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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (June 7, 2019)
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | June 7, 2019 | PAGE 3 By Don McIntosh After weeks of comically inef- fective pleading by the company CEO and a pair of hired-gun union-busters, a group of 30 low-wage behavioral therapists and administrators who work with autistic children voted May 23 to unionize. They’re now part of 5,100-member Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (OFNHP). The vote took place at the Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD) in Northeast Portland. Eighteen workers voted for the union, and four against. What happened at CARD’s NE 102nd Ave storefront is a story that’s increasingly com- mon: workers organizing them- selves. CARD, based in Woodland Hills, California, is a for-profit chain. On its web site, the com- pany describes itself as the world’s largest autism treatment provider, with 239 locations in 33 states, including 16 in Ore- gon. It’s privately held, and last year was bought by Blackstone, one of the world’s largest pri- vate equity firms. CARD uses something called “applied behavior analysis” to teach basic skills to autistic chil- dren. The company claims its methods have helped children “recover” from autism. But the front-line “behavioral techs” who provide CARD’s therapy are paid near the legal minimum wage. New hires get two weeks of training — one week watch- ing videos and one week paired with a more experienced worker — before they’re assigned to work one-on-one with an autis- tic child aged 3 to 15. The ther- apy consists of sessions of one to five hours, as often as several times a week, and can go on for years, with insurers picking up the tab. The union campaign at CARD was initiated by Mica Rudich, a recent Whitman Col- lege enrollee who responded to a Craigslist ad in August 2017 and was hired at $14 an hour. Rudich was told she’d get health insurance benefits if she worked 30 hours a week for a month, but she found herself short of that threshold when managers would schedule her 29.5 hours in a week. Later, she was told benefits would only be forth- coming if she maintained 30 hours a week in certain specific months. It never happened. Rudich also noticed that she Photo by Gabe Hargrove, courtesy of OFNHP At an autism therapy chain store, low-wage therapists unionize In their workplace parking lot, union supporters celebrated after the May 23 union win: From left, Oscar Lemus , Adrienne Enghouse (OFNHP president), Jesus Regalado, Elizabeth Jimenez, Mica Rudich, and Racquel DeJesus. and her co-workers weren’t given 10 minute rest breaks every four hours, as required by Oregon law. So she circulated a petition and got 25 co-workers to sign. They presented it to management March 16, 2018. Soon after, schedules were mod- ified to allow for breaks. Could more be done to im- prove conditions, she won- dered? Some of her co-workers were having trouble paying the rent and relied on food from lo- cal charities. Rudich herself works two other jobs. Turnover at CARD is high. A year after her petition, three fourths of the signers had moved on. “The therapy suffers because the turnover is so high,” Rudich told the Labor Press. “In order for the kids to get quality ther- apy, you need experience, and time to build a rapport.” Rudich says she knew noth- ing about unions, so she did a Google search for “labor union” and learned what she could. And she started talking with her co- workers. After a few months, they shopped around for unions, and settled on OFNHP. The union represents mental health therapists and technicians who work with autistic patients at Kaiser Permanente. Those workers make $20 to $45 an hour plus benefits. OFNHP as- signed organizer Chris Johnson, who met with CARD workers to prepare them for the cam- paign. Then, in April, CARD man- agement found out about the union. The cat out of the bag, OFNHP filed a petition April 26 asking the National Labor Rela- tions Board to hold a union elec- tion. The company’s anti-union campaign began immediately. First, company lawyers flew up from Los Angeles to talk them out of the union. They weren’t very persuasive. According to the union, a pair of anti-union consultants, Ed- uardo and Arlene, arrived. They sat waiting in the lounge to talk with workers on break, followed workers out to their cars to talk with them, and even talked with workers while they were work- ing with children. As the union election neared, CARD founder and CEO Doreen Granpeesheh also started dropping by the 102nd Avenue location. Up to then, Rudich and her co-workers had never seen or met the CEO. But in the weeks leading up to the union election, Granpeesheh visited three times. But it didn’t go as Gran- peesheh planned. At an anti- union meeting she led, union supporters talked back, and Granpeesheh ended the meeting early. “I think she could tell it wasn’t going well,” Rudich re- calls. “At the end she said, ‘just vote no, okay?’” Workers were told CARD’s anti-union meetings were mandatory, but when Rudich printed out the Oregon law that prohibits mandatory anti-union meetings, managers backed down and said the meeting would be voluntary. At that point, workers stopped going to the meetings. The threat of an empty room at her anti-union meeting prompted an email from the CEO. “I heard some of you are planning to boycott my speech today! That’s very unfortunate for everyone,” Granpeesheh wrote to employees. “I am hold- ing this meeting tonight, not be- cause I want to influence you to vote in my favor. I am holding the meeting so that you can hear the truth about unions.” The email goes on and on, as Granpeesheh pleads with her employees to come hear her anti-union pitch. [You can read the whole sordid thing at https://bit.ly/2Wnmj8L.] Then 20 days before the union election, Granpeesheh emailed an absurd company- wide love letter to workers at all 239 clinics, addressing her 6,000 employees as “my ex- tended family,” “my fellow CARDians,” and “my dear BT1s.” “As I fly from one of our southern clinics to one of our northern clinics, I want to take a moment to tell you how very much I appreciate you all!” Granpeesheh wrote. “You are all amazing, and I am so grateful that you’ve given CARD an op- portunity to become your for- ever home.” “I want you to know that I am dedicating this year to our em- ployees! We are planning many changes that will lighten your load and improve your working conditions.” Granpeesheh used the internal email address CARDAllEmploy- ees@centerforautism.com. She may not have intended for that to be visible. But it gave one union supporter an idea: What would happen if he replied to that ad- dress? “Just FYI, this email is com- ing because one of the CARD offices is holding a union vote, and they don’t want you to do the same,” he wrote. Did all 6,000 employees re- Turn to Page 8
