DC Healthcare Worker Joins Actress Anna Deavere Smith Onstage At Arena Tonight

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

Actress Anna Deavere Smith -- of HBO's Nurse Jackie and The West Wing – will interview 1199SEIU member Lashawn Covington tonight after the performance of her one-woman show "Let Me Down Easy" at the Arena Stage. Smith portrays nearly two dozen people dealing with the vagaries of today's healthcare system in the show, and will interview Covington, a nurse's aide at Washington's J.B. Johnson nursing home, as part of a special audience talk back. Covington, a single mother with two young children who decided last year to do something about the low pay and lousy benefits at J.B. Johnson,  sparked and sustained the successful organizing campaign at the nursing home. Despite the unanimous vote to join the union, 1199SEIU reports that “management has dragged its feet during negotiations” and the J.B. Johnson workers still have no contract more than a year after voting for the union. “That’s why they’re so excited that Anna has invited 40 of them to come to Thursday’s show,” says 1199SEIU’s Jim McNeil, “and that she’s asked Lashawn to join her on stage to talk about the links between Anna's stories and theirs.” Click here for info on tickets for the show, which runs through Sunday, February 13.