Strike deadline set in nursing home dispute
HARTFORD — More than 2,500 workers at 20 nursing homes across the state have set a May 1 deadline to walk off the job unless the state addresses wages and what workers say are increasingly difficult working conditions.
Nursing home workers, SEIU 1199 New England leadership, legislators, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and a faith leader held a news conference Monday at the Legislative Office Building to demand wage increases, accountability of staffing ratios and protection of quality health care services for Connecticut’s nursing home residents.
Careene Reid, a certified nursing associate at Trinity Center Hill nursing home, said she has worked for a decade in her position and is making only $15.12 an hour.
“Since 2015, I have received one raise of 27 cents (an hour),” Reid said, adding: “I spend more time working than I spend with my own family.”
Reid said she has had to take a second part-time job just to pay the bills. She said staffing issues at the nursing home also have been an increasing problem.
“The only time we are fully staffed is when the state is in the building,” Reid said, a comment that drew loud applause from the jammed-packed room of union members who attended the news conference.
SEIU 1199 New England President Rob Baril said workers, the vast majority of whom he said make between $13 and $15 an hour, have voted 1,449 to 78 to go on strike if the union’s demand for 4 percent raises this year and next are not met by May 1.
The union estimated that
4 percent raises would cost
$40 million annually, but a large portion of the raises would be covered by Medicaid payments to nursing homes.
“Our members are united,” Baril said, adding: “To take a strike vote is never an easy thing.”
Wages for nursing home workers have grown, on average 2 percent over the past four years.
Caregivers also are facing lower staffing ratios at nursing homes, and residents require higher levels of care as the state of Connecticut’s population ages.
AJ Johnson, pastor of Urban Hope Refuge Church, revved up the crowd with chants in support of workers, and said nursing home workers “were the backbone of our health care system.” He, like Baril, said the majority of the workers were “women, and in particular, women of color.”
What seemed to emerge following the news conference was universal agreement that the workers deserved pay raises. However, what is at odds is who is most responsible for coming up with the money: the nursing home owners, the legislature, or Gov. Ned Lamont, who didn’t include money in his two-year budget plan for raises for the workers.
Lamont’s press spokeswoman, Maribel La Luz, said, “We sincerely appreciate and respect the valuable work completed in the nursing homes and hope productive discussions continue between the unions and the owners in order to avoid a strike.”
Office of Policy and Management spokesman Chris McClure said: “Twice in the last four fiscal years the state has stepped up to increase wages and benefits for nursing home workers — at a time when most Medicaid providers have not seen any increases.”
“In 2016, the state increased wages to over 200 nursing homes and new plans to over 40 homes; increases of nearly 3 percent and costing a total of $38.6 million,” McClure said. “Then, just this past fall, in fiscal year 2019, the state agreed to fund 2 percent wage increases to nursing homes at a cost of $23.2 million annually.”
McClure said the state is not the employer, “but we work to ensure the funding is available to assist the owners and used for the intended purpose of increasing wages for the staff.”
In response to the strike authorization vote, the Connecticut Association of Healthcare Facilities, an association of 160 nursing facilities and assisted living communities, issued a statement urging all nursing homes and collective bargaining employees to stay at the bargaining table and not strike.
CAHCF President and CEO Matthew V. Barrett said his association and its members have been sounding an alarm bell concerning the urgent need for increased funding to address staffing recruitment and retention, as well as operational needs, including collective bargaining concerns.
In addition to writing to Lamont, Barrett said his nursing home members have raised the issue of increased Medicaid funding for nursing homes at the General Assembly since the governor announced his two-year funding recommendation in February, which included some $90 million in reductions to anticipated nursing home statutory and inflationary increases.
“It is simply unreasonable to expect nursing facility operators to enter into costly multi-year funding commitments to address collective bargaining issues without the Medicaid resources needed to pay for those costs,” Barrett said.
“Nursing home operators understand the critically important work and value of their hardworking employees, but Medicaid funding at current levels is insufficient to address the full range of issues, including the underlying issue of longstanding Medicaid underfunding for over a decade,” Barrett said.
Meanwhile, Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, said it would be easier for the nursing home workers to get pay raises if the Democrats in the legislature had their priorities right when it came to giving out raises.
“As nursing home workers call for better wages, Democrats are continuing to approves contracts for a privileged group of state workers, including lawyers and former managers,” Fasano said. “The state has already approved $11.6 million over the next three years in new benefits for state employees who are new additions to state unions.”