TSEU State Supported Living Center and State Hospital activists are not waiting for the next legislative session. Union members across Texas have carried out a massive organizing push. The goal was to regrow our union’s power and increase TSEU’s overall visibility by signing up new members and getting more current members active. Over the last 6 months our membership at SSLC and State Hospitals has risen by 183 members.
This is despite Direct Care workers in State Supported Living Centers and Hospitals having to face increasing turnover rates as work expectations climb and pay stagnates. Mandatory overtime, shortages of coverage, work place injuries and approval of leave are also major issues in SSLC’s and Hospitals. The union’s position is clear that staff should have the right to get paid immediately for all overtime worked, it should be voluntary and if the need for holdovers arises there should be a fair system in place so that employees know in advance when they may need to stay over. Overtime along with the use of contract workers to fill vacancies are very costly to the agency, and that money would be better spent maintaining a fully staffed facility.
