DC
Community Leaders to ILS and FSF to Respect Workers Rights
Community members tell ILS CEO to respect workers rights to form a union
Last week, community leaders delivered letters to the CEO of Family Services Foundation(FSF) and Innovative Life Solutions(ILS) declaring their support for employees to form a union to improve their pay and the services they provide.
Workers at ILS and FSF were joined by Casa de Maryland, Jobs with Justice, Grace Episcopal Church, Florida Avenue Baptist Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and the D.C. Employment Justice Center.
In their letters of support, they urged Mr. Carrington and Mr. Claxton to follow the law by respecting our free choice to form a union and by paying the living wage workers should already be earning according to D.C. law.
The workers at ILS and FSF are facing a tough fight ahead to win union recognition. Both agencies have hired high paid consultants to discourage workers from freely forming a union.
Can you take 2 minutes to send a fax to David Carrington, the Executive Director of ILS, and Robert Claxton, the CEO of FSF, asking them to respect our rights to form a union?
Organizations and Individuals who have signed letters to Letters to Letters to ILS CEO David Carrington andLetters to FSF Executive Director Robert Claxton, asking them to respect their workers’ rights to form a union include:
- Maryland Delegate James Hucker
- Casa De Maryland
- Letter from DC Council
- Reverend David Finley
- DC Jobs with Justice
- DC Employment Justice Center
- Reverend John Graham
- Casa De Maryland
- Reverend Phil Anderson
Show Workers at ILS and FSF You’ve Got Their Back
“Uniting workers is good for FSF employees because our wage victory is long overdue; and we can improve the living conditions of the clients we serve.” Andrew Jallah, FSF Employee
Earlier this month, me and my co-workers at Family Services Foundation, Inc(FSF) a group home agency in MD, filed for an election to join SEIU Local 500. But we are not alone in our fight for a voice at the work place. Workers at Innovative Life Solutions(ILS), a Group Home agency in DC also filed this month for an election.
“I support the union to win the respect of my employer, the pay I’m entitled to and respect for the job I do here” Russell Cosby, ILS employee
Here at FSF and at ILS, we are facing a tough fight to win union recognition. The bosses have hired high paid consultants to try to discourage and scare us. We are already being forced to attend mandatory meetings with management where they bend the truth.
Can you show me and my co-workers at ILS and FSF that you’ve got our back?
Earlier today, religious, labor and community leaders joined us to send a message to our employers that they must respect our freedom to form a union. We also delivered dozens of letters from the community calling on ILS and FSF to respect our rights to form a union. But we need to keep the pressure on them to show that the community is watching and wants them to do the right thing.
Thanks for showing your support to our colleagues at ILS and FSF. We look forward to winning our elections and joining the members of SEIU local 500.
Pay raises should be on the way for DC workers
Thanks to our hard work, DC government just passed regulations saying it will finally implement the Living Wage law we passed in 2004.
This means group home workers in DC should now make $12.50 an hour according to DC law.
Nathaniel Wallace, NCC
“The victory on the living wage is a good thing for us. People like us deserve a better treatment. What we do is more than a job. Taking care of other people is hard.”
Nathaniel Wallace, NCC
Low wages and limited benefits in this field has led to high turnover of workers, and negatively impacted the quality of services for people with disabilities. This is a huge victory for DC group home workers and we are especially proud of our role in making this happen.
“The living wage victory is a long overdue victory. I’ve been in this industry for more than 11 years and there is no money or good pay. This is really good.” Violate B. Lee, IDI
Violate B. Lee, IDI
But our work is not done.
Now we have to hold DC government and DC employers accountable to make sure the Living Wage law becomes a reality in our paychecks.
Are you a group home worker or someone who provided service and supports to people with disabilities?
Are you receiving the $12.50/hr living wage you deserve? Tell us about it and share your story.
DC’s Inspector General Says IDI President David Wilmot Overpaid
As we talked about in the post about the IDI victory last week, David Wilmot has been under considerable public scrutiny for his excessive salary while he pays his staff poverty wages. The Washington City Paper digs deeper into the issue in this week’s edition.
IDI may not have enough money to boost the weekly take-home salaries of its grunts, but it does have enough to give “excessive” pay to Wilmot and IDI’s chief executive officer, Ronald Raghunandan, according to a report from the city’s Office of Inspector General.
This summer, an IG report found that Wilmot’s $261,000 2008 salary was about $80,000 over industry standards. Wilmot’s more current salary data isn’t known, but tax records unearthed by a previous LL show that Wilmot’s annual IDI pay has gone as high $346,743, which he earned in 2003.
In addition to the excessive salary Wilmot collects from IDI, IDI loaned $55K to a member of its Board of Directors in 2002, with no signs of payment back as of 2008. If that wasn’t bad enough, IDI loaned Wilmot himself an additional 300k in 2001!
But wait, there’s more…..As a high powered corporate lobbyist for clients like Big PhRMA, he has been paid $203k in the first half of this year according to lobbyist disclosure records.
It is unconscionable how someone so flush with cash can cry poverty when his employees at IDI must use Medicaid for health coverage.
Odoms also complained to LL about IDI’s low pay for lower-level workers. She says that whenever workers approached management about raises, “they said they didn’t have any money.”
Armed with the truth about David Wilmot’s finances, the employees of IDI will begin negotiating a contract to improve their wages, benefits and training. Let’s hope David Wilmot begins treating the people on the other side of the table with the respect and dignity they deserve.
IDI Workers Who Support Individuals with Developmental Disabilities Vote ‘Yes’ for Union
IDI Employees Adebisi, Toni, Gerard and Eunice
In a union election covering 150 employees who provide services for people with developmental disabilities at Individual Development, Inc. (IDI), workers today voted overwhelmingly to join SEIU Local 500, a union of 18,000 human service, education and child care workers across Washington, DC and Maryland.
“I go to work every day because I believe in providing the best services possible to the individuals at IDI,” said Gerard Bradley, an active treatment specialist at IDI. “But at $10 an hour without affordable healthcare, I knew it was time to vote yes for SEIU so we can have hope for a better future.”
IDI President David Wilmot continues to pay his staff poverty wages despite considerable public scrutiny for his excessive salary at IDI which totals over $265,000 a year and his second job as DC lobbyist for which he receives yet another six-figure salary.
Wilmot sought to convince IDI employees not to form a union in a campaign of intimidation which included meetings with employees pleading for workers to give him another chance. SEIU Local 500 has filed an unfair labor practice charge against IDI for alleged illegal termination of an employee for union support.
Now that IDI employees have united in SEIU Local 500, Gerard Bradley is looking forward to a new day. “With our union, we’ll be able to make sure we are finally treated with respect and dignity on the job,” said Bradley.