Nursing home workers strike outside the Grove at Harmony on Sept. 7. The strike ended Sept. 9 with a tentative agreement, after a nursing home staff vote. Chris Kopacz / Butler Eagle
Nursing home staff across Pennsylvania — including staff at the Grove at Harmony in Jackson Township — voted to accept a tentative agreement with Comprehensive Healthcare and Priority Healthcare Friday, ending a strike by SEIU that had ignited conversations about pay, benefits and staffing.
The lone exception to this recent deal is in Schuylkill County, where caregivers from the independently-owned Shenandoah Heights continue to strike.
Better pay appears to be the biggest reason for the breakthroughs in negotiations, according to certified nursing assistant and SEIU member Patricia Grandinetti.
Grandinetti, who has worked at the Grove at Harmony nursing home for over a year, said the new contract awards greater pay to team members based on their experience in their professional roles.
“I am proud of my coworkers,” said Grandinetti. “We won. We did it. And things should get better.”
The Grove at Harmony is one of numerous facilities in New Castle, Irwin, Washington and elsewhere in the state that are owned and operated by Comprehensive Healthcare.
From Sept. 2 to Thursday, over 700 unionized caregivers from 14 Pennsylvania nursing homes mounted a strike over disputes about pay, benefits and staffing. Strikes at four of these homes ended Thursday when negotiators reached a tentative agreement with those teams.
“I’m certain I can speak for all of us when I say, we cannot wait to see our residents,” said Heather Connor, a certified nursing assistant at the Grove at Harmony.
A phone call to the Grove at Harmony, the only nursing home impacted within Butler County, was not returned by press time.
Newly increased Medicaid reimbursements recently approved by Pennsylvania lawmakers and governor Tom Wolf’s administration, which are intended to boost staffing and retention at nursing home facilities, will not kick in until January. Other COVID-19 relief money aimed at alleviating financial strain on nursing homes also has not yet reached administrators.
Staff turnover at nursing homes reached unprecedented levels throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and recovery from that crisis remains sluggish.
