Progressive News, Opinion, and Analysis
Over twenty members of NEARI local 806 carried picket signs on North Main St early this morning before separating to cover the various studios that are spread over the RISD campus. The art studio technicians are officially on strike until “the administration returns to the negotiating table.”
Rhode Island School of Design technicians – the school employees who facilitate and operate the various art studios on campus – are going on strike Thursday. Tucker Houlihan, president of NEARI local 806, said this will shutter the art studios to students.
“They are shutting down the kilns,” he said. “They won’t be laser cutting, they won’t be welding. Kids who had those classes, they won’t have it.”
RISD spokewoman Jaime Marland said, “Arrangements are being made to minimize the impact of such an action – in the event of a strike, some shops will be open.”
Houlihan says the 44 employees who run the various studios – there are about 16 different studios, he said, and listed as examples the glass studio, ceramics studio, metal studio and the woodworking studio – play a large role in RISD students’ education. “We’re the ones who have unlimited contact with students because we are in the studios all week,” he said.
Houlihan said the strike will last until the administration returns to the negotiating table.
The technicians and administration have been at odds over a new contract since May of 2014 and they have been working under the old contract since then. In October, the administration declared an impasse, Houlihan said. A mediator told the union to identify budget neutral contract changes.
In response, the union would like their contract to stipulate the pension contribution percentage technicians currently receive from the school. He said it is 8 percent and is spelled out in the faculty handbook but not the contract. The union feels it would be harder for RISD to cut that part of technicians salary if it was spelled out in the contract. Previously, technicians received a 10 percent pension contribution, but it had since been lowered to 8 percent.
Marland, the school spokeswoman, said “RISD has worked closely with the Technicians’ Association bargaining team since May 2014 to reach an agreement that provides the technicians with a competitive wage and benefits package while balancing the college’s critical need to keep the rate of tuition increases low. RISD’s offer to the technicians remains open and the college is hopeful that, if a strike occurs, it will conclude quickly.”
“We are not striking over monetary changes,” Houlihan said. “We’re simply trying to get them to come back to the table and negotiate in good faith.”
The Technicians Association has a Facebook page, a Twitter account and a website.
Public sector retirees vote today at Twin River on whether to accept the terms of a settlement agreement between the state and organized labor about their pension benefits. If they accept the offer, they and the rest of Rhode Island get to put this three-year political odyssey to bed. In the meantime, Jon Brien and I found one more opportunity to rehash what has become one of the most popular debates in the Ocean State: why did we cut pensions, and was it fair or just an expedient way to save money?
More than 500 people crowded into the meeting room of Our Lady of the Rosary Church on Benefit St in Providence for the Worker & Community Speakout for Good Jobs and Quality Care on January 17. At issue was the contract negotiation between Lifespan/Rhode Island Hospital and General Teamsters Local 251 representing some 2,500 hospital employees.
According to Local 251, “As a non-profit entity, Lifespan and RI Hospital are supposed to put the healthcare needs of the community first. Unfortunately, management has taken cost cutting measures, causing shortages in equipment and staff that undermine patient care.”
Literature at the Speakout quoted a nurse, Aliss Collins, saying, “When we are understaffed, I cover 56 patients in three units. It’s not right for the patients or the employees.” There was a story at the Speakout of another nurse who was forced to buy her own equipment for measuring oxygen levels, because the hospital did not provide it.
Obamacare has allowed Lifespan/RI Hospital to take in an additional $33 million in net revenue last year, because so many Rhode Islanders are now covered under Medicaid. Yet rather than invest this money in patient care, Lifespan pays its “ten highest paid executives” more than $16.6 million in its last fiscal year, an average of $1 million more in compensation “than the average earned by CEOs of nonprofit hospitals nationally,” according to the union.
At the same time, hospital employees such as single mom Nuch Keller make $12.46 an hour with no healthcare coverage. Keller’s pay does not even cover her rent. She regularly works 40 hours or more per week, yet Lifespan continues to pay her as a part-time employee. And in case you missed it, Keller works at a non-profit hospital, and receives no healthcare.
The Speakout was intended to show community support for the workers of RI Hospital, and was attended by Representatives David Cicilline and Jim Langevin, as well as General treasurer Seth Magaziner. There were also representatives from many other unions and community groups such as Jobs with Justice, Unite Here! and Fuerza Laboral. Many religious leaders, including Father Joseph Escobar and Rev Duane Clinker, were on hand to show support.
