I 2024-02-20 06:35:17.657768+00:00 Params: [('source', 'https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever'), ('target', 'https://brid.gy/publish/mastodon')]
I 2024-02-20 06:35:17.658733+00:00 requests.head https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever {'headers': {}}
I 2024-02-20 06:35:18.726823+00:00 Received 200
I 2024-02-20 06:35:18.769926+00:00 Source: https://brid.gy/mastodon/@portside@mastodon.social , features ['publish', 'listen'], status disabled, poll status ok
I 2024-02-20 06:35:18.770201+00:00 Source: https://brid.gy/mastodon/@portside@portside.social , features ['listen', 'publish'], status enabled, poll status ok
D 2024-02-20 06:35:18.943035+00:00 Publish entity: agdicmlkLWd5cn8LEg1QdWJsaXNoZWRQYWdlIlhodHRwczovL3BvcnRzaWRlLm9yZy8yMDI0LTAyLTE5L2hvdy1mb3VyLWJsYWNrLXdvbWVuLWNoYW5nZWQtaG9tZWNhcmUtb3JnYW5pemluZy1mb3JldmVyDAsSB1B1Ymxpc2gYgID4xfGljQkM
I 2024-02-20 06:35:18.992031+00:00 requests.get https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever {'headers': {}}
I 2024-02-20 06:35:19.562889+00:00 Received 200
D 2024-02-20 06:35:19.663205+00:00 Parsed microformats2: {
"items": [
{
"type": [
"h-category"
],
"properties": {
"name": [
"labor"
]
},
"lang": "en"
},
{
"type": [
"h-entry"
],
"properties": {
"name": [
"How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever"
],
"url": [
"https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever"
],
"published": [
"2024-02-19"
],
"content": [
{
"value": "Irma Sherman, Chair of McMaid Workers Organizing Committee, \nForty years ago, Irma Sherman and the over 150 homecare workers employed by \u201cMcMaid\u201d (Yes, McMaid really was the name of the company) decided they\u2019d had enough of low wages and no benefits and began to organize their union with United Labor Unions (ULU) Local 880, a small, independent union founded by ACORN, the national community organization.\n\nWhile McMaid advertised itself as one of Chicago\u2019s premier \u201cmaid services,\u201d with a green and white logo depicting a scantily clad white \u201cmaid\u201d happily dancing around with feather duster in hand, in reality, the workers at McMaid were mostly Black and Brown middle-aged women who were not happy about their conditions. While their employer lived very well off the backbreaking labor of Black women, they were forced to scrape by on minimum wages.\n\nAlthough they were providing vital, life-saving health care \u2013\u2013 which was well beyond their job description \u2013\u2013 to hundreds of homebound seniors and people with disabilities throughout Chicagoland, they had no health care for themselves or their family members. If they fell sick, their only recourse was \u201cthe County\u201d \u2013\u2013 the then very aged Cook County Hospital with daylong waits for care. Unable to sacrifice a day or longer at the County Hospital, many ignored their own health to care for their clients, more commonly known as consumers, endangering themselves, their families, and their consumers chasing the pay they needed to put food on the table.\n Share this article on Twitter Facebook Mail\nAny consumers over the age of 60 were served through the Illinois Department of Aging\u2019s (IDOA) Community Care Program, from which McMaid received the bulk of their funding through contract. McMaid was reimbursed at an hourly rate set by the IDOA through a competitive bid process. Agencies competed to see who could pay the lowest, so the competitive bid process drove down wages to at or below the then federal and state minimum wage of $3.35 with few to no benefits.\n\nIrma and her coworkers knew they were being abused and they organized to stop it. Little did they know that their titanic struggle with their employer would require pioneering new tactics and strategies, lead to new models of organizing, and spark one of the largest organizing successes in modern labor history.\u00a0\n\nBut the boss wasn\u2019t going to give in lightly. He hired one of the largest blue chip law firms in the city to fight their organizing drive, spending thousands of dollars of public funds to interrogate, harass, and intimidate Black women who only wanted to organize their union.\nA Promising Start, The Organizing Committee Forms\nThe outlook had been good for Irma and her McMaid colleagues at the drive's beginning. At the first check pickup organizers attended in September 1983, they collected union authorization cards from almost everyone they spoke to. 30 or 40 cards were collected in just a few hours! Cards were distributed to two, three, sometimes four people at a time, with Irma and some of the other workers joining in, talking to everyone and signing them up as they went in and out of the company\u2019s office, dropping off last week\u2019s signup sheet from their consumers, picking up their checks, and then coming outside again. Workers \u2013\u2013 called \u201cchore housekeepers\u201d or \u201chomemakers\u201d \u2013\u2013 were angry and were eagerly signing up.\n\nBecause of the excitement, an organizing committee meeting was called for the following Saturday in the basement meeting room of United Methodist Temple in the Loop. Seven workers showed up, including Irma.\n\nTheir complaints were many and often similar to what was heard at the check pickup: Wages were low (everyone was at or near the federal minimum wage of $3.35 per hour) while the company was reimbursed at a much higher rate by the state of Illinois. The company said they had health insurance, but no one signed up for it because what they deducted out of their checks and the $5000 deductible made it way too expensive. Even though the company said they offered paid time off, workers knew better than to try to take it or they\u2019d be fired.\n\n\n\nIf you like this article, please sign up for Snapshot, Portside's daily summary.\nEmail\n(One summary e-mail a day, you can change anytime, and Portside is always free.)\n Leave this field blank\nThere was a general lack of respect shown to the workers by the mostly white management: young, mostly white women supervisors looking down their noses at workers and calling them \u201cgirls\u201d when those \u201cgirls\u201d were old enough to be their mothers or grandmothers. Finally, and worst of all to many, was the way the clients were treated: worker turnover was almost 100% each year, so there frequently weren\u2019t enough workers available to care for the clients. This resulted in clients going days or longer with no care, laying in their own waste, hungry, dehydrated, their bed sores getting infected. Workers also frequently had to bring their own gloves, soap, detergent, diapers, food, bandages, antiseptic, and other essentials that the company didn\u2019t provide.\n\nEven though only seven workers came, it was an encouraging first organizing committee meeting. There were energetic songs and chants and folks had even brought donuts and pastry for the potluck breakfast. Everyone present voted yes to organize a union at McMaid!\n\nIrma and Doris Gould, another worker contacted at the check pickup, had helped to run the first meeting and as the meeting came to close, Mary, an older woman who had been silent most of the meeting, taking it all in, spitting tobacco juice into an empty coffee cup, finally spoke up:\n\n\u201cWell, where do we all sign up and pay our dues?\u201d\nRecognition Action - Demanding Recognition from the Boss!\nThey set a recognition action for the next week. A recognition action, pioneered by Local 1199, the national hospital workers\u2019 union, utilizes a little-known provision of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) permitting an employer to directly recognize the union based on a showing of interest of employees signing a union petition or authorization cards. An employer almost always refuses to recognize the union, preferring to stall and delay and hope to defeat an organizing drive. But the collective action of the workers marching to and through the employer\u2019s offices and demanding the employer or his representatives recognize the union builds tremendous worker strength, solidarity, power \u2013\u2013 and fun \u2013\u2013 and puts the employer on notice that the workers want their union and will not be intimidated.\n\nThe workers voted at the first organizing committee meeting to organize a recognition action at McMaid\u2019s offices the following payday.\u00a0 They gathered a large crowd of members and supporters \u2013\u2013 many who had already signed union cards \u2013\u2013 outside the company\u2019s offices when most workers came to pick up their checks. Everyone was officially off the clock, so the company couldn\u2019t discipline them.\n\nWhen Irma and Doris gave the signal, they marched in step into the company\u2019s office chanting, \u201cWe\u2019re Fired Up, We Won\u2019t Take It No More!\u201d and demanded to see the big boss, George.\u00a0\n\n\n\nLocal 880 members on the March down Michigan Avenue in Chicago Caption\n\nGeorge, a sad-faced, middle-aged white man, came out from his office in the rear of the building but refused to talk or meet or even read the recognition letter they wanted him to sign. They started chanting: \u201cSign It George, Sign It! Sign It George, Sign It!\u201d He retreated into his office and they followed. Marching after him, they continued to chant, \u201cSign it George, Sign it!\u201d George scurried into his office and locked the door, causing Doris to make a stand in front of his door, turn, and read off the litany of their demands ending it with, \u201cAnd we don\u2019t want any of you all calling us your girls no more!\u201d This was aimed towards the supervisors cowering at their desks.\n\nWith that, they marched outside just as the police arrived and held an impromptu meeting. George then came running out demanding that the police arrest the workers and their organizer, but the officer in charge said he couldn\u2019t do anything because \u201cthey were within their rights\u201d to protest outside. That caused the assembled workers to hoot and holler even more and tell George to go inside while they held their own meeting. For once, instead of walking away from the company\u2019s office alone, with barely enough to survive, they had taken action and spoken up as a group and felt their power!\n\nSpirits were high as they laid out the plan leading up to the election, but even more challenges lay ahead.\nThe Company Reacts \u2013 A Turn for the Worse\nThe company wasted no time reacting, following their own $200-per hour union busting consultant\u2019s plan. At the next check pickup they illegally stationed supervisors out front to spy and see who was signing up with the union. They also put out flyers warning workers not to talk to the \u201cUnion Man\u201d or to sign a card.\n\nThen an even bigger setback arose. One of the organizers, who had collected over 30 more cards from workers, jumped on a bus to bring his cards back to the union hall in an old printing warehouse in the south Loop. While riding the bus to the hall he became sick with nausea, jumped off the bus, and threw up in the gutter. It was only then he realized that he\u2019d left the 30 new cards on the bus! Despite many calls to the CTA, those cards were never found.\n\nThe organizing committee members vowed to re-sign the workers and gathered at the next check pickup with more members and organizers borrowed from ACORN and the national ULU.