San Joaquin County Human Services Agency Eligibility Workers understand the demanding conditions they face. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the turnaround time for caseload management was quickly becoming unrealistic. Now, the pandemic has revealed truths about how our workplaces run. That is why having a member-led union that fights for all workers at the workplace is vital. Without worker power, our caseload management would be overrun, high-quality patient care would not be delivered, and the health of our community would be at risk.

Desiree Collins, an Eligibility Worker II and shop steward with San Joaquin County Human Services Agency, spoke about the material victory, “Any change to our working conditions, such as demanding Eligibility Workers to return calls within 24 hours, requires a meeting with the union before management can implement. HSA Eligibility Workers pressed that we meet with management. We stood our ground, telling management that requiring calls to be returned within twenty-four hours would only exacerbate the workload that we face daily. We got rid of the language saying, ‘within 24 hours,’ and instead brought back ‘as quickly as possible to more realistically allow us to manage our workload.”