With Oakland facing a watershed election, NUHW members, many of whom live and work in the city, are knocking on doors to elect progressive, pro-worker icon Barbara Lee as the city’s next mayor.
“Barbara Lee is a hero to me,” said Jackki Patrick, an NUHW executive board member and patient care assistant at UCSF Children’s Hospital Oakland. “She can bring Oakland together and make our city a model for what a government of the people can accomplish.”
Patrick stood right next to Lee as cameras flashed inside the Teamsters labor hall in East Oakland on March 22. The event was attended by more than 100 union members, many wearing NUHW red, ready to pound the pavement with ballots for Oakland’s special election due back on April 15.
Oakland finds itself at a crossroads after outside interests tied to the real estate and crypto industries bankrolled a recall effort that unseated the city’s mayor. With outside money also flowing into the special election, Lee is counting on working people to help elect her mayor and unite the city as it confronts severe housing and budget crises.
“I am very proud of the way we’re running this campaign because we have to bring some unity and some consensus in this city if we’re going to move forward to make life better for everyone,” Lee told her supporters.
Lee, 78, got her start in politics supporting Shirley Chisholm’s historic presidential campaign, and represented Oakland in Congress for more than a quarter century, casting the lone vote against going to war in Afghanistan.
“I understand what power to the people means and that’s what you all are showing through this campaign,” she told the volunteers.
In Oakland, NUHW represents mental health therapists at Kaiser and more than 1,300 workers at UCSF Children’s Hospital Oakland, who have been demonstrating people power on behalf of Oakland residents for decades.
In 2020, NUHW members helped pass Measure C, a tax measure that funds early childhood education and health measures, providing more than $100 million for the pediatric hospital and satellite clinics.
The workers have since lobbied hard to make sure the proceeds go toward providing care at the hospital instead of construction projects, while winning provisions in their contracts that make it harder for UCSF to move services across the Bay to San Francisco.
“We fight for Oakland, just like Barbara Lee,” said Patrick. “And we’re going to do everything we can to elect her because we know she’s what Oakland needs.”