It was hard not to feel that something new was happening at the Speakout. The level of community support and solidarity made one feel as if a union resurgence were imminent, which many feel is necessary if obscene inequality is to be combated.
It was Duane Clinker who helped put the event into perspective for me. He said that unions have often limited their negotiations to wages, hours and benefits, and health-care unions have long argued staffing levels, but “when/if organized workers really make alliance with the community around access to jobs and improved patient care – if that happens in such a large union and a key employer in the state, then we enter new territory.”
This struggle continues on Thursday, January 29, from 2-6pm, with an Informational Picket at Rhode Island Hospital. “The picket line on Thursday is for informational purposes. It is is not a request that anyone cease working or refuse to make deliveries.”
Full video from the Speakout is below.
Projecting a tight budget, Providence school officials are considering outsourcing the school bus monitors.
The Providence School Board and Superintendent Susan Lusi are “seeking bids on buses and drivers, and also asking for an additional price for monitors,” said PPSD Director of Communications Christina O’Reilly.
There are nearly 200 bus monitors in Providence, who earn an average of $12.37 per hour. When public education outsourcing occurs a private company often hires back some employees at a lower wage and other new employees at drastically lower wages.
“Seeking this pricing in no way obligates the School Department to have the transportation vendor provide the monitors, but provides us factual information regarding costs,” O’Reilly told me.
“The genesis of this issue precedes the incoming Elorza administration by nearly two years,” she told me. But Elorza transition team spokesperson Marisa O’Gara said “Mayor-elect Elorza supports Superintendent Lusi and the Providence School Board’s decision to seek additional information regarding the cost of bus monitors.”
Mayor-elect Elorza and Superintendent Lusi should realize that it is the total cost of privatization needs to be examined, not just the savings that may accrue in eliminating certain jobs and lowering pay.
In talking to bus monitors on Tuesday morning outside the First Student bus lot on Ricom Way in Providence, I learned that the duties and responsibilities of bus monitors are surprisingly complex. In addition to helping schoolchildren on and off the buses, and making sure that vehicles are complying with traffic laws and stopping when the students are in the street, bus monitors are trained in first aid, trained to deal with special needs students (and parents), are there to help evacuate a bus in the event of an emergency and stand ready to protect children from those who might come onto the bus looking to do students harm.
The bus monitors I talked to have been on the job from anywhere between three and 20 years. They know the children they care for. They know the communities they serve. Parents trust the bus system because they know that the bus monitors are professional and accountable.
When I asked the small crowd of bus monitors how many of them lived in Providence, every hand went up. Many are single mothers and fathers. Make no mistake: being a bus monitor does not pay a lot, but it pays enough so that the men and women I talked to can maintain their homes, afford health care and send their children to school. Bus monitors take pride in their work. They know how important their jobs are. They are aware that they play a key role in the safety, security and wellbeing of our children.
The bus monitors spoke to me about their disappointment in Providence Mayor-elect Jorge Elorza, because they feel that they supported him when he was seeking to be elected, but now feel betrayed that he is looking into putting them all on the unemployment line, or to force them to do the same work they do now but for a private company at a fraction of their current pay. They wondered why cost cutting is always placed on the backs of the poorest citizens. They are appealing to the Elorza’s humanity.
Spaight O’Reilly says that privatization is not yet a done deal. “Seeking this pricing in no way obligates the School Department to have the transportation vendor provide the monitors, but provides us factual information regarding costs.”
The cost of nearly 200 Providence families suddenly without jobs in this difficult economy, signing up for various forms of public assistance, should be balanced against the few dollars an hour savings in salaries. A cost also needs to be found for the extra danger our students will be in as responsible, trained professionals are replaced with minimum wage workers who may lack the experience, motivation and training required to properly prioritize the lives of our students.
Privatization of public services too often results in tiny and temporary savings at the cost irreplaceable expertise and the hollowing out of jobs in vulnerable communities. I hope Mayor Elorza is wise enough to see that destroying people’s livelihoods is not a good first step on the sustainable path towards a revitalized Providence.
Below, a bus monitor makes her case in Spanish.
Support Steve Ahlquist!
Just under 30 people marched and chanted Tuesday afternoon in the pouring rain outside the Renaissance Providence Hotel to protest the suspension, pending termination, of Marino Cruz and Veronica Arias, two employees who have helped to lead the campaign to improve working conditions at the hotel. Though it is illegal to fire an employee for organizing workers, proving that employees have been let go because of their organizing is difficult.
