Labor Updates (4/1/08)

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
Nursing Home Workers Picket Manor Care: More than 50 1199SEIU workers and supporters picketed outside of Carlyle/Manor Care of Dulaney Nursing Home in Towson, MD last Friday, March 28 to protest management’s failure to reach a fair contract agreement. After months of negotiations, “management refuses to budge on key issues including affordable health care, decent pension benefits and contributing to a training and upgrading fund for workers,” reports Local 1199SEIU. “If the bosses continue denying workers a decent contract, we will be back outside, we’ll be bigger and we will be exercising our rights.” said John Reid, Executive Vice President of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, Maryland Division. Workers currently pay between 7% and 27% of their average paycheck for health insurance. The workers’ paid share of their health care ranges between 25% and 40%. The average salary at the facility is around $16,000 per year. Gloria Alston, a certified GNA who has worked at Manor Care of Dulaney Nursing Home for 20 years, says that the home is short on staff, equipment, diapers, cloths, wipes, towels and soap. “We’re running from room to room to find the supplies that we need. It wastes time that we should be spending with our patients and we risk cross contamination.”