AN OPEN LETTER TO DENVER HEALTH PROVIDERS, CLINICIANS, AND ADVANCED PRACTICE PROFESSIONALS

Dear colleagues,

We write to you as fellow Denver Health direct care providers, clinicians, and advanced practice professionals. In a minute we’re going to ask you to join our newly formed Denver Health Workers United. This is why. We love our workplace, our mission, and the work we do. We want to see Denver Health at its best: dedicated to compassionate care, equity, and justice. Our society has been awakened to the health disparities caused by systemic racism and classism, as well as the negligent and unfair treatment of frontline workers. As voices across the country are calling for institutional change we are uniting in the fight to improve the systems in which we work. 

Simply stated: we need you.

Please join us in our union and help us further the mission to which we have all committed. The time has come to stand up, side by side, with our fellow employees. You can learn about our union in our own words here in the We Are Denver Health video. We know that unions are for us, too. Please do not allow outdated biases or inaccurate information about our union keep you from taking part. Who will stand together to protect, defend, and strengthen the institution we cherish if not us?

The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed us all into uncomfortable territory—for some it was having our clinical service displaced or disbanded; practicing in unfamiliar patient populations; navigating drug and supply shortages; frequent and sometimes contradictory policy changes; or dealing with the constant fear that we might contaminate or fail to adequately protect ourselves, our family, or our patients. For others it may be a lack of pandemic paid leave, difficulties securing child care, frustration about executive bonuses, cuts in professional development funds, contracting COVID-19, the lack of administrative time, limited regular testing access, or even lost pay and furloughs, and asking us to be more flexible as management in certain departments has become more rigid. 

The events of this year have exposed deeply rooted problems we seek to address as a united group of Denver Health employees. These new challenges come on top of old problems: chronic underfunding of public health care, the need for greater transparency, lower wages than our peers in non-public health care settings, provider burnout, and excessive student loan burdens, to name a few. We are tired and our commitment to patient care often leaves us vulnerable to neglecting our own health and workplace protections, but we are still here. 

Many of our fellow employees are bearing the brunt of the pandemic’s effects. Their risk is often the greatest and yet they are paid the least. Hundreds of our co-workers are paid much less than a living wage; our entire system of care at Denver Health depends on their labor. It is time to remedy the fact that our organization depends on their underpayment. The certified nursing assistant (listen to her story here) who is doing the job of three people due to low staffing. The cafeteria worker who served your lunch and is one missed paycheck away from defaulting on rent. The EVS custodian (listen to her story here) experiencing side effects after cleaning contaminated rooms with hazardous disinfectants and who was “shocked and broken” after being told by her boss that her membership in our union was a waste of time and money. The medical assistant swabbing noses in snow, rain, and 100 degree heat without A/C, running water, or proper PPE. They are—like us and many are DHWU members—organizing for justice on the job. We must join them. 

Just like healthcare, we know that living wages, safety at work, and the ability to form a union are our rights. Yet executive leadership continues to spend limited Denver Health resources to deter us and our fellow employees from joining a union to improve our workplace. They have hired a firm to lead “union avoidance” efforts and trained our managers in anti-union messaging. They have directed our supervisors to pull employees into meetings and distribute negative and misleading information about our positive efforts for change. They have continued to obstruct our efforts at direct dialogue and present solutions directed wholly from the top down.

This conduct is unacceptable and must stop. It has been roundly criticized directly to the DHHA board and executives by outraged Denver city councilmembers, state legislators, members of the U.S. Congress, and community leaders. This is money which should go to patient care, health and safety measures, proper staffing, fully paid pandemic leave, COVID0-19 testing for asymptomatic exposed employees, and employee compensation. 

Apart from our internal challenges, the grave mismanagement of COVID-19 at the federal level is a crisis upon a crisis: a pandemic on top of the chronic underfunding and deep racial and class inequities of public health in the U.S. As DHWU members, we have an organized way to push for emergency coordination and funding at both the state and federal levels.

We are building a united organization of all professions to push for positive change—inside Denver Health and out—because these problems are not simply a failure of human resources or economics; they are a moral failure. At Denver Health, we hold ourselves to high standards. Professionals are drawn to Denver Health because of our mission and commitment to healthcare equity and social justice providing “level one care for all”.  But that commitment must begin within the microcosm of the Denver Health community.

So what can you do?

• Join Denver Health Workers United today

• Learn more online, by emailing denverhealthworkersunited@gmail.com, or by speaking to us 

• Help build our Providers, Clinicians, and Advanced Practice Professionals (PCAPP) Caucus

We seek both to strengthen public healthcare delivery and to make Denver Health the best place to give and receive care. Join us today and take action for a better world—right here where we work.

In unity with our Denver Health community,