Unite Here 217, the organizer of Tuesday’s “emergency action” called the suspension of the employees, “a clear attempt to stifle the workers’ organizing campaign” and maintain that the charges brought against the employees by The Procaccianti Group, the corporation that manages the hotel, are “trumped up.”
Activists and supporters joined hotel employees for about 20 minutes of marching and chanting on the wet and windy sidewalk outside the hotel. Then a group of activists attempted to enter the hotel, petition the management and demand that Cruz and Arias be given back their jobs. Hotel employees did not approach the hotel but stayed on the sidewalk to avoid being fired by management.
As can be seen in the video below, the protesters never entered the premises. Instead, the doors were locked and private security prevented entrance to the hotel. A few minutes later two Providence police officers arrived, and the crowd dispersed.
Protesters vow that until the Procaccianti Group sits across the table and deals fairly with its workers, protests and boycotts will continue, no matter the weather.
On a personal note, keeping the camera dry under such conditions is extremely difficult, but the results were with the effort.
Support Steve Ahlquist!
With the hallway completely packed, Stoni Thomson—a member of the Student Labor Alliance at Brown—began, “I don’t know who is in charge here, but we have a message to deliver.”
The library administrators who were available did not respond and remained in their offices. One continued looking at his computer screen. Another sat in his chair and watched the chain of students file by his door.
Not swayed, the students in unison firmly stated, “We’re here to show our support of Brown library workers. We won’t stop until Brown agrees to a fair contract. And you haven’t seen anything yet. So now we’re going to “study-in.” We’re going to study here as a show of support to library workers.”
A solidarity clap began.
When the clapping subsided, Associate Librarian David Banush came out of his office and said, “This is not a public space for you to study in.” The students responded by sitting down and began study-ing in. Banush went back in his office and closed the door. Soon all the other library administrators’ doors closed.
A few minutes later, a Brown University public safety officer arrived and told the students they were creating a fire hazard. There was more clapping.
After the demonstration, Patrick Hutchinson, a library union worker, said, “I’ve been a union member for 40 years now…and this level of solidarity from the students is just unbelievable to me. It’s fabulous. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
This demonstration was done in support of library union workers who are currently in ongoing negotiations with Brown University. The previous contract ended September 31, 2014. Library union workers have been working without a new contract since then. The main concern for the union is staffing. Many areas in the library are currently understaffed. The union is also asking to be included in new work created by the library in its effort to remain current and relevant to the academic needs of Brown students.
I should add that my perspective on all this is very biased. I am a union member in the Brown library and I have been a part of the union negotiating team. In fact, my biases are so extreme and deep that I wholeheartedly applaud and support everything the students did in their demonstration of solidarity with library workers.
Video (and above photo) by Shirin Adhami:
I have devoted much of my life to the labor movement, I believe that poor and working people have all the capacity and intelligence to run their own lives. I also believe that democracy needs everybody and should extend into economic life. I believe that anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-gender bias, are core values of labor.
I believe that without these values, there is no value to the movement. I believe that all poor and working people are members of the labor movement, that the labor movement is more than the book in your wallet. I am as hurt by the silence of labor’s leaders as I am heartened by scope of the protest.
History does not look kindly on the silent or the safe. I look at the kids organizing this national protest against police violence as well as the folks organizing the fast food workers, and I see clearly that this is where our leadership will come from. Laying down themselves on our streets and highways to say with such determination and courage STOP.
The xenophobia against the undocumented and animus directed against their children, the cruelty of punishment meted out to black preschoolers, the prisons full of people of color, the austerity directed at mothers and the aged. These are labor’s people, labor needs to speak out, loudly and without compromise that this is our fight, together. My disappointment is deep. I know we can do better. I will commit as a labor leader.
I am committed to anti-racism.
I believe medical care is a civil right.
I believe work should be available for everyone who desires it.
I am committed to anti sexism.
I am committed to prison abolition.
I am committed to full gender inclusion.
I am against austerity.
I will work understanding that the aims of working people and the aims of wealthy people are not the same.
I am committed to housing justice.
I am committed to working for a fully de-militarized police.
I am committed to fully de-militarized schools.
I will never be silent.
I am committed to winning for working people comfort, culture, safety, and community.
I will not compromise these core beliefs.
I am inviting all other members of traditional labor to sharing this commitment.
