The union representing workers at a 120-bed nursing home in Yonkers and its new private owner have settled on a one-year labor agreement, ending a months-long dispute over union jobs and layoffs that delayed the $22.7 million sale of the Michael N. Malotz Skilled Nursing Pavilion at St. John”™s Riverside Hospital.
In recent bargaining sessions that also included top executives at Riverside Healthcare System Inc. ”” the Malotz nursing home”™s nonprofit seller and parent company of St. John”™s Riverside ”” officers of 1199 SEIU, United Healthcare Workers East struck an agreement with owners of Adira at Riverside Rehabilitation and Nursing that “makes quality patient care and good jobs a priority,” said Maria Kerkado, the union”™s executive vice president.
Kerkado said the agreement came “after several months of tough struggle” that included picketing by 1199 SEIU workers in Yonkers, charges filed by 1199 SEIU with the National Labor Relations Board against the Yonkers hospital and nursing home and Adira, and the union”™s objections to the pending sale in front of a state Supreme Court judge whose approval of the transfer of the health care facility to a for-profit owner was required.
Kerkado said the union”™s protest was sparked by an announcement by St. John”™s Riverside that nearly 140 caregivers at the nursing home would be laid off with the sale. Workers were required to reapply for their jobs with minimal or no benefits and at a significantly lower rate of pay, she said.
Hospital officials last spring notified the state Labor Department that the nursing home sale would result in layoffs for 226 employees in July, when the deal was scheduled to close. The buyer, L&A Operations LLC, also operates Sprain Brook Manor Rehab in Scarsdale and its majority owners also own and operate two assisted living facilities on Long Island.
“The way the transaction was happening was an unnecessary disturbance” to continued quality care for nursing home residents and their caregivers, Kerkado said at an Aug. 20 press conference outside the 98-patient facility on Odell Avenue. She was joined by Riverside Health System officials, city and state elected officials and Adira Rehabilitation owner and president Allen Stein.
Kerkado credited state Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the Yonkers Democrat, with bringing together the three parties to hammer out a deal in negotiations that stretched over three weeks.
Stewart-Cousins said the threat of layoffs and reduced pay and benefits for skilled, experienced union health care workers, diminished care for “our frail, elderly residents” and a hospital “straining under the weight of a nursing home that it could no longer afford” was “a very scary prospect” that prompted her to act.
“Everybody wanted it to work,” she said, “but everybody”™s version of how it ought to work was very different.”
Ronald J. Corti, president and CEO of Riverside Healthcare System, called the settlement “a new beginning.”
“I think we had three rational parties trying to make this work and I think that we were very successful, actually,” Corti said at the press conference.
For 1199 SEIU workers hired by Adira, the agreement maintains health, pension and other benefits included in the four-year contract the union signed last year with the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Nursing Homes, a group of metropolitan area hospitals and nursing homes that includes St. John”™s Riverside and its Malotz pavilion. The union agreed to reduced sick days, vacation and personal days and lower shift differential pay.
Adira agreed to hire for certain health care jobs based on union seniority, including at least 40 full-time-equivalent certified nursing assistant positions. For newly hired nursing aides and unit clerks, Adira agreed to a starting wage of $14 per hour. That is down from a starting hourly wage of $15.28 in the union”™s previous contract, but well above the $10-an-hour starting wage initially offered by Adira, Kerkado said.
Newly hired license practical nurses will be paid $22 an hour.
Adira will subcontract housekeeping, dietary and laundry operations to an outside company. Kerkado said about 50 union workers in those departments will be transferred to jobs at St. John”™s Riverside at the same pay and benefits.
The one-year deal eliminates a 3 percent wage increase that was scheduled to take effect Oct. 1.
“What we were facing here was a lot of workers being unemployed,” Kerkado said. “We were able to sign a good contract and it brings peace to the residents and patients for a year. Next year, we”™ll see.”
Stein, Adira”™s president and owner, said of the peacemaking deal with the union, “Let”™s hope we”™re going to be