New Study Outlines Path to Safeguard Quality Patient Care and Healthcare Jobs in Lynn

More than three hundred Nursing Home workers at Centers Health Care facilities in Buffalo and Corning went back to the bargaining table with their employer late this afternoon and have reached a Tentative Agreement.

The founders of 1199 shared a deep commitment to organizing all healthcare workers regardless of job classifications. They were active in the 1930s, the heyday of industrial unionism.

“Today, balance and justice have been restored to the White House, and to the halls of government. The election and inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris is a shift in the dysfunction and chaos of the last four years, to a real, principled commitment that will help unify and heal our nation.

“Senator Chuck Schumer has been a long-time champion of New York’s working people and has made it his priority to fight for the needs of healthcare workers here in New York State and in Washington, DC.

I am very happy because this morning I received my rst dose of the lifesaving COVID-19 vaccine. I hope our members and retirees will also embrace the vaccine to protect themselves and their families. For the last year, we healthcare workers have seen this deadly virus take the lives of our patients, co-workers on the frontlines, and our family and friends.

Our Union mourns the death of one of its greatest friends, David Dinkins. New York City’s only African American mayor passed away Nov. 23 at his Manhattan home. He was 93. His wife of 67 years, Joyce Dinkins, a celebrated children’s advocate, died only six weeks before him, on Oct. 11.

With the exception of Maryland- D.C. and Florida districts, 1199 is not generally viewed as a political force below the nation’s Mason-Dixon line. Nonetheless, our Union’s retirees throughout the South are flipping the script.

Ansel Oommen, a clinical laboratory technologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, lives where art and science meet. Since childhood, as an emerging artist he used his creativity to process emotions for which he did not yet have words. As he grew older, Oommen was also drawn to the sciences and the natural world.

At Clark Nursing and Rehabilitation Center (CNRC) in Clark, NJ, 1199SEIU members care for a broad spectrum of patients. Caregivers at CNRC treat patients recovering from surgery and seniors needing long-term care. CNRC members also work on a ventilator management unit, where they treat patients unable to breathe on their own. COVID-19 has highlighted not only the importance of this work, but also the professionalism and dedication of those who do it.

In the 1960s, the blue and white 1199 paper hats became a powerful symbol of economic and racial justice. The hat was worn during the hospital organizing drives in the early 1960s, but it began to symbolize progressive struggles especially after the historic 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.