COVID-19 heroes campaign helps get locals elected
Among the winners in the election earlier this month are healthcare workers at Jackson Memorial Hospital. While some of the candidates their union endorsed lost at the state level, they got every single one of the Miami-Dade commissioners they wanted.
Most importantly, they got a mayor who they feel is a friend.
And it couldn’t come at a better time, as the COVID-19 numbers start to rise again and a future post-Thanksgiving spike could flood our hospitals.
While the Democratic Party and other unions had a rough election cycle and some huge losses on Election Day, the Service Employees International Union Local 1991 ran the table in Miami-Dade, mostly thanks to the leadership of President Martha Baker, an emergency room nurse who has fought for Jackson for decades.
But, first, she focused on a different campaign, one that aimed to build a bond with the community.
Read related: Jackson Miami doctors, nurses want post COVID19 community conversation
Jackson Healthcare Heroes was launched last spring after the big COVID-19 spike, after a COVID nurse died from the virus and in the midst of the #thankyouhealthcareheroes movement to cement that bond with the public and keep the conversation going post pandemic. They had billboards, digital ads with Miami Dolphins and Miami Marlins players, a website with COVID information, stories and video testimonials.
Eventually, they included videos of their own healthcare heroes — the ones on the ballot.
Baker was an early supporter of Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. The SEIU also endorsed commissioners Joe Martinez, Keon Hardemon, Kionne McGhee, Eileen Higgins and Rene Garcia. They didn’t endorse in District 7 because both candidates were considered friends of Jackson.
“They support Jackson. They support our agenda,” Baker told Ladra. “I think it’s a good team. I can’t remember a time when we had such victorious slate.”
Time to make healthcare a priority in Miami-Dade
Baker said Jackson CEO Carlos Migoya has done a “great job” of pulling Jackson back from the brink and taking it to another level. He was able to get the $830 million referendum passed in 2013 to help address long-neglected needs in upgrades to equipment and facilities.
“Now we need somebody who is a visionary for population health,” she added, referring to DLC.
Read related: Jackson’s $830 million bond passes handily, as planned
Population health is public health by zip code. It’s preventative. “It’s trying to keep people healthy where they are,” Baker said, adding that its importance has become evident this year through the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Miami-Dade I going to be a microcosm of the country so what we do here is very important,” she said.
Even before and beyond COVID, one of the SEIU’s goals is to take the healthcare to the people. The most recent needs assessment indicated that at least 22% of the residents Opa-Locka didn’t have healthcare. That shot up to 40% in Hialeah, Baker said. “And we don’t have a clinic in Hialeah.”
That surprised Ladra. Miami Dade College has a Hialeah campus. How is it possible that Jackson has nada in Miami-Dade’s second largest city?
That’s one of the reasons why it was important to campaign for the electeds who will understand that and help make it happen. Garcia has been a Jackson fighter in Tallahassee, possibly the only Republican trying to expand Medicare. “And all the others we can educate,” Baker joked.
They took the campaign seriously. Doctors and nurses at Jackson, who have the amazing skill set of being hyper focused at work, were able to translate that to advocacy. Local celebrity sports “heroes”– like Bret Graves and Harold Ramirez from the Miami Marlins and Preston Williams and Chandler Cox from the Miami Dolphins — lent their star power to thank the Jackson Health Heroes who were risking their lives for ours.
They ran as sophisticated a campaign as you can get, with deep, frequent polling and enormous digital outreach on multiple platforms. Baker said they had 2.5 million online engagements.
Add an experienced political team and mix well
The SEIU got help on this from a trio of astute political operatives who coordinated the campaign: labor attorney Mark Richard, campaign guru Elnatan Rudolph and messaging master Rachel Johnson.
Read related: Furloughs proposed, then scrapped at Jackson in the midst of COVID
Rudolph is a longtime national and South Florida consultant who has worked here since 2006. Clients include former Broward Sheriff Scott Israel, former State Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla and brother Alex and former county Mayor Carlos Gimenez on his first recall replacement campaign. He is probably the reason why you got so many text messages in October. And Johnson is a Democrat Party and Organizing For America alum now on the communications team of the new mayor she helped elect.
Some team.
Richard told Ladra that the SEIU purposely concentrated on the county elections above the state races. “They made these their marquee races because of the importance to Jackson Memorial.
“There was a fundamental belief that this community has great appreciation for frontline healthcare workers, always, and even more during these challenging COVID times,” Richard said. “They consistently talked to the community on behalf of healthcare and maintained that relationship throughout the pandemic. It is not a political act. In other words, they consistently underscore their community service.
“They never lost sight that their number one goal was to keep you, me, abuela and every one of us safe,” he told Ladra.
So when these same doctors and nurses told the community who we should trust with our vote, who were the candidates who cared about public health and about Jackson.
“We have to relate to the citizens or the community on the issues that bind us, that are common to us — children, education, health — and not the issues that divide us — party, policy,” Richard said. “When you approach someone regardless of party about keeping their child safe at school, you can have a conversation.”
The community listened. “There was receptivity,” Richard said. “There was an absolute trust.”
Because that’s how you thank your healthcare heroes.
Jackson, healthcare workers in Miami-Dade make 2020 political gains via SEIU added by Ladra on
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