OPEIU Local 12 OPEIU Local 12

OPEIU Local 12

OPEIU Local 12 OPEIU Local 12

OPEIU Local 12

OPEIU Local 12 OPEIU Local 12

OPEIU Local 12

OPEIU Local 12 OPEIU Local 12

OPEIU Local 12

OPEIU Local 12 OPEIU Local 12

OPEIU Local 12

OPEIU Local 12 OPEIU Local 12

OPEIU Local 12

OPEIU Local 12 OPEIU Local 12

OPEIU Local 12

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Kelsie Anderson’s Response to HealthPartners Not Honoring MLK Day, Juneteenth, and Indigenous People’s Day

Kelsie Anderson’s response to Holiday proposal:

Shortly after President Joe Biden made Juneteenth a National holiday, I along with another co-worker who also sits with me on our departments anti racism committee worked with our wonderful, hard working union rep Traci Murphy to create a petition to make Juneteenth a recognized holiday. I honestly thought that HealthPartners just needed some time to figure out how they can make this work.

I currently sit on the board of my local union and have heard about other units that we represent who are also non-profits, with far less revenue and a much smaller bottom line than HealthPartners did so with little to no hesitation. These units were also not as outspoken about how anti-racist they are, because they know that actions speak louder than words.

I recognize my privilege and I have HealthPartners to thank in part through their education programs on anti-racism for this. With my recognition I want to do my part in speaking up against ignorance and injustice. Honestly, shame on you for driving into my colleagues and me the lessons of anti-racism and the need to put to action, and not do it yourself in the simplest way possible.

The holidays proposed are important to celebrate, important to recognize and important to learn about. Imagine being a person of color, and all these years of celebrations and none of them were for you or your culture. Then the president finally recognizes you and the people who look like you, but your employer ends up lecturing the people who is at this table to represent you. If we want to truly be an antiracist organization, we can create all the work groups, trainings, committees, departments, book clubs we want, but until you walk your talk and treat everyone who works for you including the people of color who work here fairly all that work, and time will be a waste and won’t mean anything.

Funny story, I asked Andrea Walsh about Juneteenth in the whole colleague connect meeting. As expected, I got a generic answer. So, I said to myself, ok, I’ll wait until negotiations. This will give them time to think about how they can make this work and either give us a decent proposal or accept or counter ours. Imagine how stupid I felt on Thursday after being lectured for 20 minutes about how anti-racist HealthPartners is to not even be met with a counter or proposal of a compromise on holidays. I’ll answer that for you, VERY stupid. You see, I’m new to bargaining, despite my senior colleagues and more experienced union colleagues’ warnings, I keep finding my self wanting to believe that the organization I work for cares about me, and cares about the people of color that works for them too. I’m not too proud to admit when I am wrong. Actions certainly speak louder than words.

I understand that your bottom line is more important than us. I just want to remind you; you wouldn’t have a bottom line if it wasn’t for US. So please when you start thinking about economics, your bottom line, and the future of this great enterprise, please remember who made it great.

Also, your black workers matter, your indigenous workers matter and all your workers matter.

 

 

 

 

 

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