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Alameda Health System workers are on the front lines of public health in a time of unprecedented crisis, and have been relentless in their efforts to hold AHS management accountable and force them to prioritize the health and safety.

In a recent San Francisco Chronicle article, SEIU 1021 member Derrick Boutte shared how the work of every member of the hospital team was crucial to saving and protecting lives during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The shortage of personal protective equipment facing essential frontline workers during this pandemic has been well-documented. It is not just nurses and doctors who are forced to go without—housekeeping staff, laboratory workers, clerks, dietary workers, and more are also forced to work without adequate protection. This puts everyone at risk.

Add your name to our petition calling for more COVID-19 tests and protective equipment.

There’s a good chance that if you’ve turned on the news recently, you’ve seen frontline workers—like SEIU 1021 members working in healthcare—talking about the desperate need for adequate supplies and protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unfortunately, decades of tax cuts for corporations and the ultra-wealthy have gutted our public health budgets and underfunded our social safety net. Now, we are seeing the dire consequences that workers have predicted all along.

But you can help. Sign our petition demanding that President Trump and corporations step up to provide critical supplies, tests, and personal protective equipment to help keep healthcare workers and our communities safe and healthy.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a serious public health threat, and many SEIU 1021 members are on the front lines of keeping the public healthy while keeping each other safe. In Alameda County, workers across the public health system have stood together to demand an end to the chronic mismanagement and underfunding that have endangered workers and underserved the public for years – and their solidarity is getting results.

After a series of actions, including lunchtime rallies, marches, testimony at Board of Supervisors meetings, and an emergency press conference in front of Oakland’s Highland Hospital, AHS management has agreed to pay workers who are forced to self-quarantine after being exposed to coronavirus at work.

John Pearson, an emergency room nurse and President of the AHS chapter, said, “We have been fighting understaffing and not enough equipment and inadequate training for years and years, and today we had a massive win. I’m so proud of my coworkers and so glad to be union strong in the face of COVID-19.”

Nurses across the country are sharing their stories of empty storage closets and makeshift safety equipment in the fight against COVID-19 on social media. John Pearson, an emergency room nurse from Alameda Hospital in California and SEIU 1021 member, is among those online exposing these hospital shortages and calling for the need for personal protective equipment.

“The scariest thing for us who work at the bedside is having to make life and death choices because we don’t have enough staffing and equipment,” said Pearson.