On December 30th, Howard Brown Health (HBH) laid off sixty-one union workers early without notice. Some workers were in the middle of providing patient care when they were abruptly kicked off of HBH communication platforms without a way to reconnect with patients to explain what had happened. This move on the part of HBH management does not surprise the workers, though. To date, HBH management has racked up nineteen unfair labor practices charges. While the layoffs are horrible, the union has already shown that, in its 4 months of existence, how much more powerful workers are when they organize.
In August 2022, Howard Brown Health Workers United won a vote to establish their union in a landslide victory (231–7)—and they have been fighting management ever since. Howard Brown Health (HBH) is the largest LGBTQ health center in the Midwest, with eleven clinics across the city of Chicago. At the first bargaining meeting for the union’s first contract, management’s proposal included the elimination of 115 positions, 70 percent of which were staffed by union members. The threat of layoffs hijacked bargaining, and management refused to bargain in good faith. Left with no other option, the union called for an unfair labor practices strike. Despite the newness of the union, 92 percent of those who voted supported the strike authorization.
Management claims layoffs are necessary due to a projected $12 million budget deficit, purportedly the result of the end of federal COVID funding and changes to the federal 340b Drug Pricing Program. Yet a mere week before insisting on job cuts, management had assured the union that no layoffs were planned. One can only puzzle over what CFO John McElwee does to earn his $247,835 a year if he’d prepared no plan to account for these utterly foreseeable changes in federal funding streams.
An administrative worker in the union who spoke to Rampant anonymously for fear of retribution described the abrupt announcement of a budget deficit as suspicious. “It’s very, very bad financial planning,” they said. “Because we’ve known since, like, 2017 that these drugs were gonna go generic, and it was gonna have an impact so it could not have been a surprise. Why didn’t they better diversify their funding streams if that was the case? We brought in a ton of money for COVID, and we did really good work with COVID. Those funding streams are drying up, but no one single thing should have caused this. It doesn’t add up. All of these things have concrete timetables.”
As the saying goes, “Budgets are moral documents.” Management’s decision to lay off employees reflects that its priorities are not patient-centered care or LGBTQ liberation, as it claims, but retaliation and retribution for the workers’ unionizing. When the union exercised its legal right to request financial statements reflecting the alleged budget deficit, Howard Brown waited over three weeks before finally sending three years’ worth of bank statements in which every single line on every page was completely redacted. Since then HBH has provided actual financial information, but their first response remains resoundingly petty.
The list of confusing, conflicting, and illegal decisions that HBH management has made is long, but one of the most upsetting lies was that they would not be laying off any government-funded positions. However, Cynthia McDonald, the South Side Ryan White Part D case manager, was shocked to see her name on the layoff list. Not only was McDonald just hired into the new position in October, but 85 percent of her salary comes from federal grant funding. McDonald said it is hard to see any reason for her layoff other than retaliation for her union participation.
This financial crisis is an especially surprising turn of events after the first years of the pandemic, during which the five highest-paid executives in the organization received, on average, raises of 27 percent, according to HBH’s tax records. Additionally, CEO David Munar received a holiday bonus of over $30,000, higher than the annual salary of the lowest-paid HBH worker. As one person commented on HBH’s Instagram, “This is straight-up Scrooge behavior.”
Source: @hbworkersunited Instagram, October 3, 2022
Originally the layoffs were slated to take effect before Thanksgiving. The union was then able to push management to delay until January 3rd and to reduce the proposed cuts down from 115 people to 60. But these subsequent weeks of bargaining have moved the union no closer to a fair contract, or to stopping the layoffs for good.
Unfair labor practices (ULPs) are charges filed against an employer for breaking labor laws. To date, the HBH union has filed nineteen instances of unfair labor practices with the National Labor Relations Board, including intimidation, coercion, misinformation, and bad faith and regressive bargaining. If the union wins the unfair labor practice charges, then those laid off may be reinstated with back-pay.
Margo Gislain, union representative from Illinois Nurses Association, explains the union’s position, saying, “We do believe that we can win their jobs back because we don’t believe that they are bargaining in good faith and that they’ve reached this position legally.” The union has already won their first ULP charge for a worker who was targeted while they were organizing the union earlier this year. That individual was reinstated and awarded $31,000 in back pay. If Howard Brown Health is once again found to be engaging in unfair labor practices, they will be considered a “repeat offender,” and fines will be higher.
At the close of business on December 30th, the last business day before the strike, Howard Brown management had not shared a plan for continuity of patient care during the strike or after the layoffs, with direct care providers begging their managers for guidance on what to tell their patients. Howard Brown management has had plenty of notice to make arrangements for patient care in advance of the strike. Yet the only clear attempt they’ve made was an email sent out to the broader community requesting volunteers to staff their resale store, the Brown Elephant. The email did not mention the strike or that volunteers would be crossing a picket line.
David Munar has claimed in interviews and social media communications that patient care will not be disrupted by the strike. They have responded to requests for continuity of care plans by reassuring workers that “there is a plan,” but have not provided it to those responsible for seeing patients. Munar and HBH executive leadership have proven their remove from the real work that happens at Howard Brown and do not seem to understand that union employees are central and critical to the functioning of the organization.
The proposed layoffs disproportionately impact union members and care workers from HBH’s South Side clinics. The discrepancy in material resources between the North and South Side clinics are egregious, with a $44 million new building project underway to replace the Halsted clinic while South Side clinics have unreliable heat during record low temperatures, rodent infestations, and bad plumbing. Management claims that the new North Side clinic is necessary due to high patient volume in that region, but South Side residents have indicated that they travel to the North Side clinics because the South Side clinics are in such disrepair.
