Nearly seven months after workers staged a three-day strike to protest layoffs at Howard Brown Health, federal labor relations officials have found merit or partial merit in the accusations union members made against the LGBTQ health care center.
The union, an affiliate of the Illinois Nurses Association, had claimed Howard Brown engaged in bad faith bargaining, including refusing to bargain on the layoffs, failing to provide information to the union and creating the impression of surveillance during the process.
A representative for the regional office of the National Labor Relations Board said last week the agency is now seeking a settlement between the union and Howard Brown. If a deal can’t be reached, a hearing will take place and an administrative law judge can order “make-whole” remedies for employees affected by the actions.
Howard Brown Health has stated the layoffs, which eliminated 61 union positions and four nonunion positions in December, were needed to bridge an estimated $12 million budget gap attributed to changes in pharmaceutical legislation and the end of some COVID-19 assistance programs. A three-day strike ensued, bringing about 440 employees citywide to the picket line.
Shakia Flowers, a former behavioral health specialist at Howard Brown cut in the layoffs, said her initial concerns were with her patients, who were left in limbo while her job was fought over in bargaining sessions.
Flowers said seeing the NLRB findings made her feel “vindicated” and “justified” in the union’s fight, but that laid-off workers needed restitution.
“I’ll be made whole when they have paid for the wrongdoing that they’ve done,” Flowers, a Woodlawn resident, said. “The layoffs put me in a financial bind.”
Howard Brown spokesperson Katie Metos said patient experience is being reported as “the best in a decade” despite layoffs and other cost-cutting measures that aimed to increase revenue through appointments while significantly reducing staff numbers.
Metos called the NLRB’s findings “a surprise” and “disappointing.”
“It was always our intention to bargain in good faith and protect the financial viability of Howard Brown,” Metos said.
While leadership at Howard Brown has heard of the NLRB findings, Metos said they can’t give any clarity on what will happen since they have yet to receive anything in writing from the labor agency or the union in terms of a new settlement.
“At this point, we’re pursuing all options,” Metos said. “We’re definitely going to look at a settlement, but we can’t promise that’s what we’ll do because we don’t know what it says yet.”
During the layoff proposals, union leaders said they’d seen no evidence of the financial issues and had also found listings for jobs included in the layoffs on sites like LinkedIn, which reporters were later able to confirm.
The cuts included all drug abuse case managers at South Side locations, members of the gender-affirming care team for youth and 14 of the 15 members of the In Power team, which was dedicated to helping survivors of sexual assault and harassment navigate the health care and legal systems before being disbanded amid the layoffs.
Bridget Gordon, a diabetes case manager at the Howard Brown Sheridan clinic and member of the union’s bargaining committee, said while her team wasn’t directly impacted — aside from one member who was mistakenly laid off even after being removed from the layoff list — it has still affected her day-to-day work.
“Having fewer people at the organization means everyone is doing the jobs of multiple people out of sheer necessity,” said Gordon, a lifelong Chicagoan. “It just speaks to how badly the layoffs were implemented even putting aside the legal questions.”
Gordon said there’s still “a lot” that has to happen before laid-off employees are “made whole,” which she expects will largely take the form of backpay, though she said the union wants everyone to get offers of reinstatement, even if not everyone will take them.
Gordon also said trust between leadership and employees was “pretty well damaged” by the labor dispute.
As for staff morale, Metos said it took a hit following the layoffs and that January was “really difficult,” but that leadership is working toward being more transparent about its work to reestablish trust.
Metos, who uses she/they pronouns, said they can understand what employees are feeling because they started at Howard Brown nearly eight years ago as an entry-level staffer.
“It was just uncomfortable across all our sites,” Metos said. “We’re trying to be honest and trying to do the right thing even if it’s hard.”
Employees say they’re unsure of the measures.
“If Howard Brown is serious about mending labor relations, then I think doing their best to make their former employees whole would be a terrific start,” Gordon said. “Then they can work on their current staff.”
While Flowers said she has been able to find work in her field — albeit for less pay — she said she believed the layoffs were “absolutely retaliatory” toward the union’s actions and that she wouldn’t return even if she were offered her job back.
“Unless there’s a drastic change in leadership at Howard Brown, what this leadership has done with their complete disregard for our rights as workers, I can’t see myself going back there,” Flowers said. “That would be a tough decision for me to make.”
