Frontline Worker: Scott Marks II, Yale New Haven Hospital workers and New Haven Rising

Following are remarks by Scott Marks II, worker at Yale-New Haven Hospital and leader of New Haven Rising, at the May Day Rally "International Workers Solidarity: COVID-19 and Beyond hosted by CT People's World on May 3rd via zoom. The call to action is to attend the New Haven Board of Alder's Finance Committee public hearing on the budget on Monday, May 11, 2020 by zoom.

I’m Scott Marks and I work at Yale New Haven Hospital as an environment service associate.

Since Pandemic started it’s been a trying time for me. I go to work everyday knowing that I have to clean COVID-19 rooms. At the peak of this crisis, I was part of a team who cleaned seven rooms per day. It’s stressful work because of so much gowning up and gowning down. But, ultimately, I know if I don’t clean the room properly it can cause the next person to be sick, or make me and my co-workers sick that we bring home to our families. Like everyone else in the hospital, my work has life or death consequences right now. This is a lot of stress for the money that I make.

I know some of you heard about YNHH giving out a Covid-19 Recognition Award which is a payment of 5% of your earnings since the beginning of the calendar year. This came after 11,000 people signed a petition calling on the hospital to provide hazard pay. It was announced the same day that Hospital leaders admitted about 1,000 employees tested positive or had symptoms for COVID-19. 5% is not enough!! For me, this means only an extra 85 cents for every hour I work. Yet we put our lives on the line everyday.

This isn’t just a problem at the hospital. This crisis shows that our economy cannot work without workers. My work saves lives. The same is true for other custodians, grocers, delivery drivers, receptionists and many more. If the economy cannot work without us, we deserve to have pay that allows us and our families to live in dignity. We deserve to have access to health care. We deserve to have paid sick leave. We deserve to have pensions. We deserve to have protective equipment and workplace safety. Unfortunately, wealthy individuals and organizations ask us to go without these basic standards so that they can have even more.

Instead of treating workers with the dignity that we deserve, many corporations treat us as if we’re disposable. Right now, 32% of America is unemployed. Employers across the country are throwing people off of their health care and pushing them into unemployment in the middle of a pandemic. Right here in New Haven, workers at the Omni Hotel are scared they are going to lose their health care at the end of the month. People should not have to live with this fear.

So, we’re stuck in a situation where the injustices of our country are laid bare. These injustices are breaking people and breaking communities. Black, Brown, and poor people are the ones who have less of a chance to work from home. There are more people getting sick in their neighborhoods. They are the ones who will experience the biggest costs due to this economic crisis. I have seen people in the hospital just give up after losing a loved one. I know others are going to be in a lot of pain with this economic crisis.

But this is why we have to fight for something better. That’s why I fight as a NHR key leader for economic and social justice. I believe everyone deserves a good job that can support their family during a pandemic, but I know that we all have to work to win this justice. We still meet weekly to organize to keep the fight for the good jobs we’ve won. We can’t let large employers like Yale use this pandemic as an excuse to take our victories away from us. Instead, we need to move forward and we have to push organizations like Yale to fulfill their leadership roles in our city.

So I encourage everyone to attend On May 11, 2020 the Budget Public Hearing For New Haven hosted by BOA Finance Committee on Zoom. We all need to make the case that the large and powerful institutions do their fair share in this moment.