The Battle For Orchard Village
As management tried to ward off a union, committee members inspired their co-workers to fight back.
By Jon Melegrito
Skokie, Illinois
For four days, six middle-aged men — all with developmental disabilities — have been pouring water over their breakfast cereals. Jenny Vitzileos, a direct care worker (DCW) assigned to the group home where the men live, has pleaded with management for grocery money to buy milk. But like so many other previous requests, her pleas have gone largely unheeded — for days, sometimes weeks. Even emergency calls to fix stopped-up toilets and gas leaks — which pose immediate health and safety hazards — do not bring a quick response.
"It’s like fighting tooth and nail to get anything done around here," says a visibly indignant Vitzileos, who recently voted to join AFSCME. "Management does not want to hear about these problems." Workers who have insisted on voicing their complaints risk being suspended.
Another co-worker, Fidela Marroquín, complained to her supervisor when she found that grocery money budgeted for another home was $200 short of the amount needed. She pestered her for weeks until she finally issued a check. Meanwhile, she spent her own money to buy food for the four women in her care. As if that weren’t bad enough, whenever she works overtime, the amount she’s paid is sometimes short of what it should be.
"Not getting paid my due doesn’t upset me as much as not getting consistent support for my four ladies," Marroquín says. "They deserve to be treated better."
Those are only the most egregious examples of management neglect and indifference at Orchard Village, a social services agency for people with developmental disabilities. Operated almost entirely on state funds, the agency runs 24 neighborhood-based group homes scattered throughout Chicago’s northern suburbs.
Serious work, lousy pay
Many of the residents, numbering from four to six in a home, suffer from such disabilities as mental retardation or cerebral palsy. Because they require some supervision in many areas of daily living, they are dependent on the 160 DCWs hired by the agency. Many of them are single mothers, ranging in age from 20 to 60. The majority are African American, with about 10 percent Nigerian, Haitian and Jamaican plus a few whites and Asian Americans. Their responsibilities involve responding to behavioral issues, providing continuous medical care and homemaking services.
And yet, for the importance of the work they do, they are grossly underpaid and unappreciated. Until recently, when Council 31 responded to their determination to organize, DCWs in Orchard Village were only getting $7.80 an hour. The entry-level wage was increased last year after Council 31’s successful campaign resulted in state funding for a $1-an-hour raise. Many can still not afford health insurance for their families. The all-too-predictable result: turnover rates of nearly 80 percent a year.
Furious at being mistreated and ignored, workers began to talk among themselves. Although isolated from each other, they found ways to compare notes, meeting after work in people’s homes and in restaurants. In June 2001, they decided to form a union with Council 31. In a letter to their co-workers, 30 DCWs — calling themselves the Orchard Village AFSCME Organizing Committee — stated that they were "organizing to win respect and a real voice at work." They urged management not to waste precious dollars and staff time trying to stop the union.
The village strikes back
As soon as the letter became public, management tried to nip the movement in the bud. It also held mandatory anti-union weekly staff meetings — with overtime pay to ensure attendance — and one-on-one conversations with employees who were threatened and cajoled into voting against the union.
Vitzileos remembers the first mandatory meeting she attended. She expected the usual anti-union harangue. But she was not prepared to see the 30 organizing committee names displayed on the wall by an overhead projector. "That was scary," she recalls. "It was clearly intended to intimidate us. I looked around for my co-workers who signed it but we couldn’t sit together because the room was packed with managers who were spread out around us. When I tried to speak, I was hissed and booed. One manager said I was the one who contacted the union, calling me stupid for doing so. Then he threw his chair and stormed out. All the managers cheered and applauded him. But I was not intimidated."
At the next meeting, Vitzileos walked into a packed room, head held high, and took a front-row seat. The director threatened to fire employees who talk about the union at work. He also ranted about employees having to bargain from zero if they joined a union and losing their benefits if they go on strike. "Then he personally went after me, calling me a liar," Vitzileos recounts. "He wanted to humiliate me in front of my co-workers. I was livid. So I stood up and reminded him of the complaints he didn’t do anything about. Other supervisors tried to shout me down, but I held my ground. Later, my co-workers came up to me and patted me on the back. I knew then that we would continue fighting no matter what management did to us."
