Support striking nurses at Howard Brown Health – Chicago Teachers Union
On September 28, 2022, the CTU’s House of Delegates voted to give active solidarity (see the statement of solidarity below) to nurses seeking their first union contract at Howard Brown Health, which is a network of medical clinics and social services organizations focused on the needs of Chicago’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) community.
Their demands will sound familiar to any Chicago educator. They are seeking better staffing ratios, more control over their working conditions, and pay increases that will retain specialized nurses. Despite these fair and reasonable demands, nurses have experienced harassment in retaliation for their organizing.
On Monday, October 3, at 8 am, HBH nurses will begin an indefinite strike until their demands are met.
There are two crucial ways you can show solidarity with this struggle.
- Make a donation to the nurses’ strike solidarity fund.
- Suit yourself and some co-workers up in your CTU red and visit the picket lines.
Here’s the picket line schedule:
- Monday: 8A-7PM, 4025 N Sheridan Rd.
- Tuesday: 8A-7:30PM, 3245 N Halsted St.
- Wednesday: 8A-7PM, 1525 E. 55th St.
- Thursday: 8A-6PM, 1025 W Sunnyside Ave.
- Friday: 8A-6PM, 641 W. 63rd St.
- Saturday: 8A-4PM, 6500 N. Clark St.
CTU’s Statement of Solidarity with Howard Brown Health Nurses
WHEREAS HBH is an essential resource to the LGBTQ+ community, and the workers have been embroiled in a fight against management to continue to provide care, and
WHEREAS nurses have been fighting for better staffing ratios, more control over their working conditions, and pay increases that will retain specialized nurses, and
WHEREAS despite these fair and reasonable demands, nurses have experienced retaliation throughout contract negotiations for organizing and management unilaterally changing their working conditions, and
WHEREAS after months of contract negotiations the nurses of Howard Brown Health are feeling forced to go on strike in order to get management to take their concerns with patient care and patient safety seriously, and
WHEREAS other workers at HBH have just successfully organized themselves into a union and are building towards their first contract, and
WHEREAS the Illinois Nurses Association has repeatedly shown solidarity to our union in the collective fight for the health of this city, therefore, be it
RESOLVED that the Chicago Teachers Union is in solidarity with all the workers at HBH in the fight for the health of their patients as well as just union contracts, and
RESOLVED that the Chicago Teachers Union will encourage its members and its allies to attend picket lines for as long as they are up.