1199 Magazine

“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

2022-2025 Union Contract with Kaleida Health Read More

We made it to the end of Maryland’s legislative session! Many of the bills that 1199 supported passed the state legislature and will soon be signed by Governor Wes Moore. Read More

MIAMI –Caregivers and leaders from 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East will host a virtual panel with Florida State Representative Michele Rayner (HD-70) and other officials on April 20 to discuss solutions to the dangerous staffing, retention and care crisis in the state’s nursing homes and hospitals. Read More

Buffalo, NY - More than 200 nursing home workers at four rural facilities in Western New York avoided a week-long strike after they reached a 2-year agreement this month. In a near unanimous vote, caregivers at 4 rural nursing homes ratified their new 2-year contract with Personal Healthcare. In February, caregivers held an informational picket to draw attention to short staffing, lack of fair wages and poor health insurance coverage. In March, 97% voted in favor of a week-long strike after months of negotiations without a fair contract. Union nursing home workers are represented by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, the largest healthcare workers union in the country. Read More

The 1199SEIU office in Miramar opened its doors to members and their families looking for assistance with applications for TPS or Temporary Protected Status and the Biden Administration’s parole program. Both programs provide temporary protections for migrants from designated countries that are experiencing armed conflict, environmental disaster or other hardships or humanitarian crises. Read More

The ratification vote on Friday, April 14, was the culmination of months of negotiating that began in September 2022. Technical workers at St. Anthony Community Hospital voted to become 1199SEIU members in September 2021. The following July, the service workers at St. Anthony, Schervier Pavilion and Mount Alverno Assisted Living Center joined them. Negotiations were held together, resulting in one contract for all 240 healthcare workers. Read More

WHO: 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, 1199SEIU Training & Employment Funds, Monroe 2-Orleans BOCES, County of Monroe Industrial Agency (COMIDA), Rochester Employment Opportunity Center (REOC), 1199SEIU Healthcare Education Project, Strong Memorial Hospital/University at Rochester Medical Center, New York State Assemblymember Demond Meeks, Monroe County Executive Adam Bello, and City of Rochester Mayor Malik Evans, Program Participants. Read More