Providence public sector unions have been roundly rebuked for endorsing Buddy Cianci, both from Dan Lawlor on this blog and the Providence Journal editorial page. But how much do their endorsements matter in a mayoral election? The answer: not as much as when the city had a residency requirement.
While the local police, fire and teachers’ unions each endorsed Cianci, most of the members don’t live in Providence, a City Hall source confirmed.
Of the 3,516 Providence Public School Department employees, 37 percent live in the city (1,310). Only 22 percent of 469 fire department employees live locally and 21 percent of the 531-member police force lives in Providence. Of the 5,432 employees total city employees (including the school district) 36 percent live in the city, or 1,937.
And when it comes to the union executive boards that decide on political endorsements, the number of locals are equally stark. Of the 13 educators on the Providence Teachers Union Executive Board, only two live in the city, or 15 percent. Of the 11 executive officers of the fire fighters bargaining unit, only two live in the city, or 18 percent. And only one of the five members of the police union lives in Providence, 20 percent.
Jeremy Sencer, an elementary school and a member of the union’s executive board who lives in Cranston, cautioned me not to discount the significance of their endorsement simply because many members don’t live locally.
“While most of us don’t live there, we do spend a significant amount of time there, and we spend a lot of our time with the kids and families there,” he said. “We’re committed to the children and families of Providence, that puts us in a position to recommend, on education, what is good for Providence.”
Angel Taveras and Clay Pell have managed to do at least one thing Gina Raimondo couldn’t: pit public sector unions against one another.
While NEARI, the state’s suburban teachers’ union, is vociferously backing Pell, a diverse group of public and private sector unions launched today calling itself “Working Families for Angel.”
In a press release the group said: “Angel Taveras is the only Democratic candidate in this race who knows the stresses working families are under. Angel was raised by a single mother; his first job was a unionized bagger and cashier at a grocery store; worked his way through law school; and as Mayor has collaboratively solved problems with his employees to move Providence forward. We will convey this message to our members and their families, utilizing every communication avenue possible and look forward to the Democratic Primary Election on September 9th. We are confident that come Election Day our members’ voices will be heard.”
The group plans on making contact with 16,000 union households, it said in the press release. “A coalition this size could represent more than 30% of this year’s Democratic gubernatorial primary voters, and provide a massive boost to Angel Taveras’ campaign,” it said.
The group includes, according to the press statement:
…the Rhode Island State Association of Firefighters, International Association of Firefighters, AFL-CIO; RI Council 94, American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO; United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 328; United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 791; International Brotherhood of Police Officers, National Association of Government Employees, SEIU, AFL-CIO; Service Employees International Union, Local 580, AFL-CIO; Brotherhood of Utility Workers Council, Local 310, United Utility Workers of America, AFL-CIO; and International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Local 400, AFL-CIO.
While zipping through Netflix the other night, I came across a movie about bootleggers–that I wouldn‘t really recommend. As I watched, however, something became very clear.
Demand.
Supply-side economists have this totally absurd notion that supply will create its own demand. That has to be one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. Why are there no Wal-Mart’s in the Yukon territory? Why did buggy-whip manufacturers go belly-up after the auto-mobile became popular? Why are there no stores that sell only items related to Reformation Theology?
Seems like a Wal-Mart should be enough of an attraction to create its own demand. Right?
Seems like a plentiful supply of quality buggy-whips should have enough appeal to create its own demand. Right?
And lots of books and pictures of Thomas Cramner, well, obviously, this is a supply that has to create its own demand. Right?
But then you have Prohibition. What happened there? Supply disappeared, at least in theory. So demand collapsed, because nothing is ever driven by demand. Right?
Except just the opposite happened. Demand created the supply. Just like illegal drugs. With sufficient demand, someone, and even lots of someones, will take great risks to produce a supply.
And yet, star-level economists, especially at the U Chicago insist that demand has no role in economic performance. Cut taxes, cut regulations, free the supply side and demand will follow. It HAS to! Our theory says it will! So it will be so!
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: my grandfather lived through the Depression. He had a line that held more wisdom than all of the collected works of the U Chicago school. My granddaddy had no illusions about “Good Old Days”, when it was all simpler. His line was “Sure, a loaf of bread only cost a nickel. But what the hell. You didn’t have a nickel.”
And there you have it. No matter how cheap a thing, people won’t buy it if a) they don’t want it (see Whips, Buggy above); or b) they don’t have any money.
