CHICAGO, IL, January 28 — “THEY SAY CUT BACK, WE SAY FIGHT BACK!”; “THE WORKERS UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED!”; “WE NEED OUR JOBS!”; These chants shook the halls outside a budget hearing as militant black women workers from Cook County and Provident Hospitals could not get into the packed hearing room. The commissioners were deciding how much money will be cut from each department, including hospital services and jobs. Our voices were heard loud and clear, inside and outside the hearing.
Driven by the war budget and the Great Recession, the bosses plan to sub-contract the jobs of hundreds of housekeeping, dietary and other workers. These mostly black and Latino workers have historically been the mass base for PLP here. The bosses and bankers are also closing Provident and Oak Forest Hospitals, and have not restored the hundreds of jobs cut in 2007. The County health system is already more closed than open and more patients will die, all run by Democrats and in Obama’s backyard.
One doctor, a veteran anti-racist fighter, told the board that closing these hospitals was racist murder, comparing these cuts to what happened in Nazi Germany’s medical system prior to WW II. Someone also exposed short-staffing. It’s a scientific fact that complications — including death — increase sharply when the nurse:patient ratio exceeds 1-to-5 on medical-surgical units. At Stroger Hospital, nurses on these wards are routinely assigned 7 or 8 uninsured patients. Across the street at the University of Illinois Hospital, which only takes insured patients, proper staffing ratios are used.
The board did not respond and tried to carry on with their agenda when someone interrupted and said, “Start talking about patient care and these murderous cuts!” The stunned directors actually did! They asked the nursing supervisor to speak about the staffing ratios. She admitted they were unacceptable and unsafe. They asked the human resources lackey what could be done to fix it. Not much it seemed. They didn’t discuss the hospital closings, but eventually ordered security to remove the worker who had interrupted them.
Furious and Fearful
Workers are furious over these deadly racist cuts. But that fury is dampened by cynicism and fear. For the past four years we’ve been subjected to mass layoffs, ward and clinic closings and reduced services when there is a growing medical need for more than one million uninsured workers in Cook County. Through it all, the unions have assisted the bosses in their dirty work and most workers don’t see a way out.
A nurse from Oak Forest Hospital said that the long-term care patients, some on ventilators and many who are paralyzed, were told they had to find a new nursing home by the end of January. Some of these patients have been living at the long-term care unit for decades! She also said that the 38,000 patients who use the emergency room every year will be forced to go elsewhere when the hospital closes. Many will likely try to go to Stroger Hospital which has seen an increase in its ER visits from 350 to over 500 patients every day. Many others, who can’t make it to Stroger, will surely die.
Our PLP County club is searching for ways for workers and patients to break the grip of fear and cynicism. The key is developing a mass base for CHALLENGE while always trying to up the ante against the racist rulers and their union misleaders. Fighting these murderous racist attacks on patients and workers can help build the revolutionary movement