Union, nursing homes face off over benefits
The union representing 600-plus Connecticut nursing home employees whose jobs were reinstated last week after an eight-month strike denounced a recent bankruptcy court ruling that allows those workers”™ benefits to be temporarily reduced.
The March 4 ruling came a week after the five affected nursing homes, which are in Danbury, Milford, Newington, Stamford and Westport, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and will allow the homes to temporarily institute the contract terms that led the union employees to walk off the job last July.
In his decision, Judge Donald H. Steckroth of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for New Jersey gave the five nursing homes ”” which are all managed by HealthBridge Management L.L.C. of Parsippany, N.J. ”” six weeks to line up financing that would allow them to remain open.
However, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) District 1199, which represents the workers, contends Steckroth”™s ruling contradicts a Dec. 11 decision by Judge Robert N. Chatigny of the U.S. District Court for Connecticut, which required the five nursing homes to reinstate all of the striking employees at their previous wages and benefits.
Chatigny”™s decision, which was prompted by a complaint from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on behalf of the workers, was upheld in February when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a petition by HealthBridge and the five nursing homes for the reinstatement order to be overturned.
“It is clear to us that the bankruptcy judge does not have jurisdiction here to effectively negate any of the directives of Judge Chatigny”™s injunction,” said David Pickus, president of SEIU District 1199.
Pickus said the NLRB has informed the union that it intends to seek enforcement of Chatigny”™s decision, which called on HealthBridge and the five nursing homes to “reinstate the previous wages, benefits and other terms and conditions of employment for the employees that were in place on June 16, 2012, and rescind any or all of the unilateral changes implemented by” HealthBridge and the homes.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said it would hear arguments later this spring for the appeal of Chatigny”™s ruling.
The five nursing homes include Long Ridge of Stamford, Newington Health Care Center, Westport Health Care Center, West River Health Care Center and Danbury Health Care Center.
The labor dispute traces its roots to June 2012, when HealthBridge and the five nursing homes it manages instituted their “last, best and final” contract offer following 18 months of negotiations with the SEIU District 1199 that failed to yield a new collective bargaining agreement.
At the time, HealthBridge said the move ”” which prompted more than 600 employees to go on strike July 3 ”” was the result of unsustainable pension and medical benefits costs under the previous contract with its SEIU employees.
If not for the bankruptcy court”™s March 4 decision, which allows HealthBridge to institute the benefit cuts it had sought last summer, the five nursing homes “would have suffered substantial monthly losses as a result of the onerous terms of the union labor agreements,” according to HealthBridge.
“(The) decision gives the centers the time to resume negotiations with the union so that they can reach new agreements that balance the needs of the centers and their union-represented employees,” said Lisa Crutchfield, senior vice president of labor relations for HealthBridge.
HealthBridge said the nursing homes have complied with Chatigny”™s Dec. 11 reinstatement order. Pickus, however, accused the homes of “attempting to subvert the course of justice and set themselves beyond the law.”
“Throughout the appeals process, HealthBridge had every opportunity to provide the financial and other information that would support their spurious claims of the financial harm that would result from compliance with the injunction,” Pickus said. But, he said, they “did not do so.”