Which leads to the current state of the economy. Five full years after the crash, a lot of people still don’t have jobs. Or, if they do, they are low-level service jobs that pay between minimum and maybe $10/per hour. $10 per hour grosses just shy of $21k per year. Can you rent for $400 per month? Can you keep a car on the road for $400 per month? Maybe that will cover gas, but you also MUST factor repairs and routine maintenance into that. Can you eat decently on $400 per month? And that means, you know, fresh fruits and veggies. Yes, you can get by on boxed mac-and-cheese, but that takes a horrible toll on your body. So we’re down to something like $500 per month discretionary. (Taking a month as 4.3 weeks). Not saying that’s not enough to get by on. It is. I know because I’ve done it (adjusting for inflation). But let me tell you, don’t plan on buying much.
And there, exactly, is the rub. I get so sick of people who say that employers have the right and the obligation to drive wages into the ground. And then say that workers should be thrilled to have any job,at any wage, no matter how pathetically low. Have to free up the job creators!
But what good does that do? Job creators are more free now than they have been in generations. They’re making huge profits. They’re sitting on piles and piles of money. So, they’re free*. Why don’t they create jobs? Or why don’t they create jobs that pay people a decent wage? Why is there a need to stockpile even more money?
Look, Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathizer. That is not a slur. It’s an historical fact. Go read anything about him and you will find out that he was so virulently anti-communist that he thought the Nazi government was a good thing, at least before the onset of WWII and the Final Solution. He figured out that it was a good idea to pay workers more than starvation wages. He realized that by paying his workers a good wage, he was creating customers.
In other words, he was creating demand for his products. In other words, paying workers more, and making a smaller profit, was in his best self-interest.
We are primed for a terrific natural economic experiment. Massachusetts is going to raise its minimum wage, gradually, to $11 per hour by 2017. The first increase is to $9/hour as of 1/1/15. Since Mass and RI currently have the same minimum wage, this means that millions of jobs will be fleeing from Mass, crossing the border into RI to take advantage of the lower wage. And it means that Mass will be plunged into economic darkness and decay because, everyone knows that a higher–and increasing—minimum wage will cost millions f jobs. By 2018, Mass will look like Detroit on a grand scale.
Everyone knows this. Just like everyone knows that millions of Rhode Islanders have fled to low-tax places like North Dakota and Wyoming. Because that’s what Econ 101 says.
Well, maybe those people should have stuck around for Econ 201, or 301. Maybe they’d have learned there’s more to the story.
And: assuming that my “predictions” don’t come true, and that the economy in Mass actually improves, I will expect a personal apology from every single person who says I’m wrong.
Because, fact of the matter, a higher minimum wage will stimulate demand. People will have money. They will buy more. That means companies will hire more people. And the virtuous cycle continues. If you want proof of this, cross the border into Canada, where the minimum wage is currently $11./hour. And then cross back. It’s like going from a First World country into a Third World country. When you cross back into the US, that is.
And if you don’t believe me, how about this guy?
The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) is having their annual General assembly in Providence this weekend, and today around noon they held a rally outside the Renaissance Hotel near the State House to support worker’s rights to a fair and just living wage, and to demonstrate against the draconian and anti-democratic tactics used by state officials to stop hotel workers from raising the minimum wage in Providence. Well over two hundred people made the trek from the Convention Center, where the UUA GA is being held, to the empty lot outside the Renaissance to chant, hear speeches and sing for economic and social justice.
Pastor Santiago Rodriguez, of the Gloria Dei Lutheran Church located between the Providence Place Mall and the Renaissance Hotel, emceed the event, introducing speakers and leading the crowd in chants of “Show Your Love to the Workers” and “Fair Wages.”
Also speaking was local legend Yilenny Ferreras, hotel worker and one of the four hunger strikers who shamed the Rhode Island legislature into making a small gesture of raising the minimum wage in the state to $9. Her speeches are full of fire, and her story resonated with the crowd.
Reverend James Ford of the First Unitarian Church in Providence and Reverend Ellen Quaadgras of the Westminster Unitarian Church in East Greenwich spoke next. It was under the leadership of Ford that the UUA General assembly made the difficult decision to boycott the 850 rooms they had originally asked for at the Renaissance. Given the hotel’s refusal to fairly engage with its employees over union and salary, plus its loss of LGBTQ friendly TAG Approved status, it would have been hypocritical to do any less. Still, 850 rooms were a lot to make up for, and the UUA GA had to scramble to find adequate lodging for all their attendees.
