Unchain Power of 1199!

The short-staffing crisis in the hospitals is grinding us down. Intolerable conditions during COVID led thousands of workers to leave and the bosses don’t want to pay to replace them. Management makes more profit by squeezing more work out of those of us left. We have more patients in less time, more tasks with less training, more overtime—making conditions unsafe for workers and patients alike.

We need a massive wage raise to keep up with the cost of living in New York City. We need to raise everyone’s wages so there is equal pay for equal work at the highest rate citywide. One job should be enough to live on and support our families! Throwing the doors of the hospitals open to all those who want work would allow the work to be spread around to everyone. The union should control hiring, training and safety so that the hospitals can be run in the interests of the workers and the patients, not the bosses.

Unions have the power to fight for what the workers need because without our work the bosses can’t make their profits. But the union leaders handcuff and gag the union with the no-strike clause in the contract with the League hospitals. This prevents workers from using their collective power—or even discussing how to fight back effectively—and allows the bosses to walk all over us. The union leaders do this in the name of partnership with the bosses and hand over millions in dues money to one of the bosses’ parties—the Democrats. A class-struggle leadership of the union would use all that money for a strike fund so we could fight for what’s needed in opposition to the Dems and Republicans, who have ruined the country’s economy and healthcare system.

Hospital Workers Building Union Power wants to fight to get rid of the no-strike clause and unchain the power of 1199.