1199 Magazine

Rochester Center for Rehabilitation & Nursing caregivers say lack dignity and respect, low wages, and limited benefits lead to chronic short staffing Read More

Florida Caregivers File Unfair Labor Practice Complaint Against HCA Hospitals; Vote To Refuse Voluntary Overtime Due To Safety Concerns, Staffing Crisis Read More

Florida Caregivers File Unfair Labor Practice Complaint Against HCA Hospitals; Vote To Refuse Voluntary Overtime Due To Safety Concerns, Staffing Crisis Read More

A week after more than 300 members of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers met with state and city officials about the crisis in healthcare, a new survey of workers shows deep concern with staffing, burnout and unsafe working conditions in nursing homes, health centers, and hospitals. Read More

MIAMI –Dozens of caregivers, healthcare workers and supporters will rally this week outside HCA Florida hospitals to highlight the critical staffing and care crisis at HCA facilities across the state, including May 9 near HCA Florida Largo Hospital. The events will be led by members of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, the state’s largest union of healthcare workers. Read More

Bronx, NY—Low-income communities like the Bronx will be harmed by Gov. Hochul’s healthcare budget, workers and advocates say, as she hosts a high-dollar fundraiser at the Yankees-Guardians game on Tuesday night. Read More

The world-class contracts 1199 members within the NY League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes have negotiated over the last several decades are a testament to the Union’s remarkable success. The wage increases that were agreed at the recent League wage re-opener in early March, is just the most recent win. Central to these victories was broad community support, political action, expert public relations and communications. Most important, was the work of members in the workplace. Read More

“I came to this country as a single mother with a young boy in 1991,” says Dr. Marlene Malcolm, a Jamaican immigrant to New York who started working as an 1199 Pharmacy Technician at Montefiore Medical Center upon her arrival. Read More

A lot can change in four days. When the 500 members of 1199SEIU’s League Bargaining Committee started the process of negotiating with the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Health Systems to reopen the contract in March, they knew they had a battle on their hands. Their existing contract did not expire until September 2024. Read More

Members at the University of Maryland Medical Center’s Midtown campus ratified their strongest contract ever in February, after months of tough bargaining. In the end, members were able to negotiate wage increases that amount to more than 10 percent for the longest-serving workers. 1199 Magazine recently caught up with some of the Union Delegates on the bargaining committee to find out how they did it. In the years since workers first organized with 1199 to form a union at the hospital, members have been working steadily to improve their wages and conditions. Read More

It was a crisp and sunny morning on March 21st, when thousands of 1199 members from all over New York State converged around the Capitol building to make sure Governor Kathy Hochul knew what was at stake if she did not amend her proposed state budget. Bus after bus pulled into nearby parking lots until more than 15,000 members from New York City, Long Island and even Buffalo had filled the streets ahead of a massive rally which filled the MVP arena. Read More

Buffalo, NY — Across New York State, emergency rooms are flooded with patients waiting hours to be seen by a doctor. Nursing homes are experiencing severe staffing shortages that threaten to delay resident care. Three years of the pandemic have pushed conditions to the limit as New York’s healthcare system struggles to replenish its healthcare workforce and keep Medicaid-reliant providers open, amid significant funding gaps. Read More

Buffalo, NY — Across New York State, emergency rooms are flooded with patients waiting hours to be seen by a doctor. Nursing homes are experiencing severe staffing shortages that threaten to delay resident care. Three years of the pandemic have pushed conditions to the limit as New York’s healthcare system struggles to replenish its healthcare workforce and keep Medicaid-reliant providers open, amid significant funding gaps. Read More

In 1959, a group of 5000 New York City drugstore workers made the audacious decision to organize the city’s hospital workers. It was audacious because, among other things, it was against the law at the time and the leaders of what was then Local 1199 were prepared to go to jail. It was also audacious because those drugstore workers, overwhelming Jewish men, were going to organize tens of thousands of mainly Black and Latina women, who were being paid $32 for a six-day workweek. Read More

Members and community allies, led by 1199SEIU President George Gresham, stopped traffic during rush hour in an act of non-violent civil disobedience in front of the Governor Kathy Hochul’s New York City office on March 29th. They held tombstones illustrating what is at stake if the state fails to inject much-needed dollars into healthcare provision in the FY2024 budget. Read More

The time for a reckoning has come. In the early days of the pandemic, when hundreds or thousands of members were going into work—many of them literally risking death for themselves and their family members each day—everyone was focused on the job at hand of saving as many people as possible. Read More

Buffalo, NY – Healthcare workers, providers, and consumers continue to lobby elected leaders for increases to healthcare funding in the late state’s budget, and city mayors are likewise calling upon the Governor to support Upstate NY’s health needs. They are calling for Medicaid rate increases for hospitals and nursing homes of 10% and 20%, respectively, detailing the dire financial situation that many healthcare providers find themselves in, after three years of a pandemic which devastated the healthcare workforce and has significantly increased the need for community health services. Mayors from the following cities sent letters urging Governor Hochul to invest in healthcare in the state’s budget: Read More

More than 1,500 members of 1199SEIU, the nation’s largest healthcare union, have voted overwhelmingly to ratify a contract that will improve the lives of the workers, their families and patients, and will also help to recruit and retain staff Read More

Statement of 1199SEIU President George Gresham, on the passing of Harry Belafonte: Read More

Buffalo, New York—Budget negotiations are entering their fourth week past the April 1st deadline and healthcare workers across New York State are continuing an unprecedented string of actions to focus attention to New York’s healthcare crisis that would further deteriorate if Medicaid isn’t funded adequately in the state budget. Workers are also calling for a reversal of major cuts to funding for safety-net hospitals and homecare workers’ wages contained in the Governor’s budget proposal. Read More