By TIM ROWDEN
Editor-in-Chief
St. Louis – Workers at Places for People held a candlelight vigil highlighting the organization’s anti-union actions Nov. 13 ahead of a scheduled board meeting, but the board members – apparently alerted to the action – never showed up.
Workers are seeking to organize with SEIU Healthcare, which organized the vigil with Missouri Jobs with Justice. About two dozen workers, allies and clergy attended the vigil at Places for People’s offices at 1001 Lynch Street in the Soulard neighborhood.
“We are here to let the board know that we’re watching,” said Laura Barrett, Missouri campaign coordinator for SEIU Healthcare. “We have been asking them to meet with us and to hammer out a neutrality process for months, and they have been unwilling to do that.
“Workers at this organization are concerned about safety, they are concerned about equitability and they are concerned about pay,” Barrett said. “Those are huge concerns on the frontlines every day serving people who are some of the most vulnerable in our community.”
During the vigil, workers had planned to distribute an open letter to members of the Places for People board calling on management for a fair and open unionizing process, free from retaliation and harassment. The letter urges board members to join organizing workers in the fight against “a broken system.”
“We recognize the pressures you face from state and federal agencies and other funding sources in a broader culture of austerity and systematic inequality,” the letter states. “We understand that managing the significant growth our agency has seen in recent years is a complex task with imperfect results. We can become leaders among organizations like ours grappling with similar challenges, if worker(s’) voice is united with executive leadership”
The letter currently has more than 200 signatures.
PLACES FOR PEOPLE
Places for People is a community behavioral health organization that provides assistance to people who are on the road to recovery after experiencing mental health and substance use disorders, and helps individuals develop the skills they need to manage their illnesses.
Since workers announced their intent to form a union in August, Places for People management has engaged in harassment and anti-union retaliation against the workers, resulting in the filing of an Unfair Labor Practices charge with the National Labor Relations Board.
The St. Louis Board of Alderman on Nov. 9 passed a resolution in support of the workers. It reads: “The Board urges Places for People leadership to meet with workers and their chosen representative SEIU Healthcare Missouri to negotiate a fair election process that prevents intimidation and retaliation by either party and creates a legitimate and transparent process by which workers may decide whether to unionize.”
Workers seeking to organize include custodians, nursing aides, technicians, case workers and substance abuse specialists.
“I feel like it’s really important to stand in solidarity with folks who are working in conditions that are not always the best,” said Ben Cohen, an eligibility coordinator at Places for People. He noted residential caseloads, income disparity, and physical and emotional safety among the reasons workers are seeking to organize.
“It feels like a natural outgrowth advocating to ensure that all of our staff have a living wage and the quality of service that we assist the people we’re working with to get.”
NO TIME OFF FOR MENTAL HEALTH
Gregory Tumlin, a substance abuse counselor at Places for People, said many employees work over 55 hours a week but only get paid for 40 hours. Tumlin has been with the organization for nearly two years.
“I work with some of the most seriously mentally ill people who abuse substances,” Tumlin said. “In the last two months, four people on my caseload have died. It affects me mentally and emotionally. But I had to use one of my sick days last week to grieve.”
Tumlin criticized the organization for not providing employees time off for mental health.
“We want to sit down at the table. We want to negotiate a fair contract to address the inconsistencies across the agency in terms of pay, benefits, inflexibility. We’d like for them to meet with us. We’d really like for them to just recognize the union and move forward but they are totally against it.”
WANT TO BE HEARD
Christine Raynoso, an integrated health coach, said the atmosphere at Places for People has changed as the organization has grown.
“When I started 17 years ago, it seemed like a different atmosphere,” Raynoso said. “There’s been a lot of changes. We’ve gotten bigger. And along with that a lot of the concerns that we are seeing on the frontlines are not necessarily being heard in upper management.
“We just want to be at the table,” she said. “We want to bring our concerns. We want to make this place a first-class, first-rate agency with quality workers giving quality services to the most vulnerable people in our region. We’re just asking the board of directors to sit down with us. We just want our voices to be heard.”
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