Red Cross Workers Vote to Strike Again

Management Fires Strike Leader

Just two weeks after returning to work from a four-day strike during which they diverted hundreds of blood donors to alternate blood donation sites, medical staff of the Southern California American Red Cross again voted to walk off their jobs . If no fair settlement can be reached nearly 300 Red Cross nurses, medical assistants and other employees will strike June 7.

In response, Red Cross management fired leader Carlos Magdaleno , a collections technician for five years, and Debbie Wise, a medical assistant with the Red Cross for six years.

SEIU 721 members and staff are working to get already scheduled Red Cross blood drives postponed and are leafleting outside mobile drives to encourage donors to give blood elsewhere until Red Cross management improves its treatment of workers.

Several teachers’ association members are supporting Red Cross employees by encouraging students, parents and teachers at Southland high schools not to participate in Red Cross blood drives and instead donate at local hospitals and clinics.

The first strike began on April 30, a few days after management broke off negotiations with a “best and final offer” that would not increase donor safety, improve job conditions, win respect on the job or provide salary increases that allow employees to keep up with the rising cost of living.

Here is Red Cross workers they say about these issues:

"We work for the Red Cross because it’s such a great humanitarian organization. We’re fully committed to ourjobs maintaining the blood supply and we know the best ways to ensuredonor safety. We just don’t understand why management won’t work withemployees and respect our expertise." Theresa Mendoza, RN

Donor Safety
We know how many donors we can safely draw blood from at one time. But management:
• insists we draw blood from more donors and monitor more blood machines at a time.
• rejects our proposals to assign a minimum number of fully trained and/or licensed staff to our mobile blood drives.

Respect

The Red Cross is increasingly preoccupied with maximizing the production of blood products. This mean they’re more concerned with meeting monthly goals than with ensuring that blood drives are properly staffed. This is disrespectful and discourteous to donors, who often have wait times of two hours or more to give blood.

Quality of Life
Management acknowledges that long hours, unpredictable schedules and assignments have contributed to high staff turnover, but they ignore our ideas on how to reorganize scheduling of mobile blood drives so that we can get to work on time and also have a balanced life.