[Peace-discuss] Labor/Health: UIC hospital worker strike gets more coverage

[J.B. Nicholson]

University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) hospital workers with SEIU
Local 73 is on strike. The strike is getting coverage in Chicago media:

WGN News
https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=K-v-U4t8kYw
https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=9b3aEJJkY5s
https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=GgkiHtUEXE8

NBC
https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=u7xjxExNtC4

CBS
https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=p-aG95XSsww
https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=q9VhPYmuffU

ABC
https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=lj1YzYCDLm0
https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=GUWjy3lRqgI

In These Times
https://inthesetimes.com/article/healthcare-workers-strike-university-illinois-chicago which
begins:
> Near­ly 5,000 work­ers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois at Chica­go
> (UIC) are on strike this week in the biggest work stop­page the
> cam­pus has ever seen. The strik­ers — who are pri­mar­i­ly Black and
> Lati­no hos­pi­tal work­ers — are fight­ing for bet­ter health­care,
> work­place safe­ty, liv­able wages and racial jus­tice as the Covid-
> 19 pan­dem­ic rages on.
> 
> The walk­out start­ed on Sep­tem­ber 12 when hun­dreds of nurs­es
> with the Illi­nois Nurs­es Asso­ci­a­tion (INA) hit the pick­et
> lines, then quick­ly grew two days lat­er when thou­sands more
> cler­i­cal, pro­fes­sion­al, tech­ni­cal and main­te­nance work­ers
> from SEIU Local 73 also went on strike. Both unions have been in the
> process of nego­ti­at­ing new con­tracts with the uni­ver­si­ty
> admin­is­tra­tion over the past sev­er­al months.
> 
> “We won’t stop until work­place con­di­tions improve, wages are
> bet­ter, safe staffing lev­els are imple­ment­ed, PPE [per­son­al
> pro­tec­tive equip­ment] is uni­ver­sal, and pro­tec­tions from
> pri­va­ti­za­tion are in place,” Ali­cia Uwu­maro­gie, a phys­i­cal
> ther­a­pist and SEIU Local 73 mem­ber, recent­ly explained.
> 
> Since the pan­dem­ic began, health­care work­ers at UIC have been
> sound­ing the alarm about inad­e­quate safe­ty mea­sures, includ­ing
> lack of prop­er PPE and uni­ver­sal test­ing. Accord­ing to Joe
> Ios­bak­er, a UIC civ­il ser­vice employ­ee with SEIU Local 73,
> hos­pi­tal man­age­ment ini­tial­ly instruct­ed work­ers not to wear
> masks, telling them it was “a bad look.”
> 
> Approx­i­mate­ly 270 UIC health­care work­ers have now con­tract­ed
> the nov­el coro­n­avirus. At least four of them — two INA mem­bers
> and two SEIU Local 73 mem­bers, along with one worker’s hus­band —
>  have lost their lives to the virus.
> 
> “I per­son­al­ly know of at least four [cowork­ers] who were on
> res­pi­ra­tors, at least one who flat­lined and had to be brought
> back, and at least four who are now in phys­i­cal ther­a­py to learn
> how to walk or talk again,” Ios­bak­er said.
> 
> While pub­licly prais­ing front­line work­ers as “heroes,”
> uni­ver­si­ty admin­is­tra­tors remain recal­ci­trant in con­tract
> nego­ti­a­tions, con­sis­tent­ly reject­ing union pro­pos­als meant
> to improve work­place safety.

And Jimmy Dore is adding more coverage, he just talked about this on
his live show. The video of his segment should be published on YouTube
tomorrow (if things continue as before).

-J