In 1981, Rose Turner was a nursing home worker in the deep south. When workers decided to try and organize to join UFCW Local 1529 that year, Rose immediately got involved, hoping to change the working conditions: “At that time there was no family medical leave. Women–when they got pregnant, they went out and came back [after giving birth] and they didn’t have a job. You were penalized for getting pregnant, because you had no job. One woman even slipped in the kitchen a broke her knee, [and in order for her to not lose her job] her daughter had to come work while she was out.”
Rose also wanted to change the fact that the workers had no say on the job. “At that time, what they said was the gospel, and it didn’t make any difference what you had to say. They were always right. But the icing on the cake,” says Rose, is when the nursing home’s census went down, and “they called all the oldest workers in and said ‘You all’ve got to go’. Their seniority meant nothing. One woman had been there for over 25 years, but it was just who they liked [that mattered].”
But with the union, much turned for the better, and the workers were able to get a raise.
Knowing that the collective voice of the union would be stronger with more workers, Rose says she “got a group of ladies together and we would go to the other nursing homes and tell them what we needed to do to organize,” and for the next several years she worked towards organizing other neighboring nursing homes in her community and surrounding areas of Arkansas and Tennessee.
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UFCW Local 1529 prides itself on making sure that all of its members are taken care of when it comes to their benefits, wages, and insurance. Wages are a big part of why all our hardworking members come to work–so they can provide for themselves and their families.