Muskegon, MI – Workers at Red Cross in Michigan and Ohio have been on strike since March 30, after a clash with management over health care for themselves and others. Workers in other Midwest states are considering a strike over health care and related unfair labor practices by Red Cross bosses too. With public safety in mind, it is important to know the workers are not striking the local Red Cross Chapters and still cover emergency events.

While Michigan union workers are outside on the street, struggling to preserve good health care for themselves and others, inside the corporate offices, Red Cross bosses are demanding union workers give up their right to bargain over health care. This follows five years without a raise and cost cutting flexibility on the part of the health care workers. The union members have been working without a contract for four years now. Red Cross is attempting to impose a “catastrophic” high deductible plan that covers only extreme health situations, not routine care needs.

Cindy Krieger, a union steward with the Office and Professional Employees International Union – OPEIU Local 459 in Muskegon, Michigan – spoke on the picket line with a dozen other workers supporting her, “We hope for a fair health care plan. We understand health care is changing but we want to maintain the right to bargain over it. We offered a plan that would save $1.5 million dollars a year and management denied it. Red Cross refuses to set a date for negotiations or to bargain in good faith.”

Red Cross bosses are forcing a pattern of bargaining that put 11 out of 18 groups on strike prior to getting health care. Most gave up their bargaining rights to obtain their health care. Smaller groups, some with only two people, were forced to knuckle under. The current battle involves over 160 striking workers in OPEIU alone. Red Cross is fighting with other workers too, Teamsters Local 580 in Michigan, Teamsters in Cleveland, and UFCW in Toledo.

According to the OPEIU leaflet, the federal government found the same Red Cross bosses guilty in 2011 of refusing to provide information for negotiations, imposing a “no fault” attendance policy, changing and eliminating retired workers health insurance and 401K savings plans without bargaining, and moving work out of state. Another trial will repeat some of the charges and also deal with the repression and punishment of union stewards and activists for standing up for themselves and the health of the public. Red Cross is out to make the union voiceless.

Besides health care for themselves, the union members from OPEIU are fighting for standards in the blood bank industry. OPEIU Local 459 members at Red Cross last had a contract in 2008. It was extended in 2009, and then nothing. Now Red Cross bosses are attempting to negotiate lower standards with fewer staff. Bosses are moving to eliminate the requirement for a registered nurse to be on every blood drive. Bosses at Red Cross are ready to take risks that health professionals are not. In the economy of the 1%, even health care workers are forced to beg for health care.

#MuskegonMI #MuskegonMN #Healthcare #RedCross #CollectiveBargaining #OPEIU

Houston, TX – Requests for American Red Cross assistance surged beyond its capacity to deliver Sunday afternoon at the new St. Agnes Baptist Church for the second day in a row. The make-shift Red Cross center was opened Saturday in the heart of Houston’s African American community, eight miles away from the Astrodome and nearly an hour’s bus ride from downtown. As a red, black, and green Black Liberation flag waved overhead, aid volunteers passed out water and registration forms to those waiting outside.

Hurricane evacuees began lining up at 2:30 a.m. this morning. At its height, the line stretched for a mile through the church’s large parking lot into the street and down the block to Carter G. Woodson Middle School. The center processed approximately 3,000 people today. Aid checks were worth $1,500. In order to receive the monies, applicants were required to show valid identification from an evacuated region that matched their residence address and/or copies of utility bills, leases or other documentation.

Today’s Houston Chronicle headline referred to the red tape that evacuees have had to wade through for basic aid. For those who arrived too late, another day standing in line awaits them. Doors open 9:00 a.m., but volunteers are telling people to get there hours earlier.

#HoustonTX #News #AsianNationalities #AfricanAmerican #ChicanoLatino #HurricaneKatrina #RedCross

The Red Cross had chosen that location to hand out checks and debit cards with emergency funds up to $1500 for Katrina survivors. The people converging there had been chasing after the cards for days – from the Astrodome, to the George R Brown Convention Center, and now, to the far edge of Houston.

People who arrived saw thousands waiting outside the church. At some points, the barricades snaked the people towards the outer edge of the winding maze of fencing. When asked what time she arrived, one woman said, “4:30 this morning.” It was 11:00. She was about three quarters of the way to the door of the building. Everyone around her had come at the same time. Doors had opened at 9:00.

An elderly woman who was waiting in the shade of an ambulance while the rest of her family was in line said, “This is worse than being in a hurricane. It’s the worst time of everybody’s lives and everybody’s depressed. They don’t know what to do next – and then to have come over here and sit out here like this. They have ladies out here heavy pregnant, with one baby on their arm and a baby in their stomach. And they can’t hardly make it.”

Volunteers scurried about, hauling ice, handing out water, snacks and kind words. A few beleaguered nurses tried to assess how people were handling the heat. Some evacuees – a very few – were brought to wait in the shade of one of the many ambulances parked in the lot. Police officers were everywhere – on the road to the church, standing back watching the line, and clopping about on horses.

People in line, mostly Black, Chicano and Vietnamese, were resigned and exhausted – hoping this, finally would be the last line they would have to stand in for a while. Most were staying in private homes – packed in with relatives, already nervous about wearing out their welcomes – or in hotels or small shelters around the area. Most were eager to talk, to tell their stories and to express strong opinions about the fiasco that is passing for the U.S. government’s response to the disaster.

John Curtis and his partner Shirl and four children just arrived at a Houston hotel. They had a harrowing journey from Louisiana and were originally sent to Arkansas, where they tried and tried to reach the Red Cross and FEMA. They finally took a Greyhound to Houston, where they heard they could get services from those groups. Mr. Curtis said of his experience with the Red Cross and FEMA up to now: “Don’t beat around the bush and tell a person lies – just come out straight forward. Don’t tell me to call this number and that number and when I call you hang up on me.” He went on to say that he would rather be told they couldn’t help him for three weeks than to be lied to for three weeks.

People expressed cynicism over what the future would bring. They agreed that once the mainstream media got bored with the story, things could be even worse for them. They were happy to hear that there is growing movement to stand up for the rights and for reparations for evacuees.

#HoustonTX #News #AsianNationalities #AfricanAmerican #ChicanoLatino #HurricaneKatrina #debitCards #RedCross