\u00a0 But the company\u2019s \u201cdon\u2019t sign\u201d campaign was having an effect: some who\u2019d signed the card last week wouldn\u2019t re-sign, and one or two that the supervisors had interrogated asked for their cards back. Not to be stopped, they still collected a bunch of cards from newer workers.\n\nThen things got even worse: the company canceled the check pickup, totally cutting access to their coworkers.\nFiling at the Labor Board \u2013 Crunch Time at McMaid\nAfter McMaid refused to recognize the union and canceled the check pickup, the workers voted to file a petition at the Labor Board for a union representation election. At the Labor Board, McMaid lied to the Labor Board agents and tried to pad the employee list to make it look like the union didn\u2019t have the majority or required 30% for a union election. McMaid claimed they had over 600 employees instead of the 150-200 workers the union estimated.\n\nBut by reviewing the payroll records, they proved McMaid had only 200 workers total.\n\nDespite the smaller list, the government\u2019s Board agent still told them they were short on cards and only gave them 48 hours to get 7 more cards \u2013 ONLY 48 HOURS TO GET 7 MORE CARDS!\n\nSo, it was crunch time at McMaid. They had to win. Their backs were against the wall!\n\nSince the check pickup was canceled, the brave workers on the organizing committee \u2013\u2013 Irma Sherman, Doris Gould, Juanita Hill, Betty Brown, Mary Williamson, and others \u2013\u2013 signed up to house visit their coworkers on their time off that weekend.\n\nThe few remaining worker contacts were mostly in the projects: Cabrini-Green high and low-rises, the Robert Taylor high rises, and others.\n\nAfter spending all day caring for their consumers and their own families, they went with the organizer through the projects, climbed the stairs, knocked on doors and found Miss Lee Ora, then Mrs. Glenn, then Mrs. Bey, who eagerly signed the union card and walked with them to meet other McMaid workers they knew in the building to sign up.\n\nWhen their 48 hours were up that following Monday at 5pm, they went to the Labor Board with 8 cards. The Board agent checked them against his list.\n\nTHEY MADE IT, all those visits paid off and they had enough cards for the election! The election was set for December 16, 1983, the beginning of one of the coldest winters in Chicago history.\nElection Set, Company Attacks\nBut the company\u2019s campaign was just getting started and they brought their A-game.\u00a0\u00a0\n\nOver the weeks leading up to the election, they held paid captive audience meetings where they showed anti-union videos and pounded on the workers with fearful diatribes about strikes, high union dues, union racism and discrimination, union violence and corruption, and more.\u00a0 They sent out mailings and flyers attached to workers\u2019 paychecks with anti-union messages. They held one-on-one meetings with Irma, Doris, and other member leaders in an attempt to turn them against the union.\n\nThe campaign was having an effect and the workers fighting to unionize were losing some of their yeses.\u00a0 The election would be close, so house visits by McMaid workers to their coworkers would be the key to winning.\n\nThey instituted their own \u201cVOTE YES\u201d campaign with members flyering outside the newly reinstated check pickups, calling all eligible voters, and house visiting with organizers and other volunteers all over the city to counteract the company\u2019s campaign and get out their more positive message of wage and benefit increases, paid time off, health insurance, and the right to be treated with dignity and respect.\n\nThey contrasted the company\u2019s profits, workers being treated without dignity and respect, their racism, sexism, and the skimming of the state\u2019s reimbursement rate into the company\u2019s pockets instead of the workers\u2019.\u00a0 And they started fighting back at the mandatory \u201ccaptive audience\u201d meetings by taking some of them over and using them to amplify the union\u2019s message.\n\nAnd in their most popular mailing, called \u201cWhy We\u2019re Voting Yes,\u201d they had several pages of workers\u2019 quotes with their names underneath explaining why they were voting YES for the union. The mailer went out right before the vote and was distributed outside the company offices on the day of the vote.\nHouse Visits, Part Two, to Counteract Company Campaign\nThe committee members mailed, phone banked, and most importantly, housevisited as many workers as they could, keeping a running total of their yeses, nos, and maybes on newsprint on the wall of the union hall.\n\nWith just days to go until the election, Juanita Hill, a middle-aged member from the Southside, loaded into her organizer\u2019s cramped VW Beetle to visit the few remaining unidentified voters. After hours of driving around the South and West sides of the city in -16 degree weather in the unheated Beetle with a hole in its floor, they found three workers: one yes, one no, and one maybe. Not great numbers for a day\u2019s work and not encouraging for the election looming just days away. Their last visit of the night was with a young woman named Connie. Connie had three children and her electricity was turned off. She and her three children were huddled in their kitchen with pots of water boiling on the stove and the oven turned on with the door opened, furnishing the apartment with just a little heat and seeing by candle light and flashlight. When they finished the visit, Connie stood up, retrieved her purse, and counted out $5 for the joining fee and another $5 for the first month\u2019s dues. Despite her own financial difficulties and utility shutoff, she felt so optimistic about the union that she was willing to join and pay her dues! That visit kept Juanita and her organizer a little warmer all the way home.\nThe Vote\nDespite the company\u2019s vicious anti-union campaign, Juanita, Irma, Doris, Mary, and their coworkers voted in their election on December 16, 1983.\u00a0 Temperatures of -18 degrees with a wind chill of -50 degrees greeted the workers as they went in to pick up their checks and vote in the NLRB-supervised election held on the company\u2019s premises. Irma, Juanita, Doris, and other leaders flyered out front in shifts, periodically sneaking into a corner restaurant foyer down the street from Mc Maid to warm up between shifts. Rides were arranged for voters who couldn\u2019t get into work that day.\n\nHowever, because a portion of the workforce voted by mail the Labor Board impounded the ballots and they were not counted until early January 1984 when all the mail was returned. When the ballots were counted, the McMaid workers won their union by a count of 107-76! ULU Local 880\u2019s first representation election victory in Chicago!\n\n\n\nDoris Gould, standing left; and Irma Sherman, standing right; welcome members to the victory party. Doris famously told the office staff that \u201c\u2026we don\u2019t want you all calling us \u2018girls\u2019 no more!\u201d\nLessons Learned\nThe McMaid campaign became the template for future private and public sector homecare organizing drives. The importance of an empowered organizing committee was clear, it allowed the workers to make decisions that reflected their own experiences and brought the fire of their real stakes. The leaders met the workers where they were at, from check pickups and home visits to captive audience meetings and in-service trainings. And they engaged workers all along the way, bringing them to direct actions that challenged and exposed the boss, and ensuring that they had rides to get there in the first place.\n\nThe campaign also moved fast. Workers were asked to pitch in dues early, which created buy-in and commitment, and they filed for an election at 30%, which gave them momentum and quick access to the complete list of employees as mandated by the National Labor Board. This navigation of bureaucracy was key; being aware of state laws and the tactics of employers, like inflating the number of workers, allowed the workers to outmaneuver the boss and help create one of the largest locals of Black and brown workers in the country.\n\nHomecare workers, who once earned as low as $1 an hour to $3.50 per hour, today earn an average of $17.25 an hour and are currently bargaining for $25 an hour plus retirement for this vital work. In addition, they\u2019ve won paid health coverage, paid training, paid overtime, paid holidays, paid sick days, pandemic pay, and many other benefits. Still not enough, but closer than ever to living wage jobs.\n\nSEIU Healthcare, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Kansas (HCIIMK), Local 880\u2019s successor local, is the largest union of any union in the Midwest, representing over 90,000 workers providing vital homecare, childcare, and healthcare to hundreds of thousands of people across Illinois and the Midwest every day.\n\nAll because of the courage and commitment of Irma, Doris, Juanita, and many others who dared to organize their union in Chicago 40 years ago.\n\n[Keith Kelleher was the founder of ULU Local 880 (1983-5), then SEIU Local 880 (1985-2008) and then president (2008-2017) of SEIU Healthcare Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Kansas (HCIIMK). Once the smallest local union, it is now the largest local union in Chicago, Cook County.]\n SEIU ACORN chicago Labor Organizing homecare HomeCare Workers Subscribe to Portside",
"lang": "en",
"html": "<div class=\"expanded-article-image-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"article-image-credit\">\n Irma Sherman, Chair of McMaid Workers Organizing Committee,\n </div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"full-article-text-wrapper\">\n<p>Forty years ago, Irma Sherman and the over 150 homecare workers employed by \u201cMcMaid\u201d (Yes, McMaid really was the name of the company) decided they\u2019d had enough of low wages and no benefits and began to organize their union with United Labor Unions (ULU) Local 880, a small, independent union founded by ACORN, the national community organization.</p>\n<p>While McMaid advertised itself as one of Chicago\u2019s premier \u201cmaid services,\u201d with a green and white logo depicting a scantily clad white \u201cmaid\u201d happily dancing around with feather duster in hand, in reality, the workers at McMaid were mostly Black and Brown middle-aged women who were not happy about their conditions. While their employer lived very well off the backbreaking labor of Black women, they were forced to scrape by on minimum wages.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Although they were providing vital, life-saving health care \u2013\u2013 which was well beyond their job description \u2013\u2013 to hundreds of homebound seniors and people with disabilities throughout Chicagoland, they had no health care for themselves or their family members. If they fell sick, their only recourse was \u201cthe County\u201d \u2013\u2013 the then very aged Cook County Hospital with daylong waits for care. Unable to sacrifice a day or longer at the County Hospital, many ignored their own health to care for their clients, more commonly known as consumers, endangering themselves, their families, and their consumers chasing the pay they needed to put food on the table.