Union nursing home workers stage rally
JACKSON TWP — Union nursing home employees at the Evergreen Health and Rehabilitation Center on Evergreen Mill Road joined fellow workers across the state Thursday to send a message to their employers to improve care at homes and to turn jobs into family-sustaining careers.
Employees held union flags and signs that read “Quality Care = Quality Jobs” as they stood at the entrance to the nursing care facility.
Nurse's aide Leslie Raisley, a 21-year union employee at the Evergreen nursing center, said that last year nursing homes in Pennsylvania made $1.5 billion in revenues.
“We want that money to be spent on quality care at the bedside,” said Raisley. “We want a higher number of workers to take care of the residents. We want them to have quality care.”
“We love the residents. All we want is good quality care for them and decent wages,” she said. “Without the workers, where would they be?”
SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania members took part Thursday in a statewide nursing day of action at more than 50 care facilities across the state.
SEIU is the state's largest union of health care workers, representing 25,000 nurses, technicians, nursing assistants and support staff in hospitals, nursing homes and public institutions.
For months, nursing home workers have met with legislators in their districts to share the reality of nursing home care, short staffing, inadequate supplies and wages low enough to require many workers to take a second job and receive public assistance.
Raisley added that the about 100 SEIU union employees at Evergreen also are coming to the end of their contract, but there have been few negotiations.
The previously independently owned nursing care facility was bought last spring by Philadelphia-based Reliant Senior Care that owns nursing homes across the state.
A call to Reliant to comment on the informational picket by union workers and the state of contract negotiations was not returned.
On Monday more than 100 nursing home workers traveled to Harrisburg to urge support for new legislation that would address current gaps in reporting, staffing and spending requirements in the nursing home industry.
Many of the nursing home workers involved in the statewide day of action are among almost 7,000 nursing home workers bargaining new union contracts this year with large for-profit nursing home chains including Golden Living Center, Extendicare, Guardian, Global and Reliant.
