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Workers, community members, elected officials protest firings at Roxbury health center in advance of union vote

Protesters at Whittier Street Health Center in Roxbury

Workers who were terminated mid-day yesterday at the Whittier Street Health Center yesterday rallied with SEIU members, residents and a number of elected officials outside the Tremont Street facility this morning.

Workers at the center are scheduled to vote on joining the SEIU in an election on Wednesday.

Among those supporting the workers at the rally: City Councilors Kim Janey, Ed Flynn and Josh Zakim and State Representatives Chynah Tyler, Byron Rushing, Evandro Carvalho, Liz Malia and Jay Livingstone.

Whittier Street protester
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Comments

These are health professionals we're talking about. Did Whittier have a plan to continue providing urgent health services to those they support?

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They have a budget. She's responsible for it. Going SEIU will cost more money.

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As usual the poor suffer. The Whittier community depends a lot on the health center.

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Not ONLY is she willing to terminate folks health care at will, but she'll Fire people who speak up and terminate your family member health care as well!!!!
I personally know she will. She terminated Mine and I had No Care for 6 months trying to find a new Doctor!!!!

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Here's a wiki on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederica_Williams

Frederica Williams, who's been running the show there since 2002.
She appears to have done quite well there, with many accolades and citations.

The union busting thing is a bit odd. So, she's either a closet union busting CEO type, or there's some other explanation.

Maybe she and others like her should lobby Congress to deny funding to Planned Parenthood to free up five hundred million dollars that could be well spent on community oriented clinics like Whittier.

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That sounds suspicious.

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Whittier St. is on a June 30 fiscal year, meaning a new budget starts in a couple of weeks. Most likely, they cannot afford the current staffing model under funding available for the FY19 budget, so they have made cuts. I have no idea what the organizing history is at that site, but I would be surprised if lay-offs were stimulated by the upcoming union vote rather than by the upcoming new budget constraints.

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You have NO Idea What It's Like.
Please until you've done your research, keep you assumption to yourself.
I have given 5 years of my life to this organization and I can honestly say that a lot of the comments are TRUTH.

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Frederica's just doing what her boss (the Federal government) is telling her to do. The hospital is federally funded. I'd say blame the bloated glutton in the White House.

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You'd be dead wrong, but don't let your blind Trump hatred get in the way of facts.

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Has Whittier issued a statement about why the let these people go?

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Whittier said that it's for financial reasons, but it's no accident that this was done 5 days before the union vote, that 19 of the 20 staff fired are all eligible to vote in the union election, and that a very high proportion are supportive of the union. The staff were fired with no notice, as in told to get out even though some were in the middle of sessions, and some hadn't even completed documenting their morning visits with patients. This not the way financial decisions are usually carried out.

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Do the workers hire private lawyers? Does the Mass. AG investigate?

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There is a reason staff there wanted to unionize. Turn over there is constant with people quitting and getting fired with little reason. The worst part is how all of this impacts the patients who get their care at Whittier.

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