November 15, 2024 — PEF leaders joined elected officials, other unions and community organizations at the 2024 Somos Conference. This year’s theme was Navigating Change Together: Fostering Collaboration for a Sustainable Future, and PEF went with a full agenda – participating in and leading workshops on community healthcare delivery and workplace violence, as well as taking part in the annual Day of Service.
Somos is dedicated to uniting the Latino community and raising awareness by advocating and elevating social consciousness surrounding public policy. The conference attracts thousands of participants annually who represent a cross section of the state’s Hispanic community, including federal, state, and local elected officials as well as community, labor and business leaders.
President Wayne Spence joined a panel discussion on community healthcare on day one, highlighting the fight to Save SUNY Downstate, as a community resource and as a workplace for PEF members.
“SUNY Downstate Medical Center was first targeted for closure in 2011,” President Spence said. “A coalition of unions, clergy, and the community rose up to fight back and saved it in 2012. But in the dozen years since, the state has not invested enough to adequately serve a primarily Black and Brown community in central Brooklyn.”
Downstate is vital to the surrounding community, President Spence said, serving as Brooklyn’s only kidney transplant center; boasting the region’s only level 4 NICU and ECMO units for newborns; and more.
“We need to show elected officials and all New Yorkers the faces of citizens who are being denied the healthcare they deserve and the obstacles they must overcome to receive quality care,” President Spence said. “The community served by Downstate has high incidence rates of diabetes, kidney failure, heart failure, and other high-risk illnesses. They don’t have another convenient option for healthcare.”
President Spence also addressed workforce challenges at Downstate, including short-staffing, mandated overtime, and unequal pay compared to the private sector.
“PEF nurses and doctors at SUNY Downstate face daily challenges caring for a population that has acute needs,” he said.
Workplace violence
PEF co-hosted with SSEU Local 371 a panel discussion on workplace violence, focusing on how worker protections have been de-prioritized in recent years and how unions are fighting back to make governments do more to ensure worker protections and implement tougher standards.
President Spence outlined three priorities to improve workplace safety that the union plans to pursue in the next legislative session:
- Build capacity: New York must increase staffing at agencies that support at-risk New Yorkers.
- Deploy technology: Body scanners at OASAS, OCFS, OMH and OPWDD facilities will reduce the flow of weapons used to commit assaults.
- Increase accountability: Enhance penalties on individuals who willfully and knowingly assault state employees.
The panel discussion gave PEF leaders a chance to educate elected representatives, form broader coalitions with fellow organizations and unions, and start conversations to begin addressing widespread workplace violence.
“Somos is a real opportunity for us to raise visibility around legislative campaigns and make sure that our priority issues this year around workplace violence are discussed,” said PEF Vice President and Statewide Political Action Committee Chair Randi DiAntonio. “We partnered with other unions, in particular NYC-based union Local 371, to talk about legislation from several years ago, Raise the Age and HALT (Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement), which, while well intentioned, were poorly implemented and have led to a lot of problems in our facilities for our members.”
VP DiAntonio shared scenarios where Raise the Age and HALT implementation are falling short and said the goal isn’t to do away with them, but to amend them so they work hand-in-hand with hard-working PEF professionals to best serve the people of New York.
“The workshop was very well attended,” she said. “We are always stronger when we are working in solidarity, and form coalitions around common interests with other unions and our electeds. I think the whole concept of Somos being an opportunity to build partnerships and move together makes it an important place for us to be. We are hoping sharing information leads to broader support and a willingness to work on these issues.”
RELATED STORY: AFT sees resilience at Somos 2024
Day of Service
On November 8, PEF staff and leaders also participated in the annual Somos Day of Service, this year at Escuela Montessori Manuel Elzaburu y Vizcarrondo, a school outside of San Juan, where they helped install new basketball hoops, landscaped, and distributed backpacks and books to children.
Secretary-Treasurer Joe Donahue joined the host of volunteers at the school.
“My favorite part of Somos is always the Day of Service,” he said. “We are giving back to the community.”
“It was really about the kids,” said Vice President Darlene Williams, who helped landscape the school grounds. “They and their teachers just kept saying, ‘oh my God, it’s so beautiful,’ in Spanish. That’s all we kept hearing, ‘oh my God, it’s so beautiful!’ That really made our day.”
President Spence said the experience is always rewarding.
“I get such personal satisfaction from this,” he said. “I like it when they come out at 3 o’clock and see the transformation. It makes me feel good.”
