After months of stalled negotiations, Tamarac Rehabilitation and Health caregivers voted overwhelmingly to accept the agreement their bargaining committee reached with management, which includes a $1 per hour increase for new hires, stronger protections in the case of subcontracting, and maintaining the monthly employer contribution to employees’ legal fund and health benefits.



Throughout negotiations, the company tried multiple times to erode the rights and benefits Tamarac Rehab workers had gained over the years, but bargaining committee members stood united.



“I have participated in negotiations every time for the last 12 years I’ve worked here,” explained Mylande Henry Phadael, a CNA. “I had never seen the company try to take away as many things as they did this time. We stood strong and without our union contract, we would have been thrown out like the trash. But, we showed our strength and fought hard!”



Just days after Tamarac Rehab caregivers overwhelmingly voted to ratify their union contract, their co-workers in the housekeeping staff who are employed by HSG, a housekeeping subcontractor, voted to join 1199SEIU. “It’s a great benefit to be in a union. We are going to generate the respect from our employer that we never got before,” explained said Rodney Steel. “I am happy for my co-workers who have been here more years than me. They deserve it. They work hard. They don’t get the respect they deserve. They go above and beyond their duty to make this place spectacular and each year we get a five-star rating. Now that we have a union, we can negotiate the wages and treatment we deserve.”