|
Dennis Rivera President, 1199SEIU, United Healthcare Workers East; Chair, SEIU’s Healthcare Division |
|
1199SEIU President Dennis Rivera was born in Aibonito, Puerto Rico, in 1950. After attending the Colegio Universitario de Cayey, he left school to become a fulltime Union organizer of Puerto Rican hospital workers.
When he moved to New York in 1977, he was hired as an organizer by what was then Local 1199, working in several of the city's healthcare facilities, including Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. In 1984, he left the Union staff to go back to work as a hospital worker and to become an organizer for Save Our Union, the rank-and-file formation that was elected to replace the former leadership in 1986. He was elected President of 1199 in 1989, and has been re-elected five times. Since 1989, he and his team have built 1199SEIU into the biggest Union Local in the world and perhaps the most powerful Union in all of New York. In 1998, the Union merged with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). He soon became chair of SEIU’s Healthcare Division On January 29, 2007, he announced that he would not be a candidate for re-election. He will leave 1199SEIU later this spring to lead the formation of a one million member-strong national healthcare workers’ Union within SEIU. When he was elected 1199 President in 1989, the Union had 75,000 members. When he assumed the presidency, the Union was divided internally. Today, 12 other local unions have joined together in 1199SEIU, spawning a dramatic new unity of health care workers into one union that is working to improve healthcare. 1199SEIU now has 300,000 members working in hospitals, nursing homes, homecare agencies, clinics and pharmacies throughout New York State, Maryland, DC and Massachusetts. In addition to strengthening the Union-and in part the result of it-he has led the union from a time of controversy and conflict with the hospital industry into a period of partnership with many of New York's healthcare institutions. This has helped improve the stability of healthcare institutions in New York, resulting in tremendous benefits to patients and healthcare workers, both in ensuring adequate resources to maintain quality health care, and in creating a worker-friendly environment for improved patient care. In January 2007, he directed the successfully completed collective bargaining with the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes on behalf of 125,000 New York metropolitan area members at 87 institutions. The contract includes job security guarantees for every member—including part-time workers---hired before January 1, 2003, and a host of other employment security measures, including a pledge of a job within six months for any member who loses a job as a result of state-mandated hospital closing and downsizing. The contract also secures the health benefits including world-class comprehensive coverage with no out-of-pocket expenses, improves the pension benefits (already among the best in the country) and gives a three percent compounded annual wage through September 2011. He is Co-Chair of the 1199SEIU National Benefit Fund, which provides health care to 450,000 working people in New York, making it the largest self-insured Union healthcare plan in the United States. He is also Co-Chair of the 1199SEIU Pension Fund, with nearly $8 billion in assets, which provides financial security and dignity to retired healthcare workers in New York. He also is Co-Chair of the 1199SEIU Training and Upgrading Fund, and the 1199SEIU Child Care Fund, which strengthen communities by allowing working parents to go to work or attend training to better themselves, knowing their children are safely cared for. During his tenure in office, the Union has created programs that give job security guarantees to most of the members, a home mortgage program for members, a Child Care Fund with after school, daycare, summer camp, scholarships and other programs for members' children, and a Citizenship Program to help the union's many immigrant workers to become U.S. citizens. He has dramatically increased the political profile of the union, which plays a key role in representing the interests of working people in state and national politics. Over half of the union's members gain a strong voice in the political process by voluntarily contributing $5-10 a month to the union's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Political Action Fund. He oversaw the creation of the Healthcare Education Project, in partnership with the Greater New York Hospital Association, which has saved nearly $20 billion for New York's healthcare system over the last dozen years. As 1199SEIU President, he helped to pioneer the Child Health Plus and Family Health Plus programs for healthcare coverage for New York's children and working poor. He has held many other important posts in the national and New York labor movements, and has served on the executive boards of the Children's Defense Fund and Riverkeeper, the environmental organization, and the Hispanic Education and Legal Fund. Under his leadership, 1199SEIU has been a leading voice for working families and poor people on a host of social issues-tenants' rights, police abuse, immigrant rights, voting rights, and economic justice. It was the first U.S. labor union to oppose the war in Iraq. |
|