Just Work: Unjust End

On September 12, Elirose Pierre-Louis died of a heart attack at the age of 56. Eli was not only my friend, she was also the best co-worker I ever had. Her obituary might read:

Elirose Pierre-Louis, who came to the US from Haiti in 1985, worked as a seasonal field-hand and as a janitor in southern Florida. She is survived by her four sons in Haiti and in Canada.

This may not sound like anything significant. It seems that these days, there are a lot of untimely deaths we could talk about. But Eli died from an illness that could have been managed and from a working situation that should have been avoided. In my community, we know Eli died because she was poor.

I met Eli more than 20 years ago while packing tomatoes in a warehouse in Florida City. It was the kind of back-breaking, minimum-wage work that nearly every Haitian immigrant in Florida has done. It's a life of flat wages and irregular hours. Sickness means a bad day at work or facing unemployment, which rolls around at the end of the season anyway.

Eli played by all the rules: she was always on time, always positive, and always the hardest worker on the line. We jokingly called Eli "the Champion" because she kept our spirits up and always volunteered to help out a fellow worker who was sick or out of money. She talked about her sons often: one excelled in math; one volunteered at his church in Port-au-Prince, one was on his way to college, one had found a job in Canada.

Like many of our friends, Eli suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure, but she was always pushing off her own treatment for another day. It's hard to get the care one needs without health insurance, and Eli was always more concerned for her kids' welfare than her own. She was ready to sacrifice today for a better life tomorrow.

The thing is that tomorrow never came for Eli.

Three years ago, we both found steady janitorial jobs working the 6:00 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. shift at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, FL. It was still a minimum wage job without health insurance, but Eli and I were getting older and our work options were narrowing. After years of grueling work at poverty pay, we decided it was time to stand up for ourselves. That's when Eli and I started organizing with other workers to form a union.

We had our victory moment: we won the right to unite. But just as we saw opportunity knocking, the door slammed in our faces. Along with more than 100 other activist janitors, Eli and I were fired this past February from our jobs at Nova. It turns out the University would rather lose their entire staff than let us get a tiny piece of the American dream.

The rest of Eli's story gets more tragic. Unable to find other work in Miami and desperate for a job, Eli took a job tip I got from a friend in Nassawadox, Virginia, who was looking for extra farm hands. Given her health and age, Eli knew that this job would be hard, but she didn't have any other choices. She has family to support, tuitions to pay, and no one else to rely on.

On the morning of September 12, Eli became ill. Her boss on the farm called 911 for an ambulance to immediately transport her to the hospital--but Eli never made it. Thousands of miles from her family in Haiti and in Canada, hundreds of miles away from her community here in Miami, Eli died in that ambulance--alone and without a chance to say goodbye.

Eli's story is many of our stories. It is the story of a low-wage worker in America, the story of worker discrimination, the story of what happens to the uninsured when we get sick. Basically, Eli died because she was a poor, middle-aged immigrant. She died because she was living in a country that will take our work, but will turn its back on our most basic human needs.

Today, I am haunted by Eli's death. I think about how it could have been me in those tomato fields that day. I am a 66 year old Haitian man, I am a U.S. citizen, and I have spent nearly 30 years working in this country. Like Eli, I have great hope in my heart that sacrificing today will bring a greater tomorrow, but also like Eli, I have limited options.

One thing keeps me going: I'm going to do everything I can to prevent Eli's tragedy from happening to anyone else. Eli may have led an invisible life, but her death must serve as a visible reminder that we must improve the lives of low-wage workers in this country. If you work hard and provide a needed service, you deserve job security and access to health care. If employers like Nova Southeastern aren't going to provide this out of common human decency, then we must raise our voices and tell our stories.

If I could write Eli's obituary, this is what it would say:

Elirose Pierre-Louis came to the US from Haiti in 1985 to build a better future for her family. She died because, while she worked hard, she could not afford medical care. She will be missed by her 4 sons, as well as thousands of workers like her and Americans of good conscience who dedicate their lives to standing up for poor workers and fighting for the end of the rich man's disease of heartlessness and greed. She did not die in vain.

Elirose Pierre-Louis will be laid to rest at a funeral service this Saturday, September 29 at 12:00 p.m. at Notre Dame d'Haiti Catholic Church in Miami. Donations to cover funeral and related costs are being accepted through the Elirose Funeral Fund.

Joseph Louis was with Elirose Pierre-Louis when they both were fired from their janitorial jobs at Nova Southeastern University after courageously organizing to improve their wages and gain access to health care. Seven months later, Joseph is still unemployed despite his active search for work in the Miami area. In his struggle to ensure that Elirose Pierre-Louis did not die in vain, Joseph continues to speak out against Nova Southeastern University's abusive treatment of its lowest-paid workers and demand justice for all low-wage workers in America.

