Hospital Workers Gear Up for Contract Fight

Brooklyn, June 18 — Hundreds of angry healthcare workers, mainly women from Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 1199 East, picketed on their lunch hour outside Methodist Hospital. They were protesting against a proposal by the racist hospital bosses for massive cuts in benefits. Their union contract is due to expire on July 15. Workers came from every department.
They marched around the hospital block blowing whistles and chanting, “Strike! strike! strike!” and “Bosses say cutback, we say fight back!” Patients and workers inside the hospital waved from windows and cheered the marchers. One hundred and fifty CHALLENGEs were distributed by PL’ers supporting the picket line.
The bosses have been renovating this hospital with the huge profits made off the workers’ and patients’ backs. They have spent millions on new technology to compete with other capitalist-run hospitals in the drive for profits for themselves, their stockholders and the banks that finance them. Meanwhile, the emergency room is packed with patients waiting hours for treatment. Increasingly, patients are being discharged before treatment is completed. Many workers are completely worn out by shift’s end. This capitalist system surely ruins our lives!
Workers at this hospital have a history of fighting back against write-ups and for better working conditions. PLP has been organizing here for many years. There are many CHALLENGE readers and PL supporters among the workers. We are fighting for political leadership. With communist understanding, workers can cut through the lies of hospital bosses and union misleaders alike. Building a study-action group here can help meet the obstacles we face day-to-day and lead to new recruits to our Party.
The SEIU leadership has consistently refused to lead any fights for contracts or day-to-day struggles. Their outlook is to accommodate the bosses’ needs and those of their system. Over the years, they have sacrificed workers’ raises to preserve benefits, saving millions for the bosses. Meanwhile, last year, the top five healthcare systems took in over $20 billion in revenues. Using our pension funds to pay for our raises in past contracts has weakened the fight against the bosses’ capitalist healthcare system and has led workers even further down the road to capitalist hell.
Surely, any system based on profit and exploitation cannot produce any security for workers or provide decent healthcare. Workers should join the fight for a system run by workers, the only guarantee of a secure life. That system, without bosses and profits, is communism.