</p>\n<div class=\"links inline social-buttons-links tokens\" id=\"block-socialsimpleblock\">\n<div class=\"social-buttons\">\n<div class=\"social-buttons-title\">Share this article on</div>\n<ul class=\"links\">\n<li class=\"twitter\"><a data-placement=\"top\" data-popup-height=\"300\" data-popup-width=\"600\" data-toggle=\"tooltip\" href=\"https://twitter.com/intent/tweet/?url=https%3A//portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&amp;text=How%20Four%20Black%20Women%20Changed%20Homecare%20Organizing%20Forever\" title=\"Twitter\"><i class=\"fa fa-twitter\"></i><span class=\"visually-hidden\">Twitter</span></a></li>\n<li class=\"facebook\"><a data-placement=\"top\" data-popup-height=\"300\" data-popup-width=\"600\" data-toggle=\"tooltip\" href=\"https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A//portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever\" title=\"Facebook\"><i class=\"fa fa-facebook\"></i><span class=\"visually-hidden\">Facebook</span></a></li>\n<li class=\"mail\"><a data-popup-open=\"false\" href=\"mailto:?body=%0AHow%20Four%20Black%20Women%20Changed%20Homecare%20Organizing%20Forever%0Ahttps%3A//portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&amp;subject=How%20Four%20Black%20Women%20Changed%20Homecare%20Organizing%20Forever\" title=\"Mail\"><i class=\"fa fa-envelope\"></i><span class=\"visually-hidden\">Mail</span></a></li>\n</ul>\n</div>\n</div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Any consumers over the age of 60 were served through the Illinois Department of Aging\u2019s (IDOA) Community Care Program, from which McMaid received the bulk of their funding through contract. McMaid was reimbursed at an hourly rate set by the IDOA through a competitive bid process. Agencies competed to see who could pay the lowest, so the competitive bid process drove down wages to at or below the then federal and state minimum wage of $3.35 with few to no benefits.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Irma and her coworkers knew they were being abused and they organized to stop it. Little did they know that their titanic struggle with their employer would require pioneering new tactics and strategies, lead to new models of organizing, and spark one of the largest organizing successes in modern labor history.\u00a0</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">But the boss wasn\u2019t going to give in lightly. He hired one of the largest blue chip law firms in the city to fight their organizing drive, spending thousands of dollars of public funds to interrogate, harass, and intimidate Black women who only wanted to organize their union.</p>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">A Promising Start, The Organizing Committee Forms</h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The outlook had been good for Irma and her McMaid colleagues at the drive's beginning. At the first check pickup organizers attended in September 1983, they collected union authorization cards from almost everyone they spoke to. 30 or 40 cards were collected in just a few hours! Cards were distributed to two, three, sometimes four people at a time, with Irma and some of the other workers joining in, talking to everyone and signing them up as they went in and out of the company\u2019s office, dropping off last week\u2019s signup sheet from their consumers, picking up their checks, and then coming outside again. Workers \u2013\u2013 called \u201cchore housekeepers\u201d or \u201chomemakers\u201d \u2013\u2013 were angry and were eagerly signing up.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Because of the excitement, an organizing committee meeting was called for the following Saturday in the basement meeting room of United Methodist Temple in the Loop. Seven workers showed up, including Irma.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Their complaints were many and often similar to what was heard at the check pickup: Wages were low (everyone was at or near the federal minimum wage of $3.35 per hour) while the company was reimbursed at a much higher rate by the state of Illinois. The company said they had health insurance, but no one signed up for it because what they deducted out of their checks and the $5000 deductible made it way too expensive. Even though the company said they offered paid time off, workers knew better than to try to take it or they\u2019d be fired.</p>\n<p></p><div class=\"snapshot-mini-form tokens\" data-drupal-selector=\"snapshot-mini-form\" id=\"block-portsidelistservnewslettersubscribeminiform\">\n<form accept-charset=\"UTF-8\" action=\"#snapshot-mini-form\" class=\"form-horizontal\" id=\"snapshot-mini-form\" method=\"post\">\n<p class=\"helper-text\">If you like this article, please sign up for Snapshot, Portside's daily summary.</p><div class=\"subscribe-oneline\"><div class=\"row form-group js-form-item form-item js-form-type-email form-type-email js-form-item-email-address form-item-email-address\">\n<label class=\"col-sm-2 control-label js-form-required form-required\" for=\"edit-email-address\">Email</label>\n<div class=\"form--email col-sm-10 col-lg-8\">\n<input aria-required=\"true\" class=\"form-email required form-control input--text\" data-drupal-selector=\"edit-email-address\" id=\"edit-email-address\" maxlength=\"64\" name=\"email_address\" required=\"required\" size=\"64\" type=\"email\" value=\"\"/>\n</div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"form-group\">\n<input class=\"btn-wide button js-form-submit form-submit btn-portside\" data-drupal-selector=\"edit-submit\" id=\"edit-submit\" name=\"op\" type=\"submit\" value=\"Subscribe\"/>\n</div>\n</div><input class=\"form-control input--text\" data-drupal-selector=\"edit-list-name\" name=\"list_name\" type=\"hidden\" value=\"PORTSIDE-SNAPSHOT\"/>\n<p class=\"helper-text\">(One summary e-mail a day, you can <a href=\"https://portside.org/subscribe\">change anytime</a>, and Portside is always free.)</p><input class=\"form-control input--text\" data-drupal-selector=\"edit-honeypot-time\" name=\"honeypot_time\" type=\"hidden\" value=\"oAXoHltERZQytrrhgaUuWOnghHd-4BouiLYdt4MxfAc\"/>\n<input autocomplete=\"off\" class=\"form-control input--text\" data-drupal-selector=\"form-4bzu-ee2p4gp2ncofu7-wtcr1ddkn61cb7vxxwwt9de\" name=\"form_build_id\" type=\"hidden\" value=\"form-4bzu_Ee2P4GP2Ncofu7-WtCr1dDkN61Cb7VXxwWT9dE\"/>\n<input class=\"form-control input--text\" data-drupal-selector=\"edit-snapshot-mini-form\" name=\"form_id\" type=\"hidden\" value=\"snapshot_mini_form\"/>\n<div class=\"zip-textfield js-form-wrapper form-wrapper\" style=\"display: none !important;\"><div class=\"row form-group js-form-item form-item js-form-type-textfield form-type-textfield js-form-item-zip form-item-zip\">\n<label class=\"col-sm-2 control-label\" for=\"edit-zip\">Leave this field blank</label>\n<div class=\"form--textfield col-sm-10 col-lg-8\">\n<input autocomplete=\"off\" class=\"form-text form-control input--text\" data-drupal-selector=\"edit-zip\" id=\"edit-zip\" maxlength=\"128\" name=\"zip\" size=\"20\" type=\"text\" value=\"\"/>\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n</form>\n</div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">There was a general lack of respect shown to the workers by the mostly white management: young, mostly white women supervisors looking down their noses at workers and calling them \u201cgirls\u201d when those \u201cgirls\u201d were old enough to be their mothers or grandmothers. Finally, and worst of all to many, was the way the clients were treated: worker turnover was almost 100% each year, so there frequently weren\u2019t enough workers available to care for the clients. This resulted in clients going days or longer with no care, laying in their own waste, hungry, dehydrated, their bed sores getting infected. Workers also frequently had to bring their own gloves, soap, detergent, diapers, food, bandages, antiseptic, and other essentials that the company didn\u2019t provide.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Even though only seven workers came, it was an encouraging first organizing committee meeting. There were energetic songs and chants and folks had even brought donuts and pastry for the potluck breakfast. Everyone present voted yes to organize a union at McMaid!</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Irma and Doris Gould, another worker contacted at the check pickup, had helped to run the first meeting and as the meeting came to close, Mary, an older woman who had been silent most of the meeting, taking it all in, spitting tobacco juice into an empty coffee cup, finally spoke up:</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWell, where do we all sign up and pay our dues?\u201d</p>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">Recognition Action - Demanding Recognition from the Boss!</h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">They set a recognition action for the next week. A recognition action, pioneered by Local 1199, the national hospital workers\u2019 union, utilizes a little-known provision of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) permitting an employer to directly recognize the union based on a showing of interest of employees signing a union petition or authorization cards. An employer almost always refuses to recognize the union, preferring to stall and delay and hope to defeat an organizing drive. But the collective action of the workers marching to and through the employer\u2019s offices and demanding the employer or his representatives recognize the union builds tremendous worker strength, solidarity, power \u2013\u2013 and fun \u2013\u2013 and puts the employer on notice that the workers want their union and will not be intimidated.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The workers voted at the first organizing committee meeting to organize a recognition action at McMaid\u2019s offices the following payday.\u00a0 They gathered a large crowd of members and supporters \u2013\u2013 many who had already signed union cards \u2013\u2013 outside the company\u2019s offices when most workers came to pick up their checks. Everyone was officially off the clock, so the company couldn\u2019t discipline them.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">When Irma and Doris gave the signal, they marched in step into the company\u2019s office chanting, \u201cWe\u2019re Fired Up, We Won\u2019t Take It No More!\u201d and demanded to see the big boss, George.\u00a0</p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" height=\"563\" src=\"https://forgeorganizing.org/sites/default/files/img_0857.jpg\" width=\"750\"/></p>\n<p><em>Local 880 members on the March down Michigan Avenue in Chicago Caption</em></p>\n<p>George, a sad-faced, middle-aged white man, came out from his office in the rear of the building but refused to talk or meet or even read the recognition letter they wanted him to sign. They started chanting: \u201cSign It George, Sign It! Sign It George, Sign It!\u201d He retreated into his office and they followed. Marching after him, they continued to chant, \u201cSign it George, Sign it!\u201d George scurried into his office and locked the door, causing Doris to make a stand in front of his door, turn, and read off the litany of their demands ending it with, \u201cAnd we don\u2019t want any of you all calling us your girls no more!\u201d This was aimed towards the supervisors cowering at their desks.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">With that, they marched outside just as the police arrived and held an impromptu meeting. George then came running out demanding that the police arrest the workers and their organizer, but the officer in charge said he couldn\u2019t do anything because \u201cthey were within their rights\u201d to protest outside. That caused the assembled workers to hoot and holler even more and tell George to go inside while they held their own meeting. For once, instead of walking away from the company\u2019s office alone, with barely enough to survive, they had taken action and spoken up as a group and felt their power!