Speaking next was B Doubour, a fast food worker at Wendy’s who spoke of the difficulty she has paying bills and supporting her kids on the minimum wages the company pays.
Lauren Jacobs, National Organizing Director for Restaurant Opportunities Centers United spoke next, reminding the audience that the real minimum wage in Rhode Island is not $8, it’s $2.89. That’s what tipped workers in Rhode Island are entitled to. Often, their checks from the company they work for are for $0 after taxes are taken out. “Do you know what they call a worker who works for free?” Jacobs asked. “A slave!” answered the crowd.
The Rev. Amy Carol Webb, Musician and Minister at River of Grass UU Congregation in Ft. Lauderdale then lead the crowd in a song.
Rabbi Jonathan Klein, Executive Director of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice in Los Angeles spoke next about the need for organizing around social justice issues. He hopes Rhode Islanders can get past difference is race, class and union divides to work together for a fair living wage for everyone.
Donald Anderson, of the RI Council of Churches, told the crowd that his group fully supported the efforts of workers in Rhode Island to earn a living wage.
After the speakers were finished Jesse Strecker, Executive Director of Rhode Island Jobs With Justice asked the crowd to follow Pastor Santiago Rodriguez into the hotel to speak with Renaissance Hotel Manager Angelo DePeri about an employee who faces termination due to their involvement with the unionization effort. As the crowd moved from the field to the parking lot, Providence Police and hotel security intercepted telling the leaders that the hotel, a public building receiving over a million dollars in tax breaks from the City of Providence every year, was not letting anyone from the crowd inside. In fact, DePeri was not interested in meeting even one person from the crowd as a representative.
The fact is, good and moral people want fair wages for all workers. The battle for economic justice has begun.
All pictures and video above are available for use under the Creative Commons license. Please use them far and wide.
(cc) 2014 Steve Ahlquist
An all day picket was held at Women & Infants Hospital yesterday to call attention to the problem of temporary, out-of-state “travel nurses” filling scheduling holes than hiring in-state nurses graduating from one of the many fine colleges offering nursing degrees in Rhode Island.
“There are many qualified graduates from our numerous nursing programs looking for jobs,” said Patrick Quinn, executive vice president of 1199 SEIU New England, “so it baffles me that Care New England management would take advantage of all the tax breaks of a non-profit but not give back to the community when we have such a high unemployment crisis.”
Care New England is the company presently managing Women & Infants.
Hiring travel nurses means that the salaries leave the state when the nurses are done. There are no savings in terms of wages as travel nurses make two and three times the standard rate of pay. Further, all full-time permanent nurses are given weeks of in house training and orientation that the temporary travel nurses skip. They are simply plugged into scheduling holes without any real orientation or training in hospital specific policies. This creates even more work for the regular staff, who spend time correcting the mistakes of the travel nurses.
Given these issues, why use travel nurses? To avoid hiring more union workers, of course.
This is just another example of a company engaging in dangerous, impractical strategies to avoid treating workers with respect and dignity. Even as the ACA funnels millions of new dollars into the health care industry, private companies, eager to squeeze ever more profits for their shareholders and overpaid CEOs, take shortcuts at the expense of their staff and patients.
My wife and I went to Women and Infants over 20 years ago to have our three children. The experience was top notch, and the nurses were fabulous. To think that the new management might threaten the reputation of such a fine hospital by playing games with the quality of the staff is appalling. As Wendy Laprade, a Registered Nurse in the Labor and Delivery Room said, “Women & Infants… will only remain the premier women’s hospital in Southern New England if we hire and train the next generation of RN’s.”
With all the talk surrounding a new nursing school being built in Rhode Island, and knowing that there will be a huge demand for nurses as the population ages over the next decade, Care New England’s policy decisions seem extremely short-sighted and counterproductive. Currently there are 30-35 traveling nurses estimated to be working at Women & Infants. This Pro Publica piece from 2009 highlights some of the dangers these policies exacerbate.
Supporting the union effort at Women & Infants were several other unions, as well as gubernatorial candidate Clay Pell and many other candidates for office. Also out in full support of the union’s efforts were three of the four hunger strikers, Shelby Maldonado, Mirjaam Parada and Yilenny Ferrares, and other hotel workers who worked so hard for a living wage in Providence, only to be cut down by backroom dealings in the General Assembly.
