We’re gearing up for the Medicaid fightback in 2026. Everywhere, we must call attention to the fact that protecting access to healthcare is not a partisan issue: it is supported by overwhelming majorities of Democratic and Republican voters alike.
As a passionate advocate for both members’ rights and quality patient care, Ida Davis believes political action is crucial to improving the lives of working people.
Members who work at the MJHS Menorah Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing Care on the southern tip of Brooklyn tend to stay for many years. With a contract negotiated through the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes, 1199 members benefit from labor-management collaboration, as well as fair wages and working conditions.
When Hurricane Melissa tore through Jamaica in late October, 1199 members immediately began making plans to help those affected.
On October 18, members from the Canadian border to the tip of Florida joined millions of fellow Americans to demand the federal government put families before billionaires and stop the deadly cuts to healthcare in the nationwide No Kings protests.
More than 1,000 members at Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie and Putnam Hospital in Carmel Hamlet, New York, won new minimum wages, improved shift differentials, as well as across-the-board wage increases and protection from layoffs.
On the eve of a planned strike, members at Rockland Pulmonary and Medical Associates agreed their first contract Westchester Medical Center, winning 12 percent raises over the life of the three-year deal.
“With the alarming behavior of the current US President, it is more important than ever to build one voice to fight back.”
New York members came together to mobilize resistance to the greatest threat to healthcare in living memory.