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Protesters plan to gather every Monday until YNHH agrees to meet with them.
Three months after Yale New Haven Hospital’s cleaning contractor suddenly laid off nearly 50 of its mostly-Latino employees, about a dozen of those former cleaners protested at the main entrance of the hospital.
That protest took place Monday night at 20 York St.
According to the protesters, the cleaning contractor, AffinEco, told its employees back on Sept. 1 not to come back to work the next day. Now, protesters plan to continue showing up every Monday night until Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH) and Yale University agree to meet with them to discuss labor issues.
AffinEco did not respond to the Independent’s request for comment.
According to John Lugo, an organizer with Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA), many of the people who worked at the hospital had been working there for years, and it was an important and stable source of income. He added that for many undocumented workers in Connecticut, the experience the workers at YNHH went through is not uncommon.
“These big companies and hospitals will employ contractors and then not ask questions about who they subcontract to,” Lugo said. “It’s massive numbers of people who are working here and there are no regulations on them … they can pay whatever they want to get paid … we just feel like there has to be some kind of regulations coming from the hospital.”
Lugo added that ULA and the workers have both reached out to Yale and the hospital to talk about what happened, but they have said that their issue is with the contractor, so Yale is not liable.
In a statement provided to the Independent, YNHH Spokesperson Mark D’Antonio wrote that the hospital learned that one of its temporary staffing agencies did not have the “necessary documents as required by federal law for some staff provided to Yale New Haven Health.”
“We immediately directed the agency to come into compliance with federal law, as we are legally obligated to do,” he added. “Temporary staffing support is a critical part of the workforce at Yale New Haven Health and throughout healthcare to fill staffing vacancies in order to ensure that our facilities are safe and clean.” D’Antonio was not able to comment on the identity of the contractor and on whether or not YNHH plans to meet with the workers about their concerns.
Lugo also raised the possibility of the Board of Alders and Mayor Justin Elicker refusing to license the operations of hospitals and other businesses that do not commit to treating workers correctly — like in San Francisco, which also has a large undocumented population.
However, in a Board of Alders meeting last week, the city’s top attorney said that such a proposal would be difficult to implement and enforce in New Haven.
ULA and the workers are also calling on Yale to form a committee to reform its subcontracting policy to require more stringent regulations around how people can be hired, fired, and paid.
They also plan on going to the main office of AffinEco in the coming weeks to protest their treatment.
So 50 workers were laid off September 1 and only now, over 3 months later, did 16 decide to protest. Why the wait? The demonstration should have started almost immediately. Curious.