Though the first round of the Fight for a $15 minimum wage appears to be over, due to the anti-democratic efforts of a right-wing General Assembly more concerned with feathering the beds of the rich and entitled than easing the burden of the poor and disenfranchised, the hotel workers targeted by the Mattiello budget are not going away or shutting up. A pair of interviews over at Bluestockings Magazine, a Brown University based publication writing “about issues from a gender aware perspective” has given voice to hotel workers Santa Brito and Miguelina Almanazar.
Both have been vocal leaders in the fight for fair and decent wages, and their interviews need to be more widely read.
When asked about the General Assembly’s pre-emptive move to prevent the hotel workers from achieving a $15 minimum wage, Almanazar said, “The truth is, we were expecting it because this is what the state and the state politicians always do. Whenever we’re asking for something, they always take the side of the rich. When we’re entering bankruptcy, they raise the taxes on our houses. When something is wrong, the minority has to pay for that. They never want to invest in the minority. They never want to invest in poor people, and that is what we are. So the truth is, we were expecting it, and so it doesn’t have us down. We are going to keep fighting it, and we are going to change the law.
Santa Brito, who once said that “House leadership is moving to jail us in poverty” is at her direct and uncompromising best, saying, “The truth is, I’m really mad, because these are people that are supposed to be providing for us, and in fact what they’re doing is denying us opportunity when we’re just trying to provide for ourselves. We’ve taken it upon ourselves to provide for our families and now they’re just trying to block us. And, the truth is, that if they don’t do their job and provide for us, then we are going to have no other option but to take to the streets to try and reclaim the rights they are trying to take from us.”
These are important interviews from important Rhode Island women that deserve the widest possible audience.
With a stroke of his pen Governor Chafee signed into law the 2015 budget, marking what House Speaker Nick Mattiello endlessly referred to as a new era in regional “competitiveness” for Rhode Island. Simultaneously the Governor dashed the hopes of Providence hotel workers who were cavalierly targeted by a measure inserted into the bill that eliminated the ability of cities and towns in the state from deciding their own minimum wages.
While the governor, Senate President Paiva-Weed and the Speaker were inside the State House giving self-congratulatory speeches about the bold new budget and the bold new economic direction the state was taking, outside the State House Mirjaam Parada, Yilenny Ferrares, Santa Brito and Shelby Maldonado continued their hunger strike, hoping to convince the governor to veto.
Were the efforts of the hotel workers and the hunger strikers ultimately futile? I think not. Both houses of the General Assembly just passed a bill to raise the minimum wage to $9 in 2015. Given the priorities of the Mattiello House this year, in which lowering estate and corporate taxes was seen as more important than helping the economically vulnerable, and given the open hostility some legislators had evinced towards the idea of raising the minimum wage so soon after the last increase, the $9 minimum wage is an important victory.
It was only the efforts of the hotel workers and the hunger strikers that shamed members of the General Assembly into doing something akin to the right thing for minimum wage workers. In fact, I heard rumors yesterday that the only way the Senate would approve Mattiello’s corporate kiss-up budget was for the Speaker to see his way clear to a slight increase in the minimum wage, but of course the exact mechanisms by which the legislature conducts its business are always hidden from public view.
Even as the Mattiello budget was signed into law and the $9 minimum wage was passed in Rhode Island, the Massachusetts legislature, in a move lauded by President Obama, acted to raise its state’s minimum wage to $11 an hour. (Note to Rhode Islanders: This is how real Democrats behave.) For all of Speaker Mattiello’s talk of being regionally competitive, the failure to set our state’s minimum wage to a similar standard demonstrates a lack of economic understanding and leadership. Following the economic logic on evidence at the State House, one should now expect the best minimum wage workers in Pawtucket and East Providence to cross the border into Massachusetts for the $11 an hour fast food jobs, leaving the $9 jobs here in Rhode Island to the second tier workers. The extra $80 a week will be worth the extra five to ten minutes it will take to get to work in the morning for most workers.
The hotel workers here in Providence were fighting for $15. They fought and won here in the city, only to have the state come in and snatch victory from their grasp. At that point, the fight switched from a battle for fair wages to a battle for access to democracy. It was only the efforts of the hunger strikers and their supporters, calling attention to the miscarriage of justice and the abuse of legislative power, that shamed the General Assembly into doing anything to alleviate the suffering of the most economically vulnerable.
