On Thursday,
essential healthcare workers are walking out on a for-profit corporation that
refuses to put people before profits. Caregivers are seeking livable wages,
affordable health insurance, quality care for their residents, and an end to
management’s unlawful threats and intimidation.
Tomorrow
morning (9/17), more than 50 nursing home workers represented by 1199SEIU,
United Healthcare Workers East, at Highland Park Nursing Home in Wellsville, NY
will walk out to protest management’s unlawful threats and intimidation tactics
and the lack of a collective bargaining agreement. For more than two years,
workers have tried to reach a deal with management that includes basic union
protections, fair wages, affordable health insurance, and training
opportunities but have been ignored.
“In 2018 we
voted to join in union because we felt we were being mistreated,” says Maggie
Phillips, a Certified Nursing Assistant at Highland Park. “For 25 months we
have met and bargaining with our corporate employer all the while dealing with
threats, intimidation, and our co-workers getting suspended. What we want is
simple - more money to take care of our families and affordable health
insurance so that we can take care of ourselves and our residents. With all
that is going on, refusing good health care to nursing workers is absolutely
inhumane!”
Highland
Park is owned by Excelsior Group, LLC, a New York metropolitan area for-profit
corporation with no ties to Wellsville or the people that live here. Highland
Park staff, however, are from this community. They are our neighbors, our
friends, and our family members. More than that, they are the people that we
trust to care for our loved ones in the nursing home.
“Our
decision to strike was not something that we came to easily. It is a last
resort after more than two years of negotiations,” says Ellen Drew, a Licensed
Practical Nurse at Highland Park. “While our employer likes to call us
‘irresponsible’ for taking action, we love our residents and feel that it would
be irresponsible not to strike to protect them. Only by winning better wages
and healthcare we can afford will they have a chance at receiving the quality
and continuity of care they deserve.”
The two-day
strike will commence at 6:30am on Thursday, September 17 and healthcare workers
plan to return to work on Saturday, September 19.