</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Spirits were high as they laid out the plan leading up to the election, but even more challenges lay ahead.</p>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">The Company Reacts \u2013 A Turn for the Worse</h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The company wasted no time reacting, following their own $200-per hour union busting consultant\u2019s plan. At the next check pickup they illegally stationed supervisors out front to spy and see who was signing up with the union. They also put out flyers warning workers not to talk to the \u201cUnion Man\u201d or to sign a card.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Then an even bigger setback arose. One of the organizers, who had collected over 30 more cards from workers, jumped on a bus to bring his cards back to the union hall in an old printing warehouse in the south Loop. While riding the bus to the hall he became sick with nausea, jumped off the bus, and threw up in the gutter. It was only then he realized that he\u2019d left the 30 new cards on the bus! Despite many calls to the CTA, those cards were never found.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The organizing committee members vowed to re-sign the workers and gathered at the next check pickup with more members and organizers borrowed from ACORN and the national ULU.\u00a0 But the company\u2019s \u201cdon\u2019t sign\u201d campaign was having an effect: some who\u2019d signed the card last week wouldn\u2019t re-sign, and one or two that the supervisors had interrogated asked for their cards back. Not to be stopped, they still collected a bunch of cards from newer workers.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Then things got even worse: the company canceled the check pickup, totally cutting access to their coworkers.</p>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">Filing at the Labor Board \u2013 Crunch Time at McMaid</h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">After McMaid refused to recognize the union and canceled the check pickup, the workers voted to file a petition at the Labor Board for a union representation election. At the Labor Board, McMaid lied to the Labor Board agents and tried to pad the employee list to make it look like the union didn\u2019t have the majority or required 30% for a union election. McMaid claimed they had over 600 employees instead of the 150-200 workers the union estimated.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">But by reviewing the payroll records, they proved McMaid had only 200 workers total.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Despite the smaller list, the government\u2019s Board agent still told them they were short on cards and only gave them 48 hours to get 7 more cards \u2013 ONLY 48 HOURS TO GET 7 MORE CARDS!</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">So, it was crunch time at McMaid. They had to win. Their backs were against the wall!</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Since the check pickup was canceled, the brave workers on the organizing committee \u2013\u2013 Irma Sherman, Doris Gould, Juanita Hill, Betty Brown, Mary Williamson, and others \u2013\u2013 signed up to house visit their coworkers on their time off that weekend.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The few remaining worker contacts were mostly in the projects: Cabrini-Green high and low-rises, the Robert Taylor high rises, and others.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">After spending all day caring for their consumers and their own families, they went with the organizer through the projects, climbed the stairs, knocked on doors and found Miss Lee Ora, then Mrs. Glenn, then Mrs. Bey, who eagerly signed the union card and walked with them to meet other McMaid workers they knew in the building to sign up.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">When their 48 hours were up that following Monday at 5pm, they went to the Labor Board with 8 cards. The Board agent checked them against his list.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">THEY MADE IT, all those visits paid off and they had enough cards for the election! The election was set for December 16, 1983, the beginning of one of the coldest winters in Chicago history.</p>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">Election Set, Company Attacks</h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">But the company\u2019s campaign was just getting started and they brought their A-game.\u00a0\u00a0</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Over the weeks leading up to the election, they held paid captive audience meetings where they showed anti-union videos and pounded on the workers with fearful diatribes about strikes, high union dues, union racism and discrimination, union violence and corruption, and more.\u00a0 They sent out mailings and flyers attached to workers\u2019 paychecks with anti-union messages. They held one-on-one meetings with Irma, Doris, and other member leaders in an attempt to turn them against the union.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The campaign was having an effect and the workers fighting to unionize were losing some of their yeses.\u00a0 The election would be close, so house visits by McMaid workers to their coworkers would be the key to winning.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">They instituted their own \u201cVOTE YES\u201d campaign with members flyering outside the newly reinstated check pickups, calling all eligible voters, and house visiting with organizers and other volunteers all over the city to counteract the company\u2019s campaign and get out their more positive message of wage and benefit increases, paid time off, health insurance, and the right to be treated with dignity and respect.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">They contrasted the company\u2019s profits, workers being treated without dignity and respect, their racism, sexism, and the skimming of the state\u2019s reimbursement rate into the company\u2019s pockets instead of the workers\u2019.\u00a0 And they started fighting back at the mandatory \u201ccaptive audience\u201d meetings by taking some of them over and using them to amplify the union\u2019s message.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">And in their most popular mailing, called \u201cWhy We\u2019re Voting Yes,\u201d they had several pages of workers\u2019 quotes with their names underneath explaining why they were voting YES for the union. The mailer went out right before the vote and was distributed outside the company offices on the day of the vote.</p>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">House Visits, Part Two, to Counteract Company Campaign</h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The committee members mailed, phone banked, and most importantly, housevisited as many workers as they could, keeping a running total of their yeses, nos, and maybes on newsprint on the wall of the union hall.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">With just days to go until the election, Juanita Hill, a middle-aged member from the Southside, loaded into her organizer\u2019s cramped VW Beetle to visit the few remaining unidentified voters. After hours of driving around the South and West sides of the city in -16 degree weather in the unheated Beetle with a hole in its floor, they found three workers: one yes, one no, and one maybe. Not great numbers for a day\u2019s work and not encouraging for the election looming just days away. Their last visit of the night was with a young woman named Connie. Connie had three children and her electricity was turned off. She and her three children were huddled in their kitchen with pots of water boiling on the stove and the oven turned on with the door opened, furnishing the apartment with just a little heat and seeing by candle light and flashlight. When they finished the visit, Connie stood up, retrieved her purse, and counted out $5 for the joining fee and another $5 for the first month\u2019s dues. Despite her own financial difficulties and utility shutoff, she felt so optimistic about the union that she was willing to join and pay her dues! That visit kept Juanita and her organizer a little warmer all the way home.</p>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">The Vote</h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Despite the company\u2019s vicious anti-union campaign, Juanita, Irma, Doris, Mary, and their coworkers voted in their election on December 16, 1983.\u00a0 Temperatures of -18 degrees with a wind chill of -50 degrees greeted the workers as they went in to pick up their checks and vote in the NLRB-supervised election held on the company\u2019s premises. Irma, Juanita, Doris, and other leaders flyered out front in shifts, periodically sneaking into a corner restaurant foyer down the street from Mc Maid to warm up between shifts. Rides were arranged for voters who couldn\u2019t get into work that day.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">However, because a portion of the workforce voted by mail the Labor Board impounded the ballots and they were not counted until early January 1984 when all the mail was returned. When the ballots were counted, the McMaid workers won their union by a count of 107-76! ULU Local 880\u2019s first representation election victory in Chicago!</p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" height=\"500\" src=\"https://forgeorganizing.org/sites/default/files/img_0853.jpg\" width=\"750\"/></p>\n<p><em>Doris Gould, standing left; and Irma Sherman, standing right; welcome members to the victory party. Doris famously told the office staff that \u201c\u2026we don\u2019t want you all calling us \u2018girls\u2019 no more!\u201d</em></p>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">Lessons Learned</h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The McMaid campaign became the template for future private and public sector homecare organizing drives. The importance of an empowered organizing committee was clear, it allowed the workers to make decisions that reflected their own experiences and brought the fire of their real stakes. The leaders met the workers where they were at, from check pickups and home visits to captive audience meetings and in-service trainings. And they engaged workers all along the way, bringing them to direct actions that challenged and exposed the boss, and ensuring that they had rides to get there in the first place.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The campaign also moved fast. Workers were asked to pitch in dues early, which created buy-in and commitment, and they filed for an election at 30%, which gave them momentum and quick access to the complete list of employees as mandated by the National Labor Board. This navigation of bureaucracy was key; being aware of state laws and the tactics of employers, like inflating the number of workers, allowed the workers to outmaneuver the boss and help create one of the largest locals of Black and brown workers in the country.