Regina Yard

Registered Nurse | Holliswood Hospital | Queens, NY

"I believe to whom much is given, much will be required," says Regina Yard, an RN at Holliswood Hospital in Queens.

Yard responded in early October to 1199SEIU’s campaign asking each member to contribute $5 more to the Martin Luther King Jr. Political Action Fund.

But she didn’t think $5 was enough. She increased her contribution to $100 per month.

"We have so much to be thankful for as 1199SEIU members," Yard says. "I want to do whatever is necessary to preserve all that we have and to help others get them also.

"When my late father was ill he had decent health coverage," she recalls. "I had friends whose parents weren’t as fortunate because they did not have coverage when they grew old and ill. I certainly don’t want to be in that position when I retire."

Yard considers herself fortunate because she didn’t have to overcome the anti-union biases that infect so many of today’s workers. Her dad was a shop steward in NYC District Council 37’s clerical workers Local 1549.

"I was a union baby," she declares proudly. "I grew up in East Harlem and I also grew up going to picket lines and demonstrations. I spent many a day at Park Place, the headquarters of DC 37."

After working at Harlem Hospital and in state healthcare institutions, Yard joined the Holliswood staff in 1998.

"I applied to Holliswood because it’s an 1199 institution," she says. "My father always told me that 1199 was a great union and I’ve found that to be true. When you’re in 1199SEIU, you have another family."

Yard says she also greatly appreciates the absence of healthcare premiums and co-payments and the ability to order prescriptions online as benefits that have been won by a strong union.

"We didn’t get where we are without sacrifices," she explains. You can’t drive a car without paying for gas and you can’t take public transportation without paying your fare. It’s the same with politics."

"My father died in 2000, on his birthday," Yard says. "I recall his joy when I gave him an 1199 pin while he was in the hospital. I had seen the same joy in his eyes when I told him I had joined 1199.

"He probably was smiling down at me last week when I signed the political action check-off card."