Help Olivia get her job back at Central City Concern and Stop the Call Center!
Today I was terminated from my job as a Health Assistant at a low income health clinic and refused my full paycheck upon dismissal, offered yesterday only an incomplete paycheck for my paid leave. This union-busting, retaliatory dismissal comes on the heels of us demanding an end to the Call Center move for the clinics! I was the only union steward of color at the Old Town Clinic and the only Health Assistant union steward. I had no escalatory disciplinary history and was abruptly terminated for private discussions with union members I counseled against our employer.
I was refused a steward at my initial hearing and had to fight bitterly to be allowed a rep at all.
Who I am: A mother, a Salvadoran refugee, a long-term resident of Portland, a queer woman married to a trans woman, a union steward (the only steward of color at the clinic), an elected member of my union localâs executive board, an organizer, the last standing connection between our local and the Labor Committee to Defend Immigrants since my wife (and author of our localâs anti-deportation resolution to be considered at our unionâs international convention in August) was terminated in March for antiracism and is awaiting to hear back if the union will take her case towards arbitration or not. She has struggled to find openings even for low wage entry level work. Now are both unemployed while raising an infant baby during the worst economic downturn weâve ever seen.
We both worked to provide services to the homeless but our organization is committing to waves of mass layoffs at the exact moment homelessness and adult+childhood poverty are at an all time historic high. Now we face the prospect of homelessness ourselves.
If you want your healthcare managed by AI and call centers, look away. If you hate union-busting and want to know who is speaking to you about your private health information, share and sign.
Please share, even if you are not in Portland. If you care about immigrants, if you care about mothers, if you care about workers rights, if you care about boots on the ground stopping AI and ending racism in the workplace, please sign and bring attention to this and let people know what we need.
Portland and our homeless, houseless, and impoverished communities deserve real healthcare, not robotic, dissociated garbage. My family will be homeless and other workers will be next.
If you want to donate to our struggle, we are at:
$writeswrongs on Cash App and Venmo
[email protected] on PayPal
Please help by signing and sharing this petition weâre passing around to my wifeâs coworkers to get her job back!
Let this employer know their retaliatory actions against a union steward of color is not acceptable to the public!
Personally if I was this employer, I wouldnât be retaliating against anyone when HR is already documented retaliating against other workers of color for reporting racism but I guess the details on that one will have to come out later.
Weâve been given permission to speak about the subject I hinted at. Because it was an ongoing case and union business I didnât want to go into detail but since the employee involved has stated they are comfortable with us sharing I want to give more detail.
Olivia represented an employee and person of color who was retaliated against in a recorded meeting the employee had requested. The meeting was supposed to address racist comments about Asians including mocking accents made by a coworker of that employee. Instead HR retaliated against him for making the reports and attempted to violate his union rights by transforming that meeting he had called into an investigation of him for discriminating against his coworker by calling them racist but without any prior notice of an investigatory meeting. It was by chance he had a steward present. From Oliviaâs statement she added to the petition:
Racism should not be tolerated by an organization that receives public funds and serves the community. It is deeply concerning that employees of color cannot voice their concerns about racism at the workplace to HR without then being accused of discrimination in the meeting that employee called to address the racism they had witnessed and experienced. This was not an investigation of the employee but a meeting the employee called to begin an investigation yet HR was hostile to this employee and shamed them for making reports on behavior that violates company policy. I was called into this meeting because although the employee was the one to request it they felt they had received little support from management who at lower levels had belittled their concerns. Employees should not be shamed for making reports on discriminatory behavior. I represented this employee the same day management attempted to call me into a disciplinary meeting while refusing me steward representation.
