Haitian healthcare workers unionize, fight racism

Nursing home workers at Harborside Healthcare in Wakefield, Mass., voted to join SEIU Local 202 in March. The pro-union vote was part of a campaign by Haitian community and religious leaders to improve working conditions in nursing homes in Massachusetts, where they say up to 80 percent of the work force is Haitian. Harborside Healthcare is one of the largest nursing home companies in the country, with 45 facilities—14 of them unionized.

In an attempt to nullify the successful union drive, the company tried to use racism to divide the workers. In a written objection to the vote on April 1, the company claimed that some of the Haitian workers may have been coerced into voting for the union by threats of voodoo being used against them.

These charges outraged the workers, union and community. Their reaction to the company’s use of racism, stereotyping and the distortion of Haitian culture and traditions was swift and vehement. At an angry protest held on April 20 outside a Harborside Healthcare corporate office in Boston, Celia Wcislo, president of Local 202, said, “They lost the election 2 to 1 so they had to trump up charges.”

The worker accused by the company of threatening to use voodoo was present at the protest and denied the accusations. She, in fact, was a union observer during part of the voting and said she voted for the union in order to gain more respect, better working conditions and a pay raise—something she herself had not seen in five years.

The fight continues, with the workers and the union demanding that Harborside Healthcare recognize the vote. At the Temple Salem Church in Dorchester, the Rev. Pierre Omeler says about 300 of the 1,200 church members work in nursing homes. He has vowed to mobilize the community to demand an apology.

This struggle by the Haitian community underscores in graphic reality the results of a study by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University released in mid-April. The study found that 80 percent of African Americans and half of Latin@ people polled called racial discrimination in Boston a “somewhat serious” or “very serious” problem that can cost jobs and promotions and make them feel unwelcome and unwanted at public places and events.