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Homecare workers, who once earned as low as $1 an hour to $3.50 per hour, today earn an average of $17.25 an hour and are currently bargaining for $25 an hour plus retirement for this vital work. In addition, they\u2019ve won paid health coverage, paid training, paid overtime, paid holidays, paid sick days, pandemic pay, and many other benefits. Still not enough, but closer than ever to living wage jobs.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">SEIU Healthcare, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Kansas (HCIIMK), Local 880\u2019s successor local, is the largest union of any union in the Midwest, representing over 90,000 workers providing vital homecare, childcare, and healthcare to hundreds of thousands of people across Illinois and the Midwest every day.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">All because of the courage and commitment of Irma, Doris, Juanita, and many others who dared to organize their union in Chicago 40 years ago.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><em>[Keith Kelleher was the founder of ULU Local 880 (1983-5), then SEIU Local 880 (1985-2008) and then president (2008-2017) of SEIU Healthcare Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Kansas (HCIIMK). Once the smallest local union, it is now the largest local union in Chicago, Cook County.]</em></p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<span class=\"hidden\"><a href=\"https://brid.gy/publish/twitter\"></a></span><span class=\"hidden\"><a href=\"https://brid.gy/publish/mastodon\"></a></span><div class=\"node_view\"></div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<ul class=\"tags\">\n<li class=\"h-category\"><a href=\"https://portside.org/seiu\" hreflang=\"en\">SEIU</a></li>\n<li class=\"h-category\"><a href=\"https://portside.org/acorn\" hreflang=\"en\">ACORN</a></li>\n<li class=\"h-category\"><a href=\"https://portside.org/chicago\" hreflang=\"en\">chicago</a></li>\n<li class=\"h-category\"><a href=\"https://portside.org/labor-organizing\" hreflang=\"en\">Labor Organizing</a></li>\n<li class=\"h-category\"><a href=\"https://portside.org/homecare\" hreflang=\"en\">homecare</a></li>\n<li class=\"h-category\"><a href=\"https://portside.org/homecare-workers\" hreflang=\"en\">HomeCare Workers</a></li>\n</ul>\n</div>\n<div class=\"buttons-article-end\">\n<div class=\"subscribe-article-end\">\n<a class=\"btn btn-primary\" href=\"https://portside.org/subscribe\">Subscribe to Portside</a>\n</div>\n</div>"
}
]
},
"children": [
{
"type": [
"h-category"
],
"properties": {
"name": [
"SEIU"
],
"url": [
"https://portside.org/seiu"
]
},
"lang": "en"
},
{
"type": [
"h-category"
],
"properties": {
"name": [
"ACORN"
],
"url": [
"https://portside.org/acorn"
]
},
"lang": "en"
},
{
"type": [
"h-category"
],
"properties": {
"name": [
"chicago"
],
"url": [
"https://portside.org/chicago"
]
},
"lang": "en"
},
{
"type": [
"h-category"
],
"properties": {
"name": [
"Labor Organizing"
],
"url": [
"https://portside.org/labor-organizing"
]
},
"lang": "en"
},
{
"type": [
"h-category"
],
"properties": {
"name": [
"homecare"
],
"url": [
"https://portside.org/homecare"
]
},
"lang": "en"
},
{
"type": [
"h-category"
],
"properties": {
"name": [
"HomeCare Workers"
],
"url": [
"https://portside.org/homecare-workers"
]
},
"lang": "en"
}
],
"lang": "en"
}
],
"rels": {
"canonical": [
"https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever"
],
"alternate": [
"https://portside.org/node/33463?_format=activity_json"
],
"icon": [
"https://portside.org/themes/popeye/favicon.ico"
],
"stylesheet": [
"https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.7.0/css/font-awesome.min.css",
"https://portside.org/sites/default/files/css/css_rNeKn1LRXiQXZREdP0YhHXZrM2cD8f4LNccKSkBzYUo.css?delta=1&language=en&theme=popeye&include=eJxdjlGOwzAIRC_k1EeKcMx6aYixzGSzvn2jSmm7-4PgMdK8ZeUssD5LzVyR1JY1fuyhmBXlmSrpgCwe_4Pgw8FbTOQcmjUeHItaIp0cQ6WWi35ZhV8HDgG4T4fkwgg_wofH57xtlnflP4ju9BscBPGnRO57I729SWhdKigpx1NdMKazeT3lbBHS2WVr5yvtgNWXQ7MOl8xhr-Lf1K_AA5skbbY",
"https://portside.org/sites/default/files/css/css_4zPkfZxHgw2OcfGDcpsKq-yWFUdzfy1V4Cf3-HComZU.css?delta=2&language=en&theme=popeye&include=eJxdjlGOwzAIRC_k1EeKcMx6aYixzGSzvn2jSmm7-4PgMdK8ZeUssD5LzVyR1JY1fuyhmBXlmSrpgCwe_4Pgw8FbTOQcmjUeHItaIp0cQ6WWi35ZhV8HDgG4T4fkwgg_wofH57xtlnflP4ju9BscBPGnRO57I729SWhdKigpx1NdMKazeT3lbBHS2WVr5yvtgNWXQ7MOl8xhr-Lf1K_AA5skbbY",
"https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans+Condensed:300,300italic,700&display=swap",
"https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans:400,300,300italic,400italic,600,600italic,700,700italic,800,800italic&display=swap",
"https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Patua+One&display=swap",
"https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Hind:400,300,500,600,700|Oxygen:400,300,700|Cuprum:400,400italic,700,700italic|Rubik:400,300,300italic,400italic,500italic,500,700,700italic,900italic,900|Istok+Web:400,700,400italic,700italic|Pontano+Sans&display=swap"
],
"me": [
"https://twitter.com/PortsideOrg",
"https://mastodon.social/@portside"
],
"home": [
"https://portside.org/"
],
"bookmark": [
"https://portside.org/2024-02-15/tidbits-feb15-2024-reader-comments-israeli-settlements-obstacle-peace-high-grocery-bills",
"https://portside.org/2024-02-12/minnesota-headed-workers-vs-bosses-showdown-thats-10-years-making",
"https://portside.org/2024-02-09/seiu-dartmouth-mens-basketball-players-respond-nlrb-ruling",
"https://portside.org/2024-02-08/tidbits-feb-8-2024-reader-comments-47-us-cities-call-ceasefire-why-faction-bds-attacking",
"https://portside.org/2024-02-04/ceasefire-vote-narrowly-passes-chicago-city-council-revealing-deep-divisions-among",
"https://portside.org/2024-02-08/super-bowl-ads-promote-israel",
"https://portside.org/2024-02-10/troubadour-1960s-new-left-celebrated-new-exhibit-woody-guthrie-museum",
"https://portside.org/2024-02-16/tens-thousands-workers-florida-have-just-lost-their-labor-unions-more-coming",
"https://portside.org/2024-02-10/america-not-democracy",
"https://portside.org/2024-02-15/what-legendary-historian-tells-us-about-contempt-todays-working-class"
],
"noopener": [
"mailto:?subject=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever&body=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever",
"https://toot.karamoff.dev/?text=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever%0dhttps://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever",
"https://facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever",
"https://twitter.com/intent/tweet/?text=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever&url=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever",
"https://www.tumblr.com/widgets/share/tool?posttype=link&title=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever&caption=Portside&content=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&canonicalUrl=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&shareSource=tumblr_share_button",
"https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&media=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&description=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever",
"https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&title=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever&summary=Portside&source=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever",
"https://reddit.com/submit/?url=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&resubmit=true&title=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever",
"https://www.xing.com/app/user?op=share;url=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever;title=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever",
"https://news.ycombinator.com/submitlink?u=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&t=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever"
]
},
"rel-urls": {
"https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever": {
"text": "",
"rels": [
"canonical"
]
},
"https://portside.org/node/33463?_format=activity_json": {
"text": "",
"rels": [
"alternate"
],
"type": "application/activity+json"
},
"https://portside.org/themes/popeye/favicon.ico": {
"text": "",
"rels": [
"icon"
],
"type": "image/vnd.microsoft.icon"
},
"https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.7.0/css/font-awesome.min.css": {
"text": "",
"rels": [
"stylesheet"
],
"media": "all"
},
"https://portside.org/sites/default/files/css/css_rNeKn1LRXiQXZREdP0YhHXZrM2cD8f4LNccKSkBzYUo.css?delta=1&language=en&theme=popeye&include=eJxdjlGOwzAIRC_k1EeKcMx6aYixzGSzvn2jSmm7-4PgMdK8ZeUssD5LzVyR1JY1fuyhmBXlmSrpgCwe_4Pgw8FbTOQcmjUeHItaIp0cQ6WWi35ZhV8HDgG4T4fkwgg_wofH57xtlnflP4ju9BscBPGnRO57I729SWhdKigpx1NdMKazeT3lbBHS2WVr5yvtgNWXQ7MOl8xhr-Lf1K_AA5skbbY": {
"text": "",
"rels": [
"stylesheet"
],
"media": "all"
},
"https://portside.org/sites/default/files/css/css_4zPkfZxHgw2OcfGDcpsKq-yWFUdzfy1V4Cf3-HComZU.css?delta=2&language=en&theme=popeye&include=eJxdjlGOwzAIRC_k1EeKcMx6aYixzGSzvn2jSmm7-4PgMdK8ZeUssD5LzVyR1JY1fuyhmBXlmSrpgCwe_4Pgw8FbTOQcmjUeHItaIp0cQ6WWi35ZhV8HDgG4T4fkwgg_wofH57xtlnflP4ju9BscBPGnRO57I729SWhdKigpx1NdMKazeT3lbBHS2WVr5yvtgNWXQ7MOl8xhr-Lf1K_AA5skbbY": {
"text": "",
"rels": [
"stylesheet"
],
"media": "all"
},
"https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans+Condensed:300,300italic,700&display=swap": {
"text": "",
"rels": [
"stylesheet"
],
"media": "all"
},
"https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans:400,300,300italic,400italic,600,600italic,700,700italic,800,800italic&display=swap": {
"text": "",
"rels": [
"stylesheet"
],
"media": "all"
},
"https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Patua+One&display=swap": {
"text": "",
"rels": [
"stylesheet"
],
"media": "all"
},
"https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Hind:400,300,500,600,700|Oxygen:400,300,700|Cuprum:400,400italic,700,700italic|Rubik:400,300,300italic,400italic,500italic,500,700,700italic,900italic,900|Istok+Web:400,700,400italic,700italic|Pontano+Sans&display=swap": {
"text": "",
"rels": [
"stylesheet"
],
"media": "all"
},
"https://twitter.com/PortsideOrg": {
"text": "Twitter",
"rels": [
"me"
],
"title": "Follow Portside on Twitter"
},
"https://mastodon.social/@portside": {
"text": "Mastodon",
"rels": [
"me"
],
"title": "Follow Portside on Mastodon"
},
"https://portside.org/": {
"text": "",
"rels": [
"home"
],
"title": "Home"
},
"https://portside.org/2024-02-15/tidbits-feb15-2024-reader-comments-israeli-settlements-obstacle-peace-high-grocery-bills": {
"text": "Tidbits \u2013 Feb.15, 2024 \u2013 Reader Comments: Israeli Settlements\u2013Obstacle to Peace; High Grocery Bills; Phil Ochs; Standing Together; Pelosi, Biden, Solipsism; We Who Believe in Freedom \u2013 Songs and Stories; Holly Near; Celebrating Barbara Ehrenreich;",
"rels": [
"bookmark"
]
},
"https://portside.org/2024-02-12/minnesota-headed-workers-vs-bosses-showdown-thats-10-years-making": {
"text": "Minnesota Is Headed for a Workers vs. Bosses Showdown That\u2019s 10 Years in the Making",
"rels": [
"bookmark"
]
},
"https://portside.org/2024-02-09/seiu-dartmouth-mens-basketball-players-respond-nlrb-ruling": {
"text": "SEIU, Dartmouth Men\u2019s Basketball Players Respond to NLRB Ruling",
"rels": [
"bookmark"
]
},
"https://portside.org/2024-02-08/tidbits-feb-8-2024-reader-comments-47-us-cities-call-ceasefire-why-faction-bds-attacking": {
"text": "Tidbits \u2013 Feb. 8, 2024 \u2013 Reader Comments: 47 US Cities Call for Ceasefire; Why a Faction of BDS Is Attacking Standing Together; Confederate Memorial in Puerto Rico; What Republicans Fear; 52nd Contingent of the Venceremos Brigade \u2013 Learn More",
"rels": [
"bookmark"
]
},
