W. Mass Nursing Home Caregivers Celebrate Major Legal Victory
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has issued its decision in favor of workers at Sweet Brook Nursing Home in Williamstown, MA, ruling that registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and lead certified nursing assistants will be eligible to vote in an upcoming union election.
In the 19-page decision, the NLRB rejected all arguments presented by executives at Sweet Brook and Northern Berkshire Healthcare (NBH) as part of an effort to strip caregivers of their voting rights. The unusually lengthy hearings forced caregivers to endure six days of testimony in Boston and Leominster, keeping caregivers far away from their families and the nursing home residents for whom they care.
"Management at Sweet Brook has been doing everything in its power to prevent us from voting in a union election," said Betty Higley, a lead Certified Nursing Assistant at Sweet Brook Nursing Home who attended the hearings.
"They kept us away from home for almost a week. Enough is enough. Let us vote!"
In a statement sent to workers later Friday afternoon, Northern Berkshire Healthcare CEO Richard Palmisano admitted he was not surprised by the decision, because "it's typical for the NLRB to decide nurses are not supervisors," but informed workers that NBH will continue wasting patient care dollars on a costly appeal.
In recent weeks, NBH has wasted thousands of dollars on executive junkets and high-priced lawyers, just days after hospital executives threatened the community with service reductions and layoffs due to budgetary shortfalls at North Adams Regional Hospital.
Caregivers estimate under the direction of Palmisano, Northern Berkshire Healthcare has now wasted many tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer and patient care funds on executive junkets and a discretionary, totally meritless and unfounded legal battle against the voting rights of NBH employees at the Sweet Brook Nursing Home. Health workers want to warn the public that those expenses are increasing by the day.
The overwhelming majority of eligible staff at Sweet Brook have already expressed in writing their support for forming a union at the nursing home.
By funding an aggressive legal campaign and internal campaign of intimidation with public funding against his own staff, Palmisano's strategy is to convince employees to give up their goals of improving resident care and jobs at the home through forming a union.
Caregivers at the nursing home are increasingly being pulled away from resident care duties and being forced to endure one-on-one meetings about their private voting choices conducted by NBH executives, a practice caregivers say is bad for resident care and negatively affecting the overall atmosphere within the nursing home.
In recent years, North Adams Regional Hospital has received annual taxpayer funding totaling over $30 million dollars in the forms of payments from Medicaid, Medicare, the Essential Community Provider Trust Fund, and the state's Uncompensated Care Pool. Last month, the hospital received an additional $1 million dollars in public funding through the Essential Community Provider fund.