National Push by Low Wage Worker to Raise Pay is Lifting Job Standards in PA’s Healthcare System
Philadelphia – On Monday, March 14, 2016, workers at Saunders House and Bryn Mawr Terrace nursing homes achieved a groundbreaking victory in efforts to raise job standards by winning a pathway to $15 an hour in their new four year contract, ratified by a 94% vote. Starting wages will be boosted as much as 19% and workers will benefit from additional training opportunities and more affordable healthcare.
“I am thrilled that we were able to achieve $15 an hour in our new union contract. As a CNA, my top priority is giving our elderly residents the best care possible. $15 an hour will go a long way to reduce turnover and caregiver stress,” said Virginia Campbell, negotiating team member and CNA from Bryn Mawr Terrace.
Their achievement is the latest development in ongoing contract bargaining that involves approximately 7,000 nursing home workers from 50 facilities (both nursing home chains and independent providers) across Pennsylvania who are members of SEIU Healthcare PA. With current union contracts set to expire at the end of March, workers – including certified nursing assistants, licensed practical nurses, dietary, housekeeping other job classifications – are bargaining over proposals designed to move the industry forward for workers, residents and communities alike. Workers are calling for affordable healthcare, improved staffing, minimum wages of at least $15 an hour for all workers.
Despite the current funding challenges at the state and federal level, the nursing home industry continues to be profitable, generating more than $400 million in profits in 2014. Nursing homes are overwhelmingly taxpayer funded, deriving nearly 70 percent of their revenue from Medicaid and Medicare.
In 2015, the Keystone Research Center released a report stating that that nearly 15,000 nursing home workers relied on SNAP (food stamps), Medicaid or both at an estimated annual cost of $118 million to Pennsylvania taxpayers “This means taxpayers are, in many cases, ‘double-subsidizing’ poverty jobs in Pennsylvania nursing homes,” said Dr. Stephen Herzenberg, an economist, KRC executive director. “If we hope to strengthen the state’s economic recovery, rebuild the middle class and ensure that the Commonwealth’s aging population receives the consistent, quality care it deserves, caregivers need to make a living wage of at least $15 per hour.”
“$15 an hour for all nursing home workers means the difference between being able to take care of your family or turning to public assistance just to get by,” said Stephan Martin, a cook from Saunders House. “Nursing home workers have been hard at work for years to remind our employers and legislators that our jobs are too important to offer poverty wages.”
The national movement to raise wages for low-income workers has been building since 2012 as new waves of workers add their voices to the Fight For $15, including airport, childcare, home care, retail workers, adjunct professors and hospital workers. Just last month nearly 400 workers at Washington Hospital and members of SEIU Healthcare PA were able to settle a contract that will move workers in the hospital’s lowest paid departments to $15 an hour over the course of the contract, boosting the local economy and lifting job standards.
As momentum builds toward contract expirations at the end of the month, workers continue to mobilize, authorizing their bargaining committees to do whatever it takes to hold their employer accountable to providing contracts that significantly improve the value of workers and residents.