Posts tagged 1199SEIU
Commentary: The 2025 Labor Power 100 New York’s most influential union chiefs and worker advocates
August 26, 2025 // City & State’s Labor Power 100 highlights the most influential leaders in one of the most politically powerful spheres in New York. The list, researched and written in partnership with journalist Aaron Short, features union chiefs who have scored major victories – new contracts, new legislation, new members – and navigated tough circumstances. It also highlights a number of retirements that have paved the way for new leaders to ascend.
Power-Hungry and Petty: How Shawn Fain Runs the UAW
June 25, 2025 // Fain had the union’s compliance director read the fabricated report of Mock’s alleged wrongdoing into the record at an executive board meeting in February 2024. Mock was never interviewed in the creation of the report, and did not know it existed until it was delivered in the meeting. Mock is a black woman. Fain coordinated with two other black women on the executive board, regional directors Laura Dickerson and LaShawn English, to strip Mock of much of her authority in the organization. Dickerson made the motion and English seconded it. The exact wording of the motion was scripted by Fain’s aides, text messages uncovered by the monitor revealed, and Dickerson said she had agreed to make the motion before the report was even finalized.
BUFFALO: Nursing home workers begin strike at 5 facilities
May 21, 2025 // Late Monday night, 1199SEIU announced that it had reached two three-year agreements for nursing home workers at Comprehensive Rehabilitation and Nursing Center at Williamsville and Schofield Residence in Tonawanda. The union also withdrew strike notices at four more facilities: Newfane Rehabilitation and Health Center, Buffalo Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing, Ellicott Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing, and The Grand at Delaware Park. Among the remaining facilities set to strike, several are owned by The McGuire Group, which released a statement assuring residents and families that care would continue uninterrupted.
Michael Watson: The Union and the Republican Prize Patrol
May 19, 2025 // But as “the union that rules New York” waves goodbye to its self-interested longtime boss, allow me the opportunity to give a brief history lesson, one that should serve as a warning to those Republicans and conservatives who hope to appease unions into political dominance. Because even as he was launching the political careers of leftists like former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), Gresham and his predecessor Dennis Rivera played union whisperer to a now-deceased faction of New York State politics: the Republican “Prize Patrol.”
Chair Walberg Requests Investigation into Alleged Union Embezzlement
April 17, 2025 // “According to the article, Mr. Gresham ‘has for years used union money to benefit himself, his family and political allies.’ These allegations raise serious concerns about whether the union’s officers have been treating the union treasury as a personal slush fund rather than upholding their legal duty to manage members’ dues for the members’ exclusive benefit. The Committee shares these concerns and is committed to supporting the enforcement of federal laws protecting union members’ rights.”
National Labor Relations Board overrules Optum’s objection to Crystal Run workers’ union
March 27, 2025 // As a result, 1,120 Crystal Run workers joined 650 other Optum staff in Westchester and the lower Hudson Valley in 1199SEIU, the largest health care union in the Hudson Valley, which also represents staff at Vassar Brothers Medical Center, Putnam Hospital and Northern Dutchess Hospital. In his conclusion, Doyle also certified 1199SEIU Health Care as the bargaining representative for all full-time, regular part-time, per diem non-professional employees, and physicians at Crystal Run. That includes employees at Crystal Run locations in Middletown, Monroe, Newburgh, Rock Hill, Goshen, Warwick and West Nyack.
Hochul admin caves on rollout of pro-union NY home care overhaul as whistleblower describes chaos: ‘S–t show’
March 25, 2025 // Hochul handpicked Public Partnerships LLC as a new middleman to consolidate payroll services from hundreds of firms, a move supported by an influential health care union that could gain thousands of new members through unionizing aides under the program. But a whistleblower said PPL has been inundated with phone calls and struggling to meet the demand to try to hit the deadline. “It’s unimaginable. We’ve gone from the frying pan to the fire,” the PPL employee said. Hundreds of callers are on hold by 8 a.m. when workers sign on for the day, and hundreds are still waiting on hold by the end of the business day, the worker said — meaning consumers and caregivers have to call back and try again the next day.
UR home care workers are planning a one-day strike. Here’s why
February 24, 2025 // Last week, 1199SEIU issued a 10-day notice for an unfair labor practice strike on behalf of University of Rochester Medicine Home Care workers. A one-day strike is now planned. Since May 2024, professional and clinical home care workers have been negotiating their first union contract.
New York’s Fastest-Growing Union Is Management’s Best Friend — and Some Workers Don’t Even Know They’re Members
December 20, 2024 // Though she last worked for Five Borough two months ago, she stopped receiving pay stubs long before that, she said — paperwork that would have had to show deductions, including for union dues. Supervisors ignored her repeated requests for pay records, she said. Through such voluntary recognition deals with management, less than a decade after its founding, HHWA has exploded in size. It currently claims some 43,000 members, up from 14,141 in 2018. An investigation into Home Healthcare Workers of America by THE CITY, based on interviews with past and current members, legal records and other public statements, reveals that this fast-growing union is a tool of company management in the form of a labor organization.
Unionization of 1199SEIU’s own staff exposes internal tensions
November 22, 2024 // The in-house staff union has a formal unfair labor practice charge pending with the National Labor Relations Board over Hemmings’ termination. A second pending charge alleges that 1199SEIU officers were unlawfully polling employees to gauge their support for the in-house staff union. Another accuses 1199SEIU of changing a policy around paid leave and remote work, in violation of “status quo” protections for employees.