"https://portside.org/2024-02-04/ceasefire-vote-narrowly-passes-chicago-city-council-revealing-deep-divisions-among": {
"text": "Ceasefire Vote Narrowly Passes Chicago City Council, Revealing Deep Divisions Among Democrats",
"rels": [
"bookmark"
]
},
"https://portside.org/2024-02-08/super-bowl-ads-promote-israel": {
"text": "Super Bowl Ads To Promote Israel",
"rels": [
"bookmark"
]
},
"https://portside.org/2024-02-10/troubadour-1960s-new-left-celebrated-new-exhibit-woody-guthrie-museum": {
"text": "Troubadour of 1960s New Left Is Celebrated in New Exhibit at Woody Guthrie Museum",
"rels": [
"bookmark"
]
},
"https://portside.org/2024-02-16/tens-thousands-workers-florida-have-just-lost-their-labor-unions-more-coming": {
"text": "Tens of Thousands of Workers in Florida Have Just Lost Their Labor Unions. More Is Coming",
"rels": [
"bookmark"
]
},
"https://portside.org/2024-02-10/america-not-democracy": {
"text": "America Is Not a Democracy",
"rels": [
"bookmark"
]
},
"https://portside.org/2024-02-15/what-legendary-historian-tells-us-about-contempt-todays-working-class": {
"text": "What a Legendary Historian Tells Us About the Contempt for Today\u2019s Working Class",
"rels": [
"bookmark"
]
},
"mailto:?subject=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever&body=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever": {
"text": "E-Mail",
"rels": [
"noopener"
]
},
"https://toot.karamoff.dev/?text=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever%0dhttps://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever": {
"text": "Mastodon",
"rels": [
"noopener"
]
},
"https://facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever": {
"text": "Facebook",
"rels": [
"noopener"
]
},
"https://twitter.com/intent/tweet/?text=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever&url=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever": {
"text": "Twitter",
"rels": [
"noopener"
]
},
"https://www.tumblr.com/widgets/share/tool?posttype=link&title=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever&caption=Portside&content=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&canonicalUrl=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&shareSource=tumblr_share_button": {
"text": "Tumblr",
"rels": [
"noopener"
]
},
"https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&media=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&description=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever": {
"text": "Pinterest",
"rels": [
"noopener"
]
},
"https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&title=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever&summary=Portside&source=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever": {
"text": "LinkedIn",
"rels": [
"noopener"
]
},
"https://reddit.com/submit/?url=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&resubmit=true&title=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever": {
"text": "Reddit",
"rels": [
"noopener"
]
},
"https://www.xing.com/app/user?op=share;url=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever;title=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever": {
"text": "XING",
"rels": [
"noopener"
]
},
"https://news.ycombinator.com/submitlink?u=https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&t=How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever": {
"text": "Hacker News",
"rels": [
"noopener"
]
}
},
"debug": {
"description": "mf2py - microformats2 parser for python",
"source": "https://github.com/microformats/mf2py",
"version": "2.0.1",
"markup parser": "lxml"
},
"alternates": [
{
"url": "https://portside.org/node/33463?_format=activity_json",
"text": "",
"type": "application/activity+json"
}
]
}
D 2024-02-20 06:35:19.754839+00:00 Converted to ActivityStreams object: {
"objectType": "article",
"published": "2024-02-19T00:00:00",
"displayName": "How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever",
"content": "<div class=\"expanded-article-image-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"article-image-credit\">\n Irma Sherman, Chair of McMaid Workers Organizing Committee,\n </div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"full-article-text-wrapper\">\n<p>Forty years ago, Irma Sherman and the over 150 homecare workers employed by \u201cMcMaid\u201d (Yes, McMaid really was the name of the company) decided they\u2019d had enough of low wages and no benefits and began to organize their union with United Labor Unions (ULU) Local 880, a small, independent union founded by ACORN, the national community organization.</p>\n<p>While McMaid advertised itself as one of Chicago\u2019s premier \u201cmaid services,\u201d with a green and white logo depicting a scantily clad white \u201cmaid\u201d happily dancing around with feather duster in hand, in reality, the workers at McMaid were mostly Black and Brown middle-aged women who were not happy about their conditions. While their employer lived very well off the backbreaking labor of Black women, they were forced to scrape by on minimum wages.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Although they were providing vital, life-saving health care \u2013\u2013 which was well beyond their job description \u2013\u2013 to hundreds of homebound seniors and people with disabilities throughout Chicagoland, they had no health care for themselves or their family members. If they fell sick, their only recourse was \u201cthe County\u201d \u2013\u2013 the then very aged Cook County Hospital with daylong waits for care. Unable to sacrifice a day or longer at the County Hospital, many ignored their own health to care for their clients, more commonly known as consumers, endangering themselves, their families, and their consumers chasing the pay they needed to put food on the table.</p>\n<div class=\"links inline social-buttons-links tokens\" id=\"block-socialsimpleblock\">\n<div class=\"social-buttons\">\n<div class=\"social-buttons-title\">Share this article on</div>\n<ul class=\"links\">\n<li class=\"twitter\"><a data-placement=\"top\" data-popup-height=\"300\" data-popup-width=\"600\" data-toggle=\"tooltip\" href=\"https://twitter.com/intent/tweet/?url=https%3A//portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&amp;text=How%20Four%20Black%20Women%20Changed%20Homecare%20Organizing%20Forever\" title=\"Twitter\"><i class=\"fa fa-twitter\"></i><span class=\"visually-hidden\">Twitter</span></a></li>\n<li class=\"facebook\"><a data-placement=\"top\" data-popup-height=\"300\" data-popup-width=\"600\" data-toggle=\"tooltip\" href=\"https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A//portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever\" title=\"Facebook\"><i class=\"fa fa-facebook\"></i><span class=\"visually-hidden\">Facebook</span></a></li>\n<li class=\"mail\"><a data-popup-open=\"false\" href=\"mailto:?body=%0AHow%20Four%20Black%20Women%20Changed%20Homecare%20Organizing%20Forever%0Ahttps%3A//portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever&amp;subject=How%20Four%20Black%20Women%20Changed%20Homecare%20Organizing%20Forever\" title=\"Mail\"><i class=\"fa fa-envelope\"></i><span class=\"visually-hidden\">Mail</span></a></li>\n</ul>\n</div>\n</div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Any consumers over the age of 60 were served through the Illinois Department of Aging\u2019s (IDOA) Community Care Program, from which McMaid received the bulk of their funding through contract. McMaid was reimbursed at an hourly rate set by the IDOA through a competitive bid process. Agencies competed to see who could pay the lowest, so the competitive bid process drove down wages to at or below the then federal and state minimum wage of $3.35 with few to no benefits.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Irma and her coworkers knew they were being abused and they organized to stop it. Little did they know that their titanic struggle with their employer would require pioneering new tactics and strategies, lead to new models of organizing, and spark one of the largest organizing successes in modern labor history.\u00a0</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">But the boss wasn\u2019t going to give in lightly. He hired one of the largest blue chip law firms in the city to fight their organizing drive, spending thousands of dollars of public funds to interrogate, harass, and intimidate Black women who only wanted to organize their union.</p>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">A Promising Start, The Organizing Committee Forms</h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The outlook had been good for Irma and her McMaid colleagues at the drive's beginning. At the first check pickup organizers attended in September 1983, they collected union authorization cards from almost everyone they spoke to. 30 or 40 cards were collected in just a few hours! Cards were distributed to two, three, sometimes four people at a time, with Irma and some of the other workers joining in, talking to everyone and signing them up as they went in and out of the company\u2019s office, dropping off last week\u2019s signup sheet from their consumers, picking up their checks, and then coming outside again. Workers \u2013\u2013 called \u201cchore housekeepers\u201d or \u201chomemakers\u201d \u2013\u2013 were angry and were eagerly signing up.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Because of the excitement, an organizing committee meeting was called for the following Saturday in the basement meeting room of United Methodist Temple in the Loop. Seven workers showed up, including Irma.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Their complaints were many and often similar to what was heard at the check pickup: Wages were low (everyone was at or near the federal minimum wage of $3.35 per hour) while the company was reimbursed at a much higher rate by the state of Illinois. The company said they had health insurance, but no one signed up for it because what they deducted out of their checks and the $5000 deductible made it way too expensive. Even though the company said they offered paid time off, workers knew better than to try to take it or they\u2019d be fired.</p>\n<p></p><div class=\"snapshot-mini-form tokens\" data-drupal-selector=\"snapshot-mini-form\" id=\"block-portsidelistservnewslettersubscribeminiform\">\n<form accept-charset=\"UTF-8\" action=\"#snapshot-mini-form\" class=\"form-horizontal\" id=\"snapshot-mini-form\" method=\"post\">\n<p class=\"helper-text\">If you like this article, please sign up for Snapshot, Portside's daily summary.</p><div class=\"subscribe-oneline\"><div class=\"row form-group js-form-item form-item js-form-type-email form-type-email js-form-item-email-address form-item-email-address\">\n<label class=\"col-sm-2 control-label js-form-required form-required\" for=\"edit-email-address\">Email</label>\n<div class=\"form--email col-sm-10 col-lg-8\">\n<input aria-required=\"true\" class=\"form-email required form-control input--text\" data-drupal-selector=\"edit-email-address\" id=\"edit-email-address\" maxlength=\"64\" name=\"email_address\" required=\"required\" size=\"64\" type=\"email\" value=\"\"/>\n</div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"form-group\">\n<input class=\"btn-wide button js-form-submit form-submit btn-portside\" data-drupal-selector=\"edit-submit\" id=\"edit-submit\" name=\"op\" type=\"submit\" value=\"Subscribe\"/>\n</div>\n</div><input class=\"form-control input--text\" data-drupal-selector=\"edit-list-name\" name=\"list_name\" type=\"hidden\" value=\"PORTSIDE-SNAPSHOT\"/>\n<p class=\"helper-text\">(One summary e-mail a day, you can <a href=\"https://portside.org/subscribe\">change anytime</a>, and Portside is always free.)