[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 85 (Thursday, May 22, 2008)]
[House]
[Page H4455]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         AUDREY SMITH CAMPBELL

  (Mr. WEINER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WEINER. My colleagues, several months ago the Kingsbridge Heights 
Rehabilitation Center in the West Bronx unilaterally decided to stop 
making payments to the health care fund for its employees. Before some 
of my colleagues tsk-tsk, ``Well, that's just the free market at 
work,'' as the Daily News and their award-winning columnist, Errol 
Lewis, pointed out, this center has made $5.2 million in profits last 
year, and its CEO, Helen Sieger, made $700,000 in her salary, all of it 
paid for by Medicaid funds, our tax dollars.
  Well, Audrey Smith Campbell and 220 of her colleagues decided they 
weren't going to take it, they were going to go on strike. Audrey Smith 
Campbell was not a union activist or an ideologue, she was, for 30 
years, a certified nurse assistant caring for her parents and her 
grandparents, giving them dignity in their most vulnerable moments.
  She knew she wasn't ever going to get paid what she's worth, but she 
wanted to be paid at least enough to live on. Well, Audrey Smith 
Campbell is dead. She died after having a severe asthma attack because 
she couldn't afford to pay for her medication when she was on strike. 
She should be honored for the way she lived, and we should all be 
ashamed for the reason she died.

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