A spark
Later that day at a meeting for night shift workers, Marroquín found herself echoing Vitzileos. "When the director started bragging about how well Orchard Village takes care of its clients, I couldn’t hold my tongue," Marroquín recalls. "I brought up my complaints about the food budget being cut down and about my ladies not getting warm clothing to wear during winter, and demanded to know why. When he said we’d all get fired if we went on strike, I said to him, ‘You don’t see people lining up outside to work here, do you?’"
At the same meeting was Kelly Turnage, a DCW for three years, who marveled at Marroquín’s audacity: "It took a lot of guts on her part to speak out so boldly in front of her supervisor. From that point on, I decided to fight alongside Fidela. She was just the spark we needed to set us all on fire.
"We’re on a mission now. We’re going to get a union."
Orchard Village started harassing the pro-union leaders. Vitzileos was suspended for supposedly breaking a promise because of union commitments.
Turnage also drew a suspension — for "disrupting a positive workflow." When she requested art supplies for a recreational activity she was conducting for a group of residents, her supervisor ignored her. Turnage persisted, leading to a heated argument. "My suspension gave me a reality check," she declares. "They’re on to me because I am for the union."
Undeterred by the harassment, workers like Turnage, Vitzileos and Marroquín became even more determined to have their voices heard. To them, the battle for Orchard Village is a fight for dignity and respect — for both their clients and for themselves.
Out of the rut
"I wanted to quit after my suspension, but I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of running me off," Turnage says. "Besides, I really want to make a difference so workers don’t get hit every time they speak out. If I don’t do something about it now, I’ll always be stuck in this rut." Turnage has engaged every worker she encounters in a discussion about the benefits of joining a union.
Vitzileos is equally adamant. "When they tried to humiliate me at the meeting, the experience prompted me to devote most of my off-work hours during the campaign making phone calls and house visits."
Vitzileos often brought her children to campaign meetings. "All the union talk must have rubbed off on my kids," the 23-year-old mother suspects. One day, five-year-old Terrie Lynn and her younger brother were reprimanded — unfairly, they thought. "Mommy, I think we need a union," the girl later told her mother. Vitzileos was heartened as well as amused, especially since she’s been spending so much time on the phone talking about the union. "I want my children to know I’m doing the right thing," she says.
On the other hand, Marroquín’s daughter Griselda, 26, is worried that her mother would lose her job. "But now I’m glad that she’s happy," her daughter says with pride. "She finally came out of her shell." Brother Joey, 22, is also pleasantly surprised with their mother’s transformation. "She used to be submissive and get walked on a lot," he recalls. "Now she stands up for herself. She’s gotten stronger ever since she got involved with the union."
Marroquín, 59, was only three years old when her parents moved the family from Mexico to Texas. For most of her life, she has experienced abusive relation- ships and other hardships, including the death of her 16-year-old, developmentally disabled sister. She also suffered a brief period of depression.
"But my four ladies gave me back my life," she says, referring lovingly to the women at the group home whom she met four years ago. "Fighting for them has sustained me. I never knew there are people who live in houses like this. Now that I’ve gotten to know them, and the conditions they are in, I’m even more determined now to form a union here at Orchard Village."
Most of her co-workers are determined, too. In August, feeling that it had a pro-union majority, the committee asked the National Labor Relations Board to schedule an election. With a strong majority signing union-authorization cards, the NLRB approved the petition and ordered a mail-in ballot vote two months later. The election resulted in a 61-61 tie.
On Jan. 3 this year, the NLRB ordered a new election. This time, the workers won by a wide margin, 72-45. The committee attributed its victory to the workers’ resolute desire to have their voices heard.
"I’ve worked so hard for a union, I knew we’re going to get more yes votes this time," exclaims a thrilled Marroquín.
Editor’s note: A month after she was interviewed for this story, Vitzileos was fired from her job on trumped-up charges. Clearly, management viewed her as a threat. She has since filed an unfair labor practice charge against her employer and she remains optimistic that the NLRB will reinstate her. Even after her firing, she continued to reach out to her co-workers who vindicated her organizing efforts by voting for union representation.
