OLYMPIA, Wash. -- At-home caregivers for people with disabilities and older Washingtonians are holding the line in budget talks with the state.

Individual provider members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 775 are negotiating their contract for the next two years. They don't want to be swept up in potential budget cuts during the pandemic.

Dora Poqui, caregiver and union member, said the state contracts workers for certain hours, but they often provide care around the clock, especially if they're helping out a family member.

"You're limited with the hours they do contract you for and sometimes, the second job, you're not able to work out of the house because these clients that we take care of, they require that hands-on," Poqui explained.

Lawmakers have pushed back because of the unusual budget year during the COVID-19 pandemic. The state is looking at a $3.3 billion shortfall through 2023, according to a forecast from last year.

SEIU 775 members' top priorities in contract negotiations include affordable health-care premiums, no-cost personal protective equipment and ensuring there's language barring harassment, abuse and discrimination at work.

Poqui believes agreeing to their contract proposal would be more affordable than moving their patients to nursing homes.

"The state is saying they can't afford to give us raises, right? But yet if they are put into a facility, the facility requires that 24-hour care," Poqui argued. "They're going to be spending more money at the facilities than what we're asking for."

Poqui also noted wages need to keep up with the cost of living.

"We're already at a point where the cost of living has gone up," Poqui maintained. "I mean, everything's so high right now and then for us to get any hours taken or cut would really affect us."

The workers' contract expires at the end of June.

Reporting by Washington News Service funded in part by SEIU Local 775.


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Barring an agreement, 15,000 Minnesota nurses will go on strike next week. It would be the second walkout in recent months in a labor dispute that goes beyond standard negotiating matters.

The Minnesota Nurses Association says it continues to fight for hospital environments that won't push its members away, while again accusing administrators of prioritizing profits over patient care.

Megan Dayton is the president of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees. Her union isn't part of the talks, but said its members stand in solidarity with the nurses.

"We've been around since the '80s, and the only time that we ever were on strike as a union was over healthcare," said Dayton. "And that's the setting that these members are in. So, we know how important that this healthcare setting is for Minnesota families. And the hospitals need to take better care of the nurses, who end up caring for all us when we can't care for ourselves."

With COVID-19 and seasonal viruses landing more patients in hospitals right now, allies say there's no better time to address such issues as burnout.

One of the regional providers involved in the dispute, Allina Health, issued a statement saying the nurses' union continues to "focus on disruption at the expense of spending meaningful time at the bargaining table."

Vicki Good - past president of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses - said these calls have been building for several years, with the pandemic pushing the issue into the limelight.

"Nurses are really crying out for flexible work schedules," said Good. "They need support with the stress-injury continuum that really addresses burnout and moral distress, and compassion fatigue."

Good added that there's been some momentum in the U.S. - including from hospital administrators - to create better work environments, but she stresses it won't happen overnight and labor tensions will still surface.

In Minnesota, Dayton said local administrators need to remember the region's strong reputation for healthcare, and who's involved in making it happen.

"People come from all over the country, all over the world, to Minnesota for the healthcare that we have here," said Dayton. "And that is those nurses - they are the frontlines of healthcare."

Orange County Convention Center food-service workers have authorized a strike, and the window for that action opens today.

Members of Unite Here Local 737 voted on November 21 to authorize a strike any time after their contract with the French food service provider Sodexo expired on Wednesday.

The vote in favor of the strike authorization was 235 to zero, and Local 737 President Jeremy Haicken said the issues are clear.

"Sodexo workers need a raise," said Haicken. "That's been our clear message. We need a raise in what people make on the job, and we need a raise in what people get in their retirement. We have full-time workers earning as little as $13.60 an hour and we have people who have no retirement plan."

In a statement, Sodexo says they will "continue to engage in good faith during ongoing CBA negotiations, in a sincere attempt to reach a fair and competitive set of long-term agreements in a timely manner."

Contract negotiations are scheduled to resume on December 13.

According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology cost of living calculator, the living wage in Orlando is now more than $18 per hour.

In turn, Haicken said Unite Here is seeking a minimum wage of $18 per hour - along with improved retirement benefits.

"We're proposing a company-funded traditional pension plan," said Haicken. "Right now the workers have a 401(k). Very few people have enough cash on a weekly basis to put into a 401(k)."

In addition to Orlando, Sodexo is currently in contract negotiations with Unite Here workers at convention centers in Las Vegas, New Orleans, Sacramento and Detroit.

Citing a religious exemption, Edward Waters University - a private, historically Black school in Jacksonville - has shut down its faculty union.

The news came weeks after the university announced the inaugural leader of its A. Philip Randolph Institute, named after a prominent African American labor leader who led a successful campaign in 1925 to organize a union of Pullman workers and helped lead the 1963 March on Washington.

But Felicia Wider-Lewis, Ph.D - a former associate professor at Edward Waters - said she will have to leave the school today.

She claimed the infrastructure deteriorated over the years, and efforts to bargain with university leaders for better conditions failed.

"And I'm not trying to disparage the college in any mean way," said Wider-Lewis. "But we were fighting for our rights - basically, you know, for shared governance, for to have better wages and working conditions - all the things that everybody wants, you know."

Classes just ended this week for the fall semester at Edward Waters.

The university declined to comment for this story, but in a statement to the news organization The Tributary, it cited the National Labor Relations Board's 2020 decision not to have jurisdiction over religious schools.

The university stated it allows "EWU to be driven by its faith-based Christian mission, rather than the political agendas often associated with federal labor policies."

Wider-Lewis said the faculty union has been operating under the American Association of University Professors.

Lengthy negotiations came to a sudden halt in May when the university sent a letter saying it will not recognize the union - and since then, it has not.

"You know, the political arena right now, and previous in the Trump administration," said Wider-Lewis, "more of the politics was that anti-union stance."

Last year, the board of trustees of St. Leo University in Florida voted to no longer recognize its 44-year-old faculty union.

St. Xavier University in Chicago took a similar stance, as have other religious institutions - taking advantage of the NLRB decision, which is related to a 2018 court case.




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