“I served on the DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] committee, and one of the pillars of Howard Brown’s mission statement is racial equity,” says Cynthia McDonald. “They’re just saying this for optics, because it sounds good, it’s a buzzword that makes them seem progressive. But when it comes to the commitment to the South Side they are not progressive whatsoever.” Howard Brown Health’s lack of investment in its South Side clinics that primarily treat Black and Latinx communities, while pouring millions into its North Side clinics, is blatantly and indefensibly racist.
The in.power* program provides support and recovery resources for survivors of sexual and domestic violence and is being all but completely gutted by the layoffs, leaving only one worker to do the work of four. The in.power* program has always been a feather in HBH’s cap as the only program in Chicago that provides trauma-informed care and resources to primarily LGBTQ survivors. The in.power* team was also responsible for training fellow HBH staff and providers on trauma-informed care, harm reduction, and providing care to survivors.
HBH abruptly stopped offering medical forensic exams at the beginning of the year, and suspended the only Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner on staff. Now the team is being told that their program is on the chopping block because it does not bring in enough revenue. Mera Flores, an in.power* consultant on the layoff list, is horrified by the idea that sexual assault survivors should somehow produce revenue for the organization in order for the program to be of value. “I don’t understand how they can sleep at night, knowing that there are going to be people who die as a result of this program being cut,” Flores told me through tears.
“I don’t understand how they can sleep at night, knowing that there are going to be people who die as a result of this program being cut.”
The reduction in behavioral health staff, as well as the decimation of the in.power* team, reflect a strategic disinvestment in support services at a time when violence against queer and trans people is at an all-time high. The behavior of HBH management has had its own traumatizing effect on workers, including those not represented by the union. For an organization has claimed “LGBTQ liberation” as its central mission to treat its largely queer and trans staff with such disrespect and disdain lays bare its corporate, union-busting nature.
Many on the layoff list were surprised to see new job openings posted for their own positions—another illegal labor practice. Howard Brown Health’s plan is to change their service model from having many specialized teams caring for specific populations to a “generalist” approach. “The beautiful thing about having specialized teams is that everyone is an expert in their field,” says Aly Garback, an in.power* consultant also on the layoff list. “When they’re cutting these specialized teams, getting rid of sixty people who are experts in their field, there’s no way that patient care isn’t going to be affected.” The disruption and disinvestment in this programming is an incalculable loss to the LGBTQ community, programming which exists to prevent the most marginalized from falling through the cracks of the health-care system.
Nonprofit employers often point to their mission-driven work as exceptional, requiring long hours and difficult working conditions in the name of “serving the community.” Howard Brown Health takes it several steps further, claiming that they are “rooted in LGBTQ liberation,” their current marketing tagline. Yet it’s clear from their union-busting, retaliatory behavior that their mission is far from liberatory. Cutting specialized support to the most marginalized members of the LGBTQ community, cutting jobs in key areas of care provision like behavioral health, disrupting federal grant-funded programming, and lying repeatedly to the staff about workers’ rights and management decision-making all amounts to greedy, petty, and self-interested bosses doing what bosses do.
It all amounts to greedy, petty, and self-interested bosses doing what bosses do.
Conversely, Howard Brown Health union members resoundingly love their work and the community they care for, a community to which many of the workers themselves belong. The fight against management has weighed heavily on workers as they continue to do their demanding and difficult jobs. Erandi Oregel, the only in.power* consultant still on staff, tells me, “I love my job. I love offering support to survivors because no one should have to go through this process alone. Working at Howard Brown in these conditions, it’s really hard to enjoy work. Coming into work just feels so heavy. I don’t want to have that heavy energy with me, because maybe a survivor will come in and they’ll see that.”
After layoffs were announced, the union called for a rally outside of the administrative offices in Uptown on December 3rd. It was a cold, dark night, but hundreds of people gathered to listen to workers tell their stories and to march to CEO David Munar’s house. The chants were powerful: “They save money, we save lives” and “Queer liberation, not exploitation.” This union fight has galvanized the community to ask for more from the bosses of their care providers—to fulfill their purported mission by putting the community first, and to invest in and protect its own workforce, which has served on the frontlines of multiple, overlapping pandemics and has a unique, specialized position to provide care to the LGBTQ community.
The bravery and strength that Howard Brown Health Workers United has displayed in the few short months since they established their union demonstrates how powerful our unions can be. They have proven that a union that involves and fights for its care community will be defended and supported by that community in turn. Health-care workers at this time in history have weathered so much, and it is only through collective struggle that we can fight for just working conditions and adequate protections.
Howard Brown Health Workers United need visible community support throughout their strike, so donate to their strike fund and join them on the picket lines today through Thursday January 5. There will be pickets in front of 4025 N. Sheridan Rd, 1023 W. Irving Rd, and 641 W. 63rd every day. Check the times of the pickets above and find the one nearest you to visit with encouragement, warm beverages, and solidarity.
Tremendous work and organizing went into the union election victory Howard Brown Health Workers United had four short months ago. Authorizing a strike to protect vital members of the staff from unlawful layoffs is a colossal leap forward into their first chapter. Their courageous fight illuminates how workers who love their jobs can craft the legacy of their organization into one that is more about justice than budgets.