, and its workers share similar concerns to other 1199 members, says Harris-El. She adds that “a lot of Planned Parenthood clinic workers were seeking unions because they wanted competent staff, a voice at work, better benefits, and better working conditions. Planned Parenthood is no different from other compa- nies when it comes to staff wanting those benefits. [Management] is often more focused on the staff buying into the mis- sion—and we do—but they sometimes fail to realize that we’re also working to make a living and take care of our families.”

Now, three years after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Harris-El says that she sees more patients from nearby states with highly restrictive abortion legisla- tion, especially West Virginia. A higher patient load combined with rapid staff turnover—which Harris-El believes is mainly caused by fears about physical safety and job security under a federal administration seeking to eliminate abor- tion – makes short-staffing even worse, and underscores the need for a union.

“It’s very important for us to be union- ized, because we are definitely under attack by our political system and government. Having a union, having one voice, is going to make Planned Parenthood stronger to fight the narrative that’s being presented, and keep our doors open so that we can support our mission,” she says.

Now that Harris-El’s facility is organized, she says she’s looking forward to solu- tions to chronic-short staffing which, she says, “decreases the quality of care” that the clinic can provide. That care encom- passes not just abortions but numerous other services: “I want people to know that it’s not just abortion that’s under attack, it’s all the services that Planned Parenthood provides. It’s birth control, it’s preventative care, mammograms, or- ders for screening, pap smears, sexually transmitted infection tests, treatment for men and women, transgender care, education to schools and outreach. All of our services are under attack when you attack Planned Parenthood and shut down Planned Parenthood centers.”

Forming a union was not new to Harris-El. She previously worked at Planned Parenthood’s Syracuse, New York location before moving to Maryland with her husband and son in 2020. “The Syracuse-Rochester area [clinics] union- ized under a union called CWA,” said Harris-El, “I was instrumental in helping that union organize.” When she arrived in Maryland and found that they were not yet organized either, she got involved in the 1199 campaign too.