UnAmerican Hypocracy: Union to protest welware office caseload after supporting Obama and democrats

11/9/2014

Update: Union plans to picket Wednesday outside Lancaster assistance office 

The union representing employees in assistance offices across Pennsylvania plans to picket Wednesday outside the Lancaster office on Manor Street.

The Service Employees International Union Local 668's complaint: Too few caseworkers to properly serve its needy clients.

“I’m hoping to have 25 or 30 people on the sidewalk” between 12:30 and 1 p.m. and organizers handing out fliers from 10 a.m. until about 3 p.m., said JoAnne Sessa, chairwoman of Local 668's Rank and File Committee.

The union represents approximately 4,400 caseworkers at county assistance offices across Pennsylvania.

Exacerbating a concern over not having enough employees to serve those needing subsidized medical coverage, food stamps and other benefits is a new task: explaining Gov. Tom Corbett’s plan for Medicaid expansion.

Sixty of the Lancaster office’s 130 caseworkers will have their caseloads transferred to Mercer, Westmoreland and possibly other counties, Sessa said, so they can take calls regarding Healthy PA.

Getting ready to provide subsidized health coverage to an estimated 600,000 more Pennsylvanians under Healthy PA, a plan that won federal approval in August, the department realized it could not set up  a call center in time for the Dec. 1 start of enrollment.

So, as a temporary measure, it is shifting employees at its assistance offices in Lancaster and other counties to handle the calls because they’re the best equipped and staffed to do so, DPW spokeswoman Kait Gillis said Thursday.

The union, Sessa said, does not object to getting the work. Its concern, she said, is having enough employees to serve the clients in their local areas.

“Why can’t they serve their own area?” Sessa asked.

While the addition of Healthy PA will be part of its message,  the bottom line of the union’s planned pickets next week is the lack of caseworkers to provide proper service to clients.

The Healthy PA roll-out is working on a tight timeline, Gillis acknowledged, but the department is in the process of hiring several hundred more employees and the current situation is  temporary.

“Sure,” Sessa said, “they can say ‘We’ve hired 150 people, but our (assistance offices) still have a lot of empty desks in them.”

Besides Lancaster, the union plans to picket outside offices in Allegheny, Lackawanna and Philadelphia counties — at least one of which will be handling Healthy PA calls, Sessa said.

Gillis said Thursday that the union was notified of the plan to have its caseworkers handle Healthy PA calls on Oct. 27, right after those plans had  been finalized.

Two days later, Gillis said, Tom Strickler, DPW’s director of operations, met with the union’s leaders and they raised no objections.

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