Jacquelyn Wheeler—an 1199 PCT at an HCA hospital in West Palm Beach, Florida—lays out the challenges and rewards of stepping up as a Union Delegate.

My co-workers call me the in-house lawyer because they know I’m always going to represent their side of the story to management. I remind them that I am a worker just like they are. I don’t get paid any extra for being a Union Delegate. Last month alone, I think I had three grievances a week and it got kind of hectic.

Sometimes I’ve even had to put my own job on the line to support a fellow member. As a PCT in the hospital since 2021, I had been taking hour-long lunch breaks along with my co-workers. Then the hospital began viewing their security camera footage and monitoring people’s breaks.

When they tried to terminate a co-worker for taking an hour-long break, we looked at the collective bargaining agreement and came to find out that we were supposed to have a 30-minute lunch break. We could combine that with our other breaks to make up the hour with approval. But they had never explained it to us that way.

I told management, if they wanted to fire someone for something as trivial as that, they might as well fire me too. The member was really impressed that I stood up for her like that.

You have to be bold with management and stand up to them, otherwise they just rely on intimidation. They feed on your being fearful.

For me the Union has always felt like family. I’m passionate about my membership, because of my husband who passed away in May 2021, just as I got hired at this hospital. He worked for UPS for 15 years and was also a member of a very strong union – the Teamsters.

I wear my Delegate’s badge all the time, which has a QR code on it, that I use to sign up members whenever I can. My tote bag is a union bag, and I always have an 1199 welcome pack on me. I try to catch my co-workers as they are leaving their shifts.

I also have a passion for political work. In this part of the country, you can really see the effects of politics. The hospital is only about 15 minutes’ drive from number 47’s resort, Mar-a-Lago.

Politics is a taboo word to a lot of members. But I always tell people that regardless of wheth- er you’re involved or not, politics is going to affect you. You can ignore it all you want to, but the minute you’re paying taxes in your city, your elected representatives are making decisions about how to spend your money. So, it’s important to elect the candidates who actually care about working people.

I worked on the Kamala Harris campaign and I’m often the Union spokesperson at rallies and events. I’ve been to the Florida state capital, Tallahassee, more times than I can count and I’ve been to Washington DC about eight or nine times. Working at an HCA Healthcare hospital, I also travelled to their headquarters in Tennessee and California for rallies protesting staffing levels and low wages.

We have a major issue with staff retention. Recently we had three PCTs move to neighboring hospitals because they were offering better pay.

Groceries and rent are just so expensive right now. My rent has gone up by $200 a month since I moved in. Even earning $22 per hour at the hospital, I have to take shifts with Uber and Amazon to get by. I don’t drive past midnight, though. It’s normally late at night that the crazies come out. People following me, blowing their horn and shouting racist threats.

These types of people have always been here. They are some of the local residents in this area. They’re just bolder about it now.

I’ve got an ad for an immigration attorney on the side of my car, to earn some extra money. But it means that I’ve been followed by Homeland Security a few times. My front windows are not tinted, and once they see that it is a black person driving, they go away.

ICE agents are not allowed to enter my hospital, but the parking lot is fair game. I did hear of a lady that had a car accident somewhere and she came to the hospital to get treated. I guess whoever was at the accident scene reported that she was of Hispanic descent. So, once she got released from the hospital, ICE detained her in the parking lot.

I have two sons, aged 18 and 30. My 18-year-old works at a water park, where he fractured his foot recently by slipping on water. He was eligible for Worker’s Compensation, and I spent a lot of time using what I know to make sure he got what he should.

Being a Delegate has helped me realize that I’m not just one small person on my own. I’m capable of making changes for both myself and my co-workers.