SUPPORT THE WORKERS AT ENABLE

Dear Sisters and Brothers,
 
This is a story of an important struggle developing in New Jersey. Please 
contact Jeanette at gabriel55@xxxxxxxxxxx to get more information and to send 
letters of support.
 
You can send a letter of protest to Audrey Witonsky Wisotskya@xxxxxxxxxxxxx .
Audrey represents the employer Enable, Inc.
 
Tom Siblo
 
 
 
 Independent Media Center 
newjersey.indymedia.org:8081

Enable Workers struggle Sunday 17 Mar 2002 
author: NJ-IMC (njimc@xxxxxxxxxxx) 

summary
On Saturday night, March 16th, in Trenton, the Enable Workers for Justice held 
a meeting to discuss alleged recent illegal activities, such as multiple 
firings, union busting, fraud, and racial discrimination of Enable 
Incorporated.  


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


On Saturday night, March 16th, in Trenton, the Enable Workers for Justice held 
a meeting to discuss alleged recent illegal activities, such as multiple 
firings, union busting, fraud, and racial discrimination of Enable 
Incorporated. Enable Inc., a West Windsor-based nonprofit organization that 
provides home health aides for the disabled, was the subject of a number of 
complaints from attendants of Saturday?s event. 

The Enable Workers for Justice was started in December, 2001 by Jeannette 
Gabriel and Teresa Armstrong, after they had begun suspecting Enable?s illegal 
activities. 25 Enable aides work(ed) at Project Freedom, a housing complex for 
people with disabilities, where most of these activities were traced. Racial 
discrimination, particularly taking place at Project Freedom, was the first 
major area of the Enable Workers For Justice?s discussion on Saturday. 

Shirley Ashe, a recently fired Project Freedom aide, explained that because she 
was black, she was forced to work weekends, while her white co-workers did not 
have to regardless of Shirley?s seniority. The rest of the group elaborated 
that this pattern of discrimination against the African American and Hispanic 
workers, many of whom had been at the Project Freedom complex longer than some 
of the white workers, were consistently experiencing the same problem as Ashe. 
In a complaint filed by Teresa Armstrong against Enable to the state Division 
of Civil Rights and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, it was 
pointed out that from July to December, Enable aides worked a total of 3,064 
weekend hours at Project Freedom, and all but two of these hours were worked by 
African American or Hispanic workers. 

In addition to the systemic racist weekend-working policy Enable?s policy 
towards FMLA and time off for disability was discussed. In one case, an African 
American woman and a supporter of the union, took time off on disability, 
finding out on her return to work that she was fired, without the required 
two-week notice. This was not an isolated case; everyone at the meeting either 
experienced the same routine, or knew of someone who had. Enable has not been 
allowing for proper sick leaves. As one member of Enable Workers For Justice 
stated, ?[Enable] will do anything they want, when they want.? 

Racial discrimination is only one symptom of Enable?s alleged corrupted 
activities. Medicaid, one of the three streams of Enable?s state funding, 
provided for a portion of the hourly wage of workers. For every hour worked, 
Medicaid has provided $16 to Enable, about half of which Enable pays the 
employee. The system that Enable?s Supervisors set up was for the employees to 
forge extra hours extra hours on their time sheets, those extra hours went 
straight into Enable?s pockets. The unionizing Enable workers began to realize 
what Enable was doing, and decided to inform the proper authorities at the 
Department of Labor. Enable?s response was to blame the workers for forging 
their hours, and in order to muddy the already convoluted lake of Enable?s 
improprieties they eliminated their entire Medicaid program, in attempts to 
hide and deny the fraud. 

The formal complaint/list of demands to Enable Inc.?s Board of Trustees, 
written on January 22nd, stated the following: 
?Some of the legal violations we informed them (Dep. Of Labor) are: not paying 
employees for time worked or time and a half for overtime; misuse of Medicaid 
funds; threats of termination if employees do not forge timesheets. We are 
protected as whistle blowers under CEPA (Conscientious Employee Protection 
Act).? 

Although CEPA is technically supposed to protect the workers, it did not 
prevent Enable from continuing to fire employees for exposing the alleged 
Medicaid fraud. It was expressed at the meeting that Enable utilizes tactics of 
fear, intimidation, and harassment in order to scare workers from organizing 
against the injustices experienced. So what started out as a group of workers 
looking to unionize uncovered another round of fraud, racial discrimination, 
and another state program costing taxpayers for services not rendered. 
 



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