Twenty-three-year-old Karlie Cole is a new 1199SEIU member-leader at HCA Florida Northside Hospital in Saint Petersburg and a proud member of Generation Z.

The Patient Care Technician (PCT) says the traits of her generation align strongly with her new and growing role as a rank-and-file leader to build support and advocate for the rights, benefits and well-being of her co-workers.

“We’re Generation Z, we’re vocal and we don’t back down,” Cole says. “When it comes to caring for and protecting others, I’m like a dog with a bone.”

While naturally inclined to speak up and lead worker discussions, meetings and other initiatives, Cole also has begun the official process of becoming a 1199SEIU union delegate.  Delegates are chosen and elected by their co-workers to formally represent the voice of the union in the facilities where they work. Throughout 1199SEIU’s history, delegates have been the backbone of the organization, with their leadership vital to mobilization of members, collective bargaining success, union organizing, and winning political campaigns.

Cole quickly established herself as a leader and is working toward becoming a delegate after less than a year as a union member with high energy, commitment and a powerful, articulate voice on behalf of her co-workers and patients. 

“Karlie is a dynamic new member-leader,” says Joseph Comer, 1199SEIU staff organizer at HCA Florida Northside Hospital. “She brings a unique combination youthful enthusiasm along with the empathy and wisdom of someone far more experienced. She understands that if more workers unite, they build a stronger voice and positive influence in the workplace.”

Cole says she always was precocious growing up, debating issues and politics with teachers and adults who quickly realized they had to take her seriously. In the presidential election of 2016 -- while she was only 16 years old -- she could see the damage Donald Trump would inflict on the people and reverse much of the progress we’ve made as a nation. 

Now, especially as a Florida caregiver, she’s experiencing first-hand the fallout and unfairness of Trump 2.0 and Tallahassee’s dangerous attacks on Medicaid and healthcare in general, education, women’s reproductive rights and almost all essential needs of working people. Making this even more tragic, the massive budget cuts to essential programs such as Medicaid are to gift trillions in tax breaks to billionaires and big business.

“The people of our country and state deserve so much better than the harm coming down from Tallahassee and Washington,” she says.

Recently, however, Cole met a number of political leaders who truly are dedicated to improve the lives of their constituents. As part of an 1199SEIU delegation, she traveled to the nation’s capital for the first time.  She was especially inspired and felt a bond with Rep. Maxwell Frost from Florida. Elected at age 25, Frost is the first member of Generation Z to serve in the U.S. Congress.  He also shares Cole’s Afro-Latino heritage.

“But even more than our age and background, we have in common a deep commitment to ‘acts of service.’  That’s why I became a caregiver in the first place. And now as a member-leader and future delegate I can do even more to improve the lives of my co-workers, patients and community.”