When he arrived in the United States from his native Acapulco, Mexico, at age 16, David Muňoz—like many other immigrants—felt he had no voice.
“I didn’t know any English,” says the certified nursing assistant at Novato Healthcare Center. “At first, I couldn’t communicate. I wanted to speak, participate, and defend myself, and I couldn’t. I felt a lot of powerlessness.”
Thankfully, he said, there were always people willing to help him as they saw him struggle to communicate.
Two decades later, after putting in a lot of effort in learning the language while he attended high school and worked part-time in a pizza shop in the evenings, Muňoz is returning the favor by helping his coworkers who don’t speak English fluently.
“Now that I’ve learned to speak English, why not help people like I was helped,” said the union steward, who has worked at Novato Healthcare Center since 2017.
“I like to help people so they know their rights and obligations in their departments,” he added. “I feel I’m helping make things a little better for everyone.”
That’s also how he feels about being involved in the bargaining of a new contract. The priorities in the negotiations are wage raises, free health insurance coverage (they currently pay 60 percent of the premiums), and the ability to cash out unused vacation time at any time instead of just twice per year.
Other than those things, he said, Novato is a good place to work, and he notes that’s thanks to the workers being part of a union. He used to work at a Petaluma facility where there was no union, and he immediately saw the difference in Novato.
“When there’s a union and the bosses want to change things, they think twice about it,” he said. “When a worker gets in trouble, there’s a process; it’s not that they’ll just fire you. I feel more protected.”
Muňoz reminds those who have preconceived notions about unions or are wary about paying union dues of the benefits of being organized.
“We all fight together here,” he said. “When there’s a union, they respect the worker more.”
