WHY: More than 1,000 long term caregivers at now 10 for-profit nursing homes across Western New York whose union contracts have expired will hold one-day strikes in demand for fair wages. Caregivers represented by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East are asking for a $15 minimum wage for service workers, higher start rates for new employees, and standardized wage scales based on experience. Caregivers say wage improvements within all five ownership groups are needed to retain experienced workers to care for residents, but also to recruit new workers to help with critically understaffed facilities.
Nearly 200 workers at four Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (PPLM) clinics in Boston, Worcester, Marlborough and Springfield voted to unite in 1199SEIU
Buffalo, NY – Today, 1199SEIU filed 5 Unfair Labor Practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board claiming that McGuire Group violated federal labor laws. 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, the largest healthcare workers union represents more than 600 members working at four different McGuire facilities in the WNY area. The long-term care facilities are owned and operated by Long Island residents Edward Farbenblum and Orly Lieberman, commonly known as VestraCare, LLC.
Buffalo, NY – More than 1,200 long term caregivers at 12 for-profit nursing homes across Western New York whose union contracts all expired will hold one-day strikes in demand for fair wages. This month, 98.6% of workers voted by an overwhelming majority at each facility in favor of holding one-day strikes to win better wages!
Members of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, the largest healthcare union in the U.S, are proud to join their SEIU Florida partners to endorse a slate of more than 60 candidates for the 2022 primary and general election. Topping the list are Charlie Crist for governor, Val Demings for U.S. Senate and Aramis Ayala for attorney general. If they win, Demings and Ayala would become the first African American women to serve in these positions.
“As a union of healthcare workers, we recognize that the right to an abortion is fundamental to reproductive health, overall health, and bodily autonomy. 1199SEIU is appalled that the US Supreme Court has erased half a century of legal precedent allowing people to make the most basic decisions about their bodies, lives, and families. While much of the world is moving forward to secure greater reproductive rights, we have taken a tremendous step backward.
“As so many of us have feared, the Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court have reversed Roe vs. Wade, gutting reproductive freedoms, protections and healthcare for tens of millions of women in the United States. This will be especially tragic in states such as Florida with a legislature and governor who already have passed radical and intrusive limitations on women’s freedom and right to self-determination.
Weeks before his death in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed 1199’s Salute to Freedom Celebration at which he praised the Union for its “labor power plus soul power” strategy. Dr. King also called for a “massive civil disobedience campaign against economic inequality.”
Hanna Duda has been an 1199 homecare worker with the Personal Touch agency for 22 years, since she first arrived in New York from Ukraine. She became a US citizen as soon as she could and quickly applied for family-sponsored visas for her daughters, Liliya Kupchyshyna and Halyna Palis. It took ten years for
her youngest daughter, Palis, to be allowed to join her.