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Union Says Health Care Workers In Roxbury Fired Amid Organizing Attempt

As many as 20 employees of Whittier Street Health Center in Roxbury were fired Thursday, according to a major state health care workers union that characterized the downsizing as retribution for their support of efforts to unionize professionals at the health center.

1199 SEIU United Health Care Workers East Executive Vice President Tim Foley said the dismissals come just days before a vote is scheduled to be held to determine whether professionals at the health center, including doctors, nurses and counselors, will unionize.

The union now plans to rally outside Whittier Street on Friday morning to draw attention to the labor dispute, and will move ahead with the June 20 election as planned.

"I've never seen anything like this," Foley told the News Service on Thursday afternoon.

While the union was still trying to get details on the terminations, the apparent downsizing came just hours after 1199SEIU wrote a letter to members of the Boston City Council and legislators representing communities served by the Roxbury health center protesting Whittier Street's hiring of two lawyers with professional reputations for helping clients defeat union organizing efforts.

The union, which announced in May its involvement in a campaign to unionize professionals at Whittier Street, called in the letter for the contracts with Katherine Lev, of Lev Labor, and Jeffrey Hirsch, of Hirsch Roberts Weinstein, to be cancelled. Foley wrote to ask for the public officials to condemn the anti-union activities taking place at Whittier and to help ensure that the organizing vote is "free and fair."

Foley said that employees have had to attend mandatory meetings, including one-on-one's with supervisors, where they are being discouraged from supporting the unionization effort. Lev, according to Foley, led an all-staff meeting on Wednesday for more than two hours in the middle of the day taking health professionals away from their patients "to hear anti-union rhetoric."

"This is not how these things should happen. Allow workers to vote yes or no," Foley said.

Lev, who runs her own consulting firm, also sits on the state Commonwealth Employee Relations Board, which resolves disputes between management and the state's public employee unions. She was the subject of an effort in February by the AFL-CIO, Massachusetts Teachers Association and SEIU 509 to get her to resign from the board due to the appearance of a conflict with her consulting work.

Her resume, posted online at Boston College where she also teaches, describes her specialty as providing "expertise to companies seeking assistance with all facets of labor relations, including union avoidance strategy."

Hirsch's law firm, which specializes in labor law, also promotes its work helping "dozens of employers successfully defeat union organizing drives while avoiding the 'union busting' label.'"

A call to Whittier Street seeking confirmation of Lev and Hirsch's hiring and their involvement in the union campaign was referred to Human Resources Director Keith Lewis Abbott, who did not respond to two emails seeking comment on the lawyers and the employee firings.

The health center is run by CEO Frederica Williams.

Foley said 1199 SEIU will stage an hour-long rally outside the health center on Friday morning with the terminated workers starting at 9:30 a.m. "to send a message that this type of behavior can't stand, particularly in a health care environment. It's only going to result in lower quality care at Whittier health center."

The unionization effort at Whittier Street, according to Foley, has "little to do with wages and benefits" and more to do with giving the professional doctors and social workers involved a greater say in how care gets delivered at the center.

"This is about respect and dignity and a voice on the job to improve quality of care. Period," he said.

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