Washington nursing home workers join statewide strike
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
The Grove at Washington staffers display their signs and chant while walkling the picket line Friday morning. The Grove employees walked off the job Friday, along with hundreds of other nursing home facility staff at 13 other locations throughout the state.
The Grove at Washington employees and SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania reps shout, "Here we go, union, here we go! SEIU's putting on a show," to the tune of the Steelers Fight Song Friday morning outside the nursing home. Nearly 700 employees at 14 nursing home facilities statewide went on strike Sept. 2 for better wages, staffing and benefits.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Employees chant, “We fight for our residents,” outside The Grove at Washington Friday morning. Staff joined 13 other nursing home facilities statewide in a strike centering on staffing, wages and benefits.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
When Arnesha Wilson, who belongs to SEIU Healthcare Chicago, heard employees at The Grove at Washington and other nursing home facilities were set to strike Sept. 2, she hopped on a plane and headed to Pennsylvania to offer picket line support. “These people at Washington, they love their residents,” Wilson said. “It’s about a better overall system.”
Yvette Steele, a certified nursing assistant, raises a fist along the picket line to protest The Grove at Washington's wages, staffing and health benefits. Steele and her coworkers joined 13 other nursing home facilities statewide in a strike Sept. 2, and planned to strike until an agreement with Comprehensive and Priority Healthcare was reached.
Picketers offer one another support after walking off the job Friday, as part of a statewide nursing home workers strike. The strike began at 8 a.m. at The Grove at Washington.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Yvette Steele and William Walden step in time down the picket line outside The Grove at Washington Friday afternoon. Employees from The Grove joined a statewide nursing home workers strike Sept. 2.
Nearly 700 workers at 14 nursing homes throughout the state, including employees at The Grove at Washington, walked off the job Friday morning, after Comprehensive Healthcare and Priority Healthcare failed to reach an agreement with the nurses union, SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania.
“Our goal has always been – and continues to be – to get a fair contract that invests in this entire workforce and will meaningfully address the staffing crisis,” Matthew Yarnell, president of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, said in a news release. “But the offers on the table still fall short.”
Last week, SEIU reached an agreement with Guardian Healthcare, and strikes at 10 Guardian-owned nursing home facilities were canceled. Negotiations between SEIU and Comprehensive Healthcare and Priority Healthcare began last Thursday and lasted into the early hours of Friday morning.
An agreement could not be reached, and the scheduled strikes at 14 Comprehensive and Priority-owned facilities began at 8 a.m.
“We were up until almost 2 in the morning and got nothing,” said Debbie Gray, president of the local union, who celebrates 21 years at The Grove Sunday.
“We don’t want to be out here doing this,” added Jamie Brown, who has worked at The Grove for 11 years. “They think we’re doing this for money. We’re doing it for the residents. Being out here is taking away from them.”
Employees are lobbying for improved staffing, higher wages and affordable health care.
Staffing is an ongoing issue exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, said Shellie Lawrence, vice president of the local union and a member of the bargaining committee.
“They don’t get the quality of care that they deserve and they pay for,” Lawrence said, adding staff is allotted less than five minutes per patient. “Two minutes and seven seconds isn’t enough. You can be in one resident’s room for 45 minutes, and now you’re in a state of neglect. What takes priority: the person on the floor, someone coding? Some of these people get dropped off and the family never comes back. We’re here to get better staffing for the residents, so that it’s like a home-like environment. You treat them like a family member.”
“We’ve had two aides on afternoons with 60 residents,” Brown chimed in.
Not only does that create an unsafe environment for residents, but it puts extra stress on staff, who have to work faster in order to meet all residents’ needs, workers said.
Nettie Moore, an activities aide who has worked at The Grove for seven years, said she is often needed on the floor.
“Most days, I do my job. But a lot of the time, like the weekends, you get shoved into helping on the floor,” she said. “Everybody is so burned out.”
Burned out, and undercompensated, they say.
“I live by myself, but it’s rough. I don’t live paycheck to paycheck, I live paycheck to two hours after paycheck,” said Sue Megyesy, who has worked in housekeeping at The Grove for 11 years. “It’s a joke.”
Those picketing agreed that the wages aren’t livable.
“The cost of living is outrageous. You shouldn’t have to have a second income, another job, to provide for your family,” Lawrence said.
Gray, who said she is most concerned about health care, is also upset at the starting hourly wage. She worries that a younger generation of nursing home staff will simply find employment elsewhere.
“Housekeeping, activities, laundry – they only want to pay them $13 an hour. Who’s going to live on $13 an hour? It’s ridiculous,” Gray said. Employees were also frustrated when agency staff crossed the picket line to replace them inside the nursing home facility Friday morning.
The per diem health-care job-finding app ShiftMed advertised shift work at The Grove at Washington on Friday.
As of press time Friday, ShiftMed was advertising CNA shifts at The Grove at Washington for Sept. 3, starting at $20.45 an hour. Wages for The Grove at North Huntingdon on Sept. 2 were listed as high as $45.29.
“They’re getting poverty wages,” said Arnesha Wilson, of SEIU Chicago, who flew here to support Pennsylvania’s health-care workers during the strike. “They’re not able to take care of the residents. Doing the best we can is not the best we can do. Nobody’s going back through those doors.”
If an agreement is not reached this weekend, SEIU – including employees from The Grove at Washington – will march in the Pittsburgh Labor Day parade, and the picket line will form again Tuesday.
A supervisor from The Grove declined to comment.
Wilson said workers at The Grove at Washington were willing to strike through Sept. 15 and beyond.
“It’s not like we’re asking for hundreds and hundreds of dollars,” said Brown. “I don’t understand what the problem is, coming to an agreement on a fair contract.”