Evergreen Chang Chou

Ultrasound Tech / Brooklyn, NY

Evergreen Chang Chou, an Ultrasound Technician at Luther Medical Center in Brooklyn, has been a member of 1199SEIU for 17 years and a Delegate for 9 years.

Chou is also a Green Party activist who ran for a seat  in the NYS State Assembly from his district in Flushing, Queens. "My platform centered on increasing state funding for low-income housing, job creation and a living-wage bill.  Why is it that politicians can find money for warfare and no money for health care?"

Chou explains: "Working in hospitals throughout the city, I became aware of the many inequalities in the way poor people, immigrants and people of color were treated.  Even the middle class is being forced down to the ranks of the working poor through cuts, lay-offs and givebacks.  We are constantly asked to do more with less with the constant threat of being written up."

Working peoples’ living standards are under attack, Chou believes.  “Our hard earned benefits are under attack: sick leave, vacation, health care, pension and job security.  Chou says, "Not only must we fight to defend the rights that 1199SEIU has gained for us.  But we must educate our community - and in some cases our fellow Union members - of what those gains are, and what working conditions were like when left up to the employers.

“The media wants the public believing that Unions help lazy workers get big paychecks with benefits for doing nothing. We say, ‘Forward Ever!  Backward Never!’”