Mirjaam Parada, Yilenny Ferrares, Santa Brito and Shelby Maldonado are heroes of democracy, bravely showing the way forward in the fight for economic justice in Rhode Island. But more than that, they are just good, kindhearted people, putting the concerns of others ahead of their own. I am better for knowing them, and glad there are such people working to make the world a better place.
Their hunger strike is over, and I can’t wait to see what they’ll come up with next.
Working women and men in Providence are no longer fighting for fair and just wages, they are now fighting for the ability to petition their government. In an effort to prevent Providence area hotel workers from asking the Providence City Council for a $15 an hour minimum wage, Representative Raymond Gallison under the leadership of Speaker Nicholas Mattiello has introduced a bill that would prevent local municipalities from establishing their own minimum wage laws.
Quickly realizing that this lordly example of legislative overreach would face a tough challenge from an outraged public that largely supports raising the minimum wage and from local officials outraged over the General Assembly’s naked power grab, Gallison decided to insert his bill into the proposed state budget, where I suppose he hoped no one would notice. (Hint: It’s on page 122 .)
That’s why there is going to be a large gathering at the Rhode Island State House Tuesday night at 5:15pm to let the General Assembly know that working mothers and working families are suffering. They are working in conditions of grinding poverty and they have had enough. What does the present budget have in it for them, except for the proviso that strips them of the only political power they have?
Take from the poor and give to the rich, whether it be money or power, that is the way of politics in Rhode Island.
“Representative Gallison’s proposal is an attack on all RI cities and towns,” said Providence City Councillor Carmen Castillo, “it will strip us of our power to represent our communities. What power will they try to take from us next? The right to decide if we should have a casino in our town? The right to set our own budgets?”
“House leadership is moving to jail us in poverty,” said Santa Brito, a housekeeper at the Renaissance Hotel. “We are hard working mothers and the backbone of the Providence tourism industry, fighting to send our kids from Head Start to Harvard.”The “new leadership” in the House is starting to smell an awful lot like the old leadership. This tactic of burying unpopular or politically contentious pieces of legislation into the state budget is a classic way for cowardly legislators to undermine and circumvent the will of the people.
Have you had enough? Can you show up Tuesday night at 5:15 pm at the State House to let the General Assembly know that the people have had enough and that the time has come for bold, progressive politics that puts people before corporate interests?
Regular readers of RI Future will remember Adrienne Jones, profiled here after she was fired from the Providence Hilton Hotel, ending six years of employment, during her unionization activities. She joined the dozens of other working mothers who were abandoned by the City Council last Thursday night when the Ordinance Committee meeting, that was to discuss and vote on a proposed $15 minimum wage for hotel workers, was cancelled at the eleventh hour for reasons unknown.
Besides Adrienne Jones we have Ylleni Ferrares, another working mother with young children fired from the Hilton Hotel. Ferrares claims that when women speak out about the working conditions at the hotel, the are fired. One would think that a company receiving $4000 a day in tax breaks from the City of providence could repay that generosity by treating its workers well and paying them fairly.
The first video is translated into English, the second is in Spanish.
“The Mother of All Strikes: The 1824 Textile Worker Turnout,” presents labor history and contemporary art side by side on the floor of the historic Slater Mill (67 Roosevelt Avenue, Pawtucket) from now until July 31st.
The title of the exhibit refers to “one of America’s first factory strikes and the first US strike to be led by women.”
In May of 1824, women power loom weavers of Pawtucket took action on the growing chorus of workers and artisans who faced circumstances of transitions in labor and in their agricultural ways of life. Reduced wages, increased length of the working day, erosion of the value of their work, and loss of land and interests led to discord among a new working class. The 1824 strike was a flashpoint that inspired countless subsequent collective labor actions in the Blackstone Valley over the next several decades.
The exhibit was conceived and co-curated by Slater Mill interpreter and labor activist Joey L DeFrancesco and well worth a day out with the family. Check out some of the art and exhibits below.
The Smallest state, the smallest Wendy’s, the smallest pay, I feel like a nobody,” said one of the Wendy’s employees on strike yesterday. “Today I feel strong.”
Here’s video from the second public protest from Rhode Island fast food workers yesterday. You can watch another video from yesterday’s strike here, and please check out these two photo essays – one from Burger King in Providence and the other from Wendy’s in Warwick.
Fast food workers are fighting for $15 an hour all over the country today – and all over Rhode Island. After a 6am action at a Burger King in Providence (, video here), the workers and activists convened again at the Wendy’s in Warwick, where the local protests began.
