Friday, September 12, SEIU 1021 members at Project Open Hand — a nonprofit organization that provides medically tailored meals to some of San Francisco’s most sick and vulnerable residents — picketed outside the annual “Hand to Hand” fundraising gala. They gathered signatures on a petition to management and the board of directors in support of a fair contract.

They explained to the donors, volunteers, and other guests attending the gala how Project Open Hand management has been refusing to negotiate a fair contract with them. Currently, management is proposing eliminating their wage table, which will mean no salary progression through the contract. They are asking members to pay for any increase in healthcare; based on the average over the last few years, that could be more than $100 a month, which would cost more than workers would get from the recent wage offer. Management is also misleading workers, saying that the “average” wage increase they are offering is 9%, when it is actually as low as 2% for many workers.

“We got signatures from people who I thought wouldn’t support us,” said Emily Alvarez, a grocery coordinator at Project Open Hand and part of the SEIU 1021 bargaining team. ”As workers, we came together and fought as one. I was thinking the worst at first — that we were going to get kicked out — but thankfully that did not happen.”

Project Open Hand CEO Paul Hepfner makes almost $300k a year — $144 an hour — and he got a 5% increase. COO/CFO Herbert Dong got an 11% increase in 2023/2024. Yet the frontline workers who prepared and delivered meals to SF’s most vulnerable communities got a 3% increase in each of the last 2 years, making on average of $22 per hour in one of the most expensive cities in the country. The low pay has led to high turnover and chronic short staffing.

“Looking at my coworkers show up and show out keeps reminding me why I wanted to be part of the bargaining team in the first place,” said Alvarez. ”We deserve respect and fair wages!”