Nursing home union calls off strike hours before deadline

The union representing 3,000 nursing home workers preparing to strike at 26 locations Friday morning called off the work stoppage just hours before the deadline, agreeing to a tentative deal. But a strike could still happen this spring, the union indicated.

SEIU District 1199 rescinded strike notices for three nursing home companies in documents sent to the office of Gov. Ned Lamont. The notices showed June dates for possible walkouts in the event the deal brokered by the governor falls apart.

The strike cancellation, or postponement, came after Lamont’s top aides delivered a sweetened offer for wage and benefits increases financed by Medicaid: 4.5 percent in the first fiscal year, starting July 1, and 6.2 percent in the following year.

Lamont and Paul Mounds, his chief of staff and point man in the talks, announced a “basic agreement” late Thursday afternoon as one of the three

nursing home operators, iCare Health Network, became the first to publicly accept the offer.

Later Thursday, District 1199 announced it reached a tentative, four-year agreement with iCare that sets “historic” minimum wages of $20 per hour for certified nursing assistants and $30 per hour for licensed practical nurses. The workers will also receive pension benefits and additional funding to cover health care costs and wellness programs, the union said.

In a written statement, Rob Baril, president of the Service Employees International Union District 1199 New England, the state’s largest health care union, thanked the Lamont administration and Democratic leadership in the General Assembly for making the deal possible. The union has been pushing for a long-term care workers’ bill of rights that would ensure better wages, benefits, and staffing levels.

Nursing home workers were “rightfully lauded” as heroes throughout the pandemic, Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, said in a press release Thursday. “Now, with this agreement, we are putting money behind those words and financially supporting them for their critical work.”

The Connecticut Association of Healthcare Facilities, an association of one hundred and fifty skilled nursing facilities and assisted living communities, applauded the news of the averted strike in a statement released after Lamont’s announcement.

“Nursing home residents, their families, caregivers and the operators all can rest easier tonight with this critically important breakthrough achievement,” President and CEO Matt Barrett said.

But the tentative deal came too late for the industry, and taxpayers, to avoid strike contingency costs in the millions of dollars. All three companies had hired replacement workers, many coming from out of state, and made other arrangements — much of which is billable to state and federal taxpayers through Medicaid.

The state Department of Public Health has suspended its nursing home strike monitoring plan. Department officials , along with 50 members of the Connecticut National Guard who’d been put on standby, had been scheduled to begin on-site monitoring at the 26 facilities if the strike went on as planned Friday morning.

New strike notices were issued for 2,800 workers and dozens of facilities for June 7, pending final agreements with the operators of those facilities. Strike notices previously set for May 28 on behalf of 1,200 workers at 13 facilities remain in place, the union said Thursday evening.

Combined, the strike notices cover 4,000 frontline workers at 39 nursing homes in Connecticut.

Talks between the union and the industry had stalled in recent days as Baril decried low pay and inadequate staffing for all levels of nursing home employees.

On Thursday, the industry and the union returned to the bargaining table, prodded by the Lamont administration, which is not a direct party to the negotiation but is the major payer to the nursing homes through the state-federal Medicaid system.

Hours later, the state revealed its revised offer, which increases funding to the nursing home industry by $168.4 million over the biennium, with all that money directed toward workers. Of that, $22.8 million would go toward health and pension enhancements in fiscal year 2023.

That amounts to 4.5 a percent increase to nursing homes in the fiscal year starting July 1, and a 6.2 percent rate increase the next fiscal year - an unprecedented level of funding, the Lamont administration said.

That’s on top of a 10 percent boost to the Medicaid reimbursement, which would last from July until next March, to help the nursing home industry climb out of the financial hole caused by pandemicrelated occupancy declines and increased costs.

The sweeter deal continues over four years instead of two. It will actually cost state taxpayers less than the earlier deal, Lamont and Mounds said, because of the way Medicaid reimbursement is structured.

As Lamont’s top aides worked to broker a deal this week, nursing home operators and state were simultaneously preparing for the strike, including hiring at least hundreds of workers, many from out of state, and paying for their transportation and lodging.

Lori Mayer, a spokesperson for Genesis HealthCare, which operates 11 of the 26 affected facilities, said the company hired 300 replacement workers, many of whom were flown into Connecticut. iCare, which also operates 11 homes, hired more than 400 staffers to fill in — the vast majority coming from out of state, so the company is also paying for their lodging and transportation.