1199ers Picket to Protest Plan to Demolish NJ Nursing Home to Build High-Rise

May 27, 2014

New Jersey 1199SEIU caregivers from Alaris Health at Boulevard East held an informational picket in front of their nursing home on May 19 to protest an alleged plan by the facility’s owner to demolish the facility and build a high-rise apartment complex. Caregivers also spoke out against a lack of affordable family health benefits and their employer’s failure to bargain in good faith with their union.

Caregivers say that the 108-bed nursing home is an important asset to the community of Guttenberg, and that its elderly and disabled residents should not be pushed out of their home so that a real estate developer can profit.

“We consider our residents as part of our family, because we’re the ones who love and care for them every day,” said Lovette Howard, a certified nursing assistant. “They depend on us, and it would be terrible for these seniors to be uprooted from their community.”

Boulevard East is a profitable long-term care facility, having earned $3.6 million in profit from 2010-2012. Rather than shutting its doors, 1199SEIU members say that that it should be investing in its front-line workforce, providing caregivers with affordable health benefits they need for their own families so that they can continue to provide quality round-the-clock care to others.

“Right now I can’t even afford to pay for health care for my 5-year-old and 11-year-old children,” Rosa Arias, a dietary aide, told the Jersey Journal. “I love my job but I do more and more work and I don’t get more money.”