Just Work is a series presented by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to give a voice to working people to discuss their daily struggles to balance work, afford life and participate in a more just society. SEIU welcomes submissions to Just Work! Please send your story (800 words or less) to [e-mail].

About SEIU: The 1.9 million-member SEIU is the fastest-growing union in North America. SEIU members are winning better wages, health care, and more secure jobs for our communities, while uniting their strength with their counterparts around the world to help ensure that workers, not just corporations and CEOs, benefit from today's global economy.

Comments

[realitytrumpsbull]

Um, bad news, that's why they let in the illegal aliens, to prevent farm workers from
organizing. Read back about Cesar Chavez, that's
what he was all about...not Hugo, that's the
oil guy in Venezuela, but Cesar Chavez.

In the same breath, it's worth pointing out
that seasonal work should never be seen as a
career, it's something you do to pay this month's bills, then you start looking for other
steady work that's not such a strain on the system. If you drop in your tracks at a farm
job, it's kind of on you, and doing that kind
of thing intensively past the age of 50, well,
some people can do it, but most everyone else
looked for another line of work. Gotta be kind
of dry-eyed about the whole thing, I guess they
could build robots to go pick potatoes or something, that's what the Big Farms do, someone
someday will figure out the right harmonic frequency to cause an orange tree to shed its'
oranges on command onto a conveyor with 'smart ssensors', next thing you know there'll be
a robots' union...my condolences to the lady,
as well as her family and friends etc.,
but there does come a point when you should
give up that line of work...

[maddogbitesback]

Thank the Republicans for the tens of millions of sad stories like this. Be sure to thank George Duhbya for being such a compassionate conservative. The saddest fact about this story is that is not the American dream but the American nightmare. Tens of millions live it all their lives. Most of them are born in the United States. They are worth less than the dirt the tomatoes grew in. Only able to work because it can't be sent off shore. That would save a lot of money and there would be no trouble with talk of unions either.

[Yomper]

An income of $1500 per couple per month is enough to prohibit a person with possible cancer symptoms from getting any assistance for a colonoscopy test which it is estimated to cost $5000 and from $1500 per month the couple should be able to pay for the test themselves according to our rulers and those who voted for them

[suki21693]

Millionaires, many of them third and fourth generation millionaires, are somehow more qualified to decide what low-income workers should be able to afford than those workers are themselves. Simply amazing.

[Rumplestiltskin]

I would have tought a compassionate labor union would have offered medical care to its members.

[dcmacgirl]

Elirose wasn't a member of a labor union. That's the point. She and Joseph were fighting for one and Nova ended the contract with the cleaning company they worked for. So they got fired because they were active in trying to get a union.

It's a very sad story; thank you for your words Joseph.

[dcmacgirl]

Elirose wasn't a member of a labor union. That's the point. She and Joseph were fighting for a union.

[Robert59]

Mr. Louis,

Thanks. Only those with hearts of granite wouldn't be moved by the injustice of it all. Universal health care and a return to organized labor will be the civil rights movements of the next decade.

Why do I believe this? Wage disparity will widen without organized labor being there to keep the gap from growing. And the numbers of people making low wages will grow as our economy flattens due to globalization. Like it or not capitalism if left unchecked will make us a country of haves and have nots.

And health care is something everyone understands. If businesses can't afford to pay for it the burden will fall on individuals. To keep those costs from breaking one's back we have no choice but to cut out all the middlemen who are making a profit keeping you well or treating your illness.

It's why I support Edwards. We can't bring to the bargaining table those who are profiting from your health care. Their interest is to maximize their rate of return.

We had a similar story hear involving a young woman who had a manageable form of hepatitis. Because she was diagnosed young she couldn't get affordable insurance. Without insurance each time you visit a doctor costs a great deal more than if you were insured. She qualified for Medicaid but only in an emergency setting. When she got sick enough to be admitted via the emergency room she got treated and that wasn't preventative medicine but reactive.

She died. Her crime, being poor.

[praxis00]

I feel kind of sick to my stomach thinking about this. I am sorry for your loss, and I thank you for letting us know about Eli. The news is filled with terrible things about immigrants all the time, but this is a perfect example of someone who came here to make a better life for her family (as did my grandparents) and who gave much more than she took. I know it sounds cheesy, but I'm going to make sure I take special note of the woman who cleans my office building tonight.

[chinohillster]

Yes, thank you - I don't know how someone could read this, and then speak about how people should 'give up their cellphones and cable TV', 'they could pay for medical care if they wanted to', and other such rubbish!

We can spend all kinds of money for all kinds of crap, and yet a poor, hard-working woman has to die because our society is "all about the Benjamins!"

[ORSunshine]

Thank you for sharing this story. Tragic and sad, it should bring the cold-hearted businesspeople to their knees in shame.