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-
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