Retirement home residents rally for workers

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.peoplesworld.org/retirement-home-residents-rally-for-workers/

by: Marilyn Bechtel
August 30 2010

OAKLAND, Calif. - Their hair is gray. Some use walkers, others carry canes. But that didn't stop dozens of residents of the Piedmont Gardens retirement community from coming out to clap, cheer and sing as they rallied outside the complex Aug. 27 to declare their support for 38 workers "replaced" during a long-running contract dispute.

"We, the residents of Piedmont Gardens, are here this evening to support you, the employees who have been replaced - really, fired," Dorothy Rice, a four-year resident, and current president of the Independent Residents' Council, told the gathering. "We know in our hearts that you are a very caring, very devoted and very hardworking group of people. It's unfair and inhumane that you have been prevented from coming back to work."



As residents and displaced workers alternated at the mike, one woman resident said it all: "Piedmont Gardens is our home, and everyone who lives or works here is part of a giant family. That family has now been separated. We feel very badly about that."

Thanking the residents for their support, Gloria McNeal, a certified nursing assistant at Piedmont Gardens for 21 years, told them, "We love you all. We miss you and think about you every day." The firings didn't just happen abruptly, she said, but followed prolonged problems with the administration. "We had a lot more people out before us," McNeal said. "We are working hard for them to come back, as well."

Neighbors joined in, too. Michael Scollard, a dentist whose office is across the street, said he has treated Piedmont Gardens residents for 30 years. "I've seen how hard these people work," he said. "I've seen them do the tasks that most relatives would never want to do. It really gratifies me to see all these residents come out."

FULL story at link.

[Sinistrous]

1. Long-term care workers must have the protections afforded

by Union membership. I wish I had a clue as to how to spark mass sign-ups and unionization of these hell holes.