SEIU-ULTCW members join UHW Solidarity Rally

On February 26, over fifty SEIU-ULTCW long-term care members and staff drove to the SEIU-UHW Solidarity Rally in Commerce, CA. They came to show support for the Employee Free Choice Act, for reforming the healthcare system, and, most importantly, for a strong, united, and statewide long-term care union.

Eliseo Medina, one of the trustees of United Healthcare Workers West, spoke about the importance of solidarity during these tough economic times and talked about the recent advances that have been made on the national healthcare agenda. He stressed that with Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor, now is the time to push the Employee Free Choice Act legislation to the forefront of the national debate.

Homecare provider Michelle Reed spoke from the heart as she gave an impassioned speech to the crowd. She wove a story of the humble beginnings of the long-term care labor movement in California 10 years ago. Reflecting on the recent unification of 240,000 long-term caregivers, she challenged the crowd to keep up their activism by continuing to fight for a fair state budget in Sacramento. The crowd applauded as she said, “Homecare providers deserve better. America deserves better. The test of a country is NOT how it treats its most powerful. It’s how it treats it’s most vulnerable.”

The last part of the program had the crowd singing along and dancing to acoustical folk songs of “Solidarity Forever” and “I’m Sticking with the Union.”