Karena Cozad

“A little over a month ago, I received a text from the [Service Employees International Union] that we had a mandatory training.”

“I replied that I would take the training, but it had to be taken via Zoom.”

“My mom and I work as personal assistants to clients with disabilities, and I told her about the training, however she didn’t receive the notification. She suggested I might want to call and see if it’s legitimate.”

“I called the [Illinois Division of Rehabilitation Services] office, but no one answered initially. That Friday, which was the morning of the Zoom call with the mandatory training class, someone had called. But, of course, I couldn’t take it while taking the Zoom class because you have to be ‘physically’ there for the entire class.”

“It started in the morning around 9 or 10 o’clock with a half-hour intermission. It was about a two-hour class.”

“During the class they brought up that two people participating in this class were not union members. And they wanted people to raise their hands if they were union members. And I did not.”

“During the halftime intermission, I put my tablet down because it’s not recorded, and you’re not paid during the intermission. And that is when, in physical classes, they pressure you to become a union member.”

“In the meantime, DORS had called and left a voicemail saying training was not mandatory, so I called to confirm the voicemail. She said the training was not mandatory.”

“It’s the same class I’ve taken four times. It’s an introduction to being a personal assistant.”

“First of all, they shouldn’t tell you it’s mandatory. It’s misleading if you’re a non-union member.”

“The other odd thing is SEIU will tell us what we can and cannot do as personal assistants, but if you talk with DORS they will tell you the exact opposite: that we can do things the union tells us not to and vice versa.”

“There needs to be consistency. It’s absurd that we should take the same training over and over or that they would misinform us about what is and is not mandatory or make us take additional training that is not required by the state.”

“If not for the Illinois Policy Institute, I would still be paying-in union dues because it took a lot of time and energy to get them to stop taking them from my paycheck. They would give me the runaround about how to actually leave the union and use fearmongering by saying ‘It’s going to take X number of months before the dues will be stopped.’”

“That’s why, if I don’t have to take these classes, I’m not taking them. Because once you get there, it’s pressure, pressure, pressure to join and that’s not right. You don’t actually have to.”

Karena Cozad
Personal assistant
Cuba, Illinois