</p><input class=\"form-control input--text\" data-drupal-selector=\"edit-honeypot-time\" name=\"honeypot_time\" type=\"hidden\" value=\"oAXoHltERZQytrrhgaUuWOnghHd-4BouiLYdt4MxfAc\"/>\n<input autocomplete=\"off\" class=\"form-control input--text\" data-drupal-selector=\"form-4bzu-ee2p4gp2ncofu7-wtcr1ddkn61cb7vxxwwt9de\" name=\"form_build_id\" type=\"hidden\" value=\"form-4bzu_Ee2P4GP2Ncofu7-WtCr1dDkN61Cb7VXxwWT9dE\"/>\n<input class=\"form-control input--text\" data-drupal-selector=\"edit-snapshot-mini-form\" name=\"form_id\" type=\"hidden\" value=\"snapshot_mini_form\"/>\n<div class=\"zip-textfield js-form-wrapper form-wrapper\" style=\"display: none !important;\"><div class=\"row form-group js-form-item form-item js-form-type-textfield form-type-textfield js-form-item-zip form-item-zip\">\n<label class=\"col-sm-2 control-label\" for=\"edit-zip\">Leave this field blank</label>\n<div class=\"form--textfield col-sm-10 col-lg-8\">\n<input autocomplete=\"off\" class=\"form-text form-control input--text\" data-drupal-selector=\"edit-zip\" id=\"edit-zip\" maxlength=\"128\" name=\"zip\" size=\"20\" type=\"text\" value=\"\"/>\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n</form>\n</div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">There was a general lack of respect shown to the workers by the mostly white management: young, mostly white women supervisors looking down their noses at workers and calling them \u201cgirls\u201d when those \u201cgirls\u201d were old enough to be their mothers or grandmothers. Finally, and worst of all to many, was the way the clients were treated: worker turnover was almost 100% each year, so there frequently weren\u2019t enough workers available to care for the clients. This resulted in clients going days or longer with no care, laying in their own waste, hungry, dehydrated, their bed sores getting infected. Workers also frequently had to bring their own gloves, soap, detergent, diapers, food, bandages, antiseptic, and other essentials that the company didn\u2019t provide.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Even though only seven workers came, it was an encouraging first organizing committee meeting. There were energetic songs and chants and folks had even brought donuts and pastry for the potluck breakfast. Everyone present voted yes to organize a union at McMaid!</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Irma and Doris Gould, another worker contacted at the check pickup, had helped to run the first meeting and as the meeting came to close, Mary, an older woman who had been silent most of the meeting, taking it all in, spitting tobacco juice into an empty coffee cup, finally spoke up:</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWell, where do we all sign up and pay our dues?\u201d</p>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">Recognition Action - Demanding Recognition from the Boss!</h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">They set a recognition action for the next week. A recognition action, pioneered by Local 1199, the national hospital workers\u2019 union, utilizes a little-known provision of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) permitting an employer to directly recognize the union based on a showing of interest of employees signing a union petition or authorization cards. An employer almost always refuses to recognize the union, preferring to stall and delay and hope to defeat an organizing drive. But the collective action of the workers marching to and through the employer\u2019s offices and demanding the employer or his representatives recognize the union builds tremendous worker strength, solidarity, power \u2013\u2013 and fun \u2013\u2013 and puts the employer on notice that the workers want their union and will not be intimidated.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The workers voted at the first organizing committee meeting to organize a recognition action at McMaid\u2019s offices the following payday.\u00a0 They gathered a large crowd of members and supporters \u2013\u2013 many who had already signed union cards \u2013\u2013 outside the company\u2019s offices when most workers came to pick up their checks. Everyone was officially off the clock, so the company couldn\u2019t discipline them.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">When Irma and Doris gave the signal, they marched in step into the company\u2019s office chanting, \u201cWe\u2019re Fired Up, We Won\u2019t Take It No More!\u201d and demanded to see the big boss, George.\u00a0</p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" height=\"563\" src=\"https://forgeorganizing.org/sites/default/files/img_0857.jpg\" width=\"750\"/></p>\n<p><em>Local 880 members on the March down Michigan Avenue in Chicago Caption</em></p>\n<p>George, a sad-faced, middle-aged white man, came out from his office in the rear of the building but refused to talk or meet or even read the recognition letter they wanted him to sign. They started chanting: \u201cSign It George, Sign It! Sign It George, Sign It!\u201d He retreated into his office and they followed. Marching after him, they continued to chant, \u201cSign it George, Sign it!\u201d George scurried into his office and locked the door, causing Doris to make a stand in front of his door, turn, and read off the litany of their demands ending it with, \u201cAnd we don\u2019t want any of you all calling us your girls no more!\u201d This was aimed towards the supervisors cowering at their desks.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">With that, they marched outside just as the police arrived and held an impromptu meeting. George then came running out demanding that the police arrest the workers and their organizer, but the officer in charge said he couldn\u2019t do anything because \u201cthey were within their rights\u201d to protest outside. That caused the assembled workers to hoot and holler even more and tell George to go inside while they held their own meeting. For once, instead of walking away from the company\u2019s office alone, with barely enough to survive, they had taken action and spoken up as a group and felt their power!</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Spirits were high as they laid out the plan leading up to the election, but even more challenges lay ahead.</p>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">The Company Reacts \u2013 A Turn for the Worse</h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The company wasted no time reacting, following their own $200-per hour union busting consultant\u2019s plan. At the next check pickup they illegally stationed supervisors out front to spy and see who was signing up with the union. They also put out flyers warning workers not to talk to the \u201cUnion Man\u201d or to sign a card.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Then an even bigger setback arose. One of the organizers, who had collected over 30 more cards from workers, jumped on a bus to bring his cards back to the union hall in an old printing warehouse in the south Loop. While riding the bus to the hall he became sick with nausea, jumped off the bus, and threw up in the gutter. It was only then he realized that he\u2019d left the 30 new cards on the bus! Despite many calls to the CTA, those cards were never found.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The organizing committee members vowed to re-sign the workers and gathered at the next check pickup with more members and organizers borrowed from ACORN and the national ULU.\u00a0 But the company\u2019s \u201cdon\u2019t sign\u201d campaign was having an effect: some who\u2019d signed the card last week wouldn\u2019t re-sign, and one or two that the supervisors had interrogated asked for their cards back. Not to be stopped, they still collected a bunch of cards from newer workers.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Then things got even worse: the company canceled the check pickup, totally cutting access to their coworkers.</p>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">Filing at the Labor Board \u2013 Crunch Time at McMaid</h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">After McMaid refused to recognize the union and canceled the check pickup, the workers voted to file a petition at the Labor Board for a union representation election. At the Labor Board, McMaid lied to the Labor Board agents and tried to pad the employee list to make it look like the union didn\u2019t have the majority or required 30% for a union election. McMaid claimed they had over 600 employees instead of the 150-200 workers the union estimated.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">But by reviewing the payroll records, they proved McMaid had only 200 workers total.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Despite the smaller list, the government\u2019s Board agent still told them they were short on cards and only gave them 48 hours to get 7 more cards \u2013 ONLY 48 HOURS TO GET 7 MORE CARDS!</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">So, it was crunch time at McMaid. They had to win. Their backs were against the wall!</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Since the check pickup was canceled, the brave workers on the organizing committee \u2013\u2013 Irma Sherman, Doris Gould, Juanita Hill, Betty Brown, Mary Williamson, and others \u2013\u2013 signed up to house visit their coworkers on their time off that weekend.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The few remaining worker contacts were mostly in the projects: Cabrini-Green high and low-rises, the Robert Taylor high rises, and others.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">After spending all day caring for their consumers and their own families, they went with the organizer through the projects, climbed the stairs, knocked on doors and found Miss Lee Ora, then Mrs. Glenn, then Mrs. Bey, who eagerly signed the union card and walked with them to meet other McMaid workers they knew in the building to sign up.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">When their 48 hours were up that following Monday at 5pm, they went to the Labor Board with 8 cards. The Board agent checked them against his list.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">THEY MADE IT, all those visits paid off and they had enough cards for the election! The election was set for December 16, 1983, the beginning of one of the coldest winters in Chicago history.</p>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">Election Set, Company Attacks</h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">But the company\u2019s campaign was just getting started and they brought their A-game.\u00a0\u00a0</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Over the weeks leading up to the election, they held paid captive audience meetings where they showed anti-union videos and pounded on the workers with fearful diatribes about strikes, high union dues, union racism and discrimination, union violence and corruption, and more.\u00a0 They sent out mailings and flyers attached to workers\u2019 paychecks with anti-union messages. They held one-on-one meetings with Irma, Doris, and other member leaders in an attempt to turn them against the union.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The campaign was having an effect and the workers fighting to unionize were losing some of their yeses.