Urban Peak staff vote to form union for better working conditions
Workers at a Denver homeless shelter are hoping for better working conditions. The staff at Urban Peak -- a center for unhoused youth -- has officially voted to form a union through Service Employees International Union Local 105. The union believes that it would make it the first-ever union for workers at a homeless shelter in Colorado.
In a 27-14 vote workers at Urban Peak decided to vote to form a union.
A couple of employees expressed the high workloads, turnover, and a huge lack of proper training and resources to serve homeless teens.
Jackson Vincent is part of the staff at Urban Peak and believes this work is important.
"A lot of them have come from a really painful past and to be able to provide safety and healing for them is most important," said Vincent.
Vincent works directly with the youth affected.
"I work boots on the ground on the shelter day to day. I am there sometimes in the daytime and night, helping the youth get their basic needs met and being in the moment with them," said Vincent.
The job they do at the shelter isn't easy, but their workplace hasn't made it any easier.
"A lot of us have had to work extra to make up for high turnover and many of the staff do not get appropriate training to be able to serve our population, unfortunately - there are policies that can be change to better our services," added Vincent.
Those policies vary, but employees say one of them includes how management does nothing to handle the trauma both workers and youth experience when incidents occur, including deaths.
"With the fentanyl crisis, we have had a few youth who have died in that way and other ways and staff have not been supported in the way the information is disseminated to staff and youth," said Vincent.
Shelby Glover, a former client and employee at Urban Peak left the organization for that reason.
"We had a client death that hit me pretty hard and being one of the only staff member having lived experiences and not having adequate support as well as dropping our sick time to the minimum in the state which was one hour for 36 hours and not having any training," added Glover.
Now as a union, they are hoping working conditions improve, so that they can provide better services.
"I hope that we can have right to have equal say in the policies so that youth can be served better and so that we have the support both mentally and physically to meet their needs," said Vincent.
Urban Peak management has yet to make plans for negotiation or bargaining.
In a statement to CBS News Colorado the management said:
"While the votes are still preliminary, if the NLRB certifies the election, we look forward to next steps so that we can continue to build out our programming and support our youth," said Christina Carlson, CEO at Urban Peak. "The most important thing we do at Urban Peak is serve youth experiencing homelessness, in support of our mission to ignite their potential to exit homelessness and create self-determined, fulfilled lives. The entire team at Urban Peak is deeply committed and I am grateful to each of them and our community as a whole for supporting the most vulnerable among us."