NY Nursing Home Workers Demonstrate For Contracts

Hundreds of 1199SEIU members - many on their days off, on vacation, and other free time - held informational picketing on Dec. 15 at 30 nursing homes throughout New York City, Long Island and in Westchester County in an effort to preserve their pensions and benefits and settle contracts after months of stalled negotiations.

“I’m getting to the stage where I’m looking towards retirement and I’m worried,” says Reette Mitchell, a CNA at Hudson Pointe at Riverdale Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in the Bronx. “If they cut our pensions and our benefits we won’t have anything.”

The majority of the picketed homes--for profit-institutions (and a handful of voluntary homes)--are represented by a group of five attorneys who negotiate their contracts collectively. Contract negotiations began last summer after the Union and the employers agreed to re-open their contracts in an effort to preserve workers pensions. 1199ers Pension Funds, like pension funds across the nation, have been drastically affected by the national financial crisis.

As negotiations progressed, scores of employers, including homes represented by the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes, settled their collective bargaining agreement with the Union. The holdouts have continually insisted that the same level of benefits and pensions that tens of thousands of unionized nursing home workers receive is beyond their means. The workers disagree.

“Our employer tells us he is not agreeing to adopt the League reopener settlement because he says he cannot afford the higher rates,” says Linda Gates, a housekeeper at Holliswood Care Center in Queens. He has threatened to close down the facility, she adds.

Marching and chanting in front of the 314-bed nursing home December 15, Gates is one of about 100 workers at the facility whose contract is expiring in April next year.

Holliswood Care Center is one of 29 nursing homes with 1199 contracts which have not yet agreed to the League reopener that was settled last July. Historically, the Center has adhered to League settlements as a so-called “me-too” contract bargaining unit. These facilities are facing a December 30, 2009 to reach a “me-too” agreement.

“They use the economy as an excuse,” says Hector Chabron, a porter at the Haym Solomon Home in Brooklyn. “When they need something there’s money. When we need something, there’s no money.”

Chabron pointed out that workers at the Sephardic Home, a non-profit institution next door to Haym Solomon, had settled their contract. Haym Solomon is a for-profit institution. “It’s not fair,” says Chabron. “We work hard. We kill ourselves for them.”

In spite of the cold and grey skies workers on the Dec. 15 picket lines remained determined. A family leafleting day is planned for the near future.

“They may treat us like dirt, but we treat our residents like family. When they, cry we cry. When they laugh, we laugh,” says Hudson Pointe CNA Mitchell. “So we’ll stand together as long as it takes to win. United we stand, divided we fall.”