\u00a0 The election would be close, so house visits by McMaid workers to their coworkers would be the key to winning.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">They instituted their own \u201cVOTE YES\u201d campaign with members flyering outside the newly reinstated check pickups, calling all eligible voters, and house visiting with organizers and other volunteers all over the city to counteract the company\u2019s campaign and get out their more positive message of wage and benefit increases, paid time off, health insurance, and the right to be treated with dignity and respect.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">They contrasted the company\u2019s profits, workers being treated without dignity and respect, their racism, sexism, and the skimming of the state\u2019s reimbursement rate into the company\u2019s pockets instead of the workers\u2019.\u00a0 And they started fighting back at the mandatory \u201ccaptive audience\u201d meetings by taking some of them over and using them to amplify the union\u2019s message.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">And in their most popular mailing, called \u201cWhy We\u2019re Voting Yes,\u201d they had several pages of workers\u2019 quotes with their names underneath explaining why they were voting YES for the union. The mailer went out right before the vote and was distributed outside the company offices on the day of the vote.</p>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">House Visits, Part Two, to Counteract Company Campaign</h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The committee members mailed, phone banked, and most importantly, housevisited as many workers as they could, keeping a running total of their yeses, nos, and maybes on newsprint on the wall of the union hall.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">With just days to go until the election, Juanita Hill, a middle-aged member from the Southside, loaded into her organizer\u2019s cramped VW Beetle to visit the few remaining unidentified voters. After hours of driving around the South and West sides of the city in -16 degree weather in the unheated Beetle with a hole in its floor, they found three workers: one yes, one no, and one maybe. Not great numbers for a day\u2019s work and not encouraging for the election looming just days away. Their last visit of the night was with a young woman named Connie. Connie had three children and her electricity was turned off. She and her three children were huddled in their kitchen with pots of water boiling on the stove and the oven turned on with the door opened, furnishing the apartment with just a little heat and seeing by candle light and flashlight. When they finished the visit, Connie stood up, retrieved her purse, and counted out $5 for the joining fee and another $5 for the first month\u2019s dues. Despite her own financial difficulties and utility shutoff, she felt so optimistic about the union that she was willing to join and pay her dues! That visit kept Juanita and her organizer a little warmer all the way home.</p>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">The Vote</h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Despite the company\u2019s vicious anti-union campaign, Juanita, Irma, Doris, Mary, and their coworkers voted in their election on December 16, 1983.\u00a0 Temperatures of -18 degrees with a wind chill of -50 degrees greeted the workers as they went in to pick up their checks and vote in the NLRB-supervised election held on the company\u2019s premises. Irma, Juanita, Doris, and other leaders flyered out front in shifts, periodically sneaking into a corner restaurant foyer down the street from Mc Maid to warm up between shifts. Rides were arranged for voters who couldn\u2019t get into work that day.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">However, because a portion of the workforce voted by mail the Labor Board impounded the ballots and they were not counted until early January 1984 when all the mail was returned. When the ballots were counted, the McMaid workers won their union by a count of 107-76! ULU Local 880\u2019s first representation election victory in Chicago!</p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" height=\"500\" src=\"https://forgeorganizing.org/sites/default/files/img_0853.jpg\" width=\"750\"/></p>\n<p><em>Doris Gould, standing left; and Irma Sherman, standing right; welcome members to the victory party. Doris famously told the office staff that \u201c\u2026we don\u2019t want you all calling us \u2018girls\u2019 no more!\u201d</em></p>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\">Lessons Learned</h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The McMaid campaign became the template for future private and public sector homecare organizing drives. The importance of an empowered organizing committee was clear, it allowed the workers to make decisions that reflected their own experiences and brought the fire of their real stakes. The leaders met the workers where they were at, from check pickups and home visits to captive audience meetings and in-service trainings. And they engaged workers all along the way, bringing them to direct actions that challenged and exposed the boss, and ensuring that they had rides to get there in the first place.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The campaign also moved fast. Workers were asked to pitch in dues early, which created buy-in and commitment, and they filed for an election at 30%, which gave them momentum and quick access to the complete list of employees as mandated by the National Labor Board. This navigation of bureaucracy was key; being aware of state laws and the tactics of employers, like inflating the number of workers, allowed the workers to outmaneuver the boss and help create one of the largest locals of Black and brown workers in the country.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Homecare workers, who once earned as low as $1 an hour to $3.50 per hour, today earn an average of $17.25 an hour and are currently bargaining for $25 an hour plus retirement for this vital work. In addition, they\u2019ve won paid health coverage, paid training, paid overtime, paid holidays, paid sick days, pandemic pay, and many other benefits. Still not enough, but closer than ever to living wage jobs.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">SEIU Healthcare, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Kansas (HCIIMK), Local 880\u2019s successor local, is the largest union of any union in the Midwest, representing over 90,000 workers providing vital homecare, childcare, and healthcare to hundreds of thousands of people across Illinois and the Midwest every day.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">All because of the courage and commitment of Irma, Doris, Juanita, and many others who dared to organize their union in Chicago 40 years ago.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><em>[Keith Kelleher was the founder of ULU Local 880 (1983-5), then SEIU Local 880 (1985-2008) and then president (2008-2017) of SEIU Healthcare Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Kansas (HCIIMK). Once the smallest local union, it is now the largest local union in Chicago, Cook County.]</em></p>\n</div>\n<div>\n<span class=\"hidden\"><a href=\"https://brid.gy/publish/twitter\"></a></span><span class=\"hidden\"><a href=\"https://brid.gy/publish/mastodon\"></a></span><div class=\"node_view\"></div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<ul class=\"tags\">\n<li class=\"h-category\"><a href=\"https://portside.org/seiu\" hreflang=\"en\">SEIU</a></li>\n<li class=\"h-category\"><a href=\"https://portside.org/acorn\" hreflang=\"en\">ACORN</a></li>\n<li class=\"h-category\"><a href=\"https://portside.org/chicago\" hreflang=\"en\">chicago</a></li>\n<li class=\"h-category\"><a href=\"https://portside.org/labor-organizing\" hreflang=\"en\">Labor Organizing</a></li>\n<li class=\"h-category\"><a href=\"https://portside.org/homecare\" hreflang=\"en\">homecare</a></li>\n<li class=\"h-category\"><a href=\"https://portside.org/homecare-workers\" hreflang=\"en\">HomeCare Workers</a></li>\n</ul>\n</div>\n<div class=\"buttons-article-end\">\n<div class=\"subscribe-article-end\">\n<a class=\"btn btn-primary\" href=\"https://portside.org/subscribe\">Subscribe to Portside</a>\n</div>\n</div>",
"url": "https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever"
}
I 2024-02-20 06:35:19.774248+00:00 no refresh_token
I 2024-02-20 06:35:19.869804+00:00 requests.post https://portside.social/api/v1/statuses {'json': {'status': 'How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever: https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever'}, 'headers': {'Authorization': '...'}}
I 2024-02-20 06:35:20.273264+00:00 Received 200
I 2024-02-20 06:35:20.275066+00:00 Returning {
"id": "111962418067413964",
"created_at": "2024-02-20T06:35:20.219Z",
"in_reply_to_id": null,
"in_reply_to_account_id": null,
"sensitive": false,
"spoiler_text": "",
"visibility": "public",
"language": "en",
"uri": "https://portside.social/users/portside/statuses/111962418067413964",
"url": "https://portside.social/@portside/111962418067413964",
"replies_count": 0,
"reblogs_count": 0,
"favourites_count": 0,
"edited_at": null,
"favourited": false,
"reblogged": false,
"muted": false,
"bookmarked": false,
"pinned": false,
"content": "<p>How Four Black Women Changed Homecare Organizing Forever: <a href=\"https://portside.org/2024-02-19/how-four-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" translate=\"no\"><span class=\"invisible\">https://</span><span class=\"ellipsis\">portside.org/2024-02-19/how-fo</span><span class=\"invisible\">ur-black-women-changed-homecare-organizing-forever</span></a></p>",
"filtered": [],
"reblog": null,
"application": {
"name": "Bridgy",
"website": "https://brid.gy/"
},
"account": {
"id": "109678432722070379",
"username": "portside",
"acct": "portside",
"display_name": "Portside",
"locked": false,
"bot": false,
"discoverable": true,
"group": false,
"created_at": "2023-01-12T00:00:00.000Z",
"note": "<p>Portside aims to provide varied material of interest to people on the left that will help them to interpret the world, and to change it.</p>",
"url": "https://portside.social/@portside",
"uri": "https://portside.social/users/portside",
"avatar": "https://portside.social/system/accounts/avatars/109/678/432/722/070/379/original/d3e2366b29e88bfe.jpeg",
"avatar_static": "https://portside.social/system/accounts/avatars/109/678/432/722/070/379/original/d3e2366b29e88bfe.jpeg",
"header": "https://portside.social/system/accounts/headers/109/678/432/722/070/379/original/3963661c8432378a.png",
"header_static": "https://portside.social/system/accounts/headers/109/678/432/722/070/379/original/3963661c8432378a.png",
"followers_count": 215,
"following_count": 98,
"statuses_count": 2485,
"last_status_at": "2024-02-20",
"noindex": false,
"emojis": [],
"roles": [],
"fields": [
{
"name": "Website",
"value": "<a href=\"https://portside.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer me\" translate=\"no\"><span class=\"invisible\">https://</span><span class=\"\">portside.org</span><span class=\"invisible\"></span></a>",
"verified_at": null
},
{
"name": "Material of Interest",
"value": "to People on the Left",
"verified_at": null
},
{
"name": "Interpret the world",
"value": "and change it",
"verified_at": null
}
]
},
"media_attachments": [],
"mentions": [],
"tags": [],
"emojis": [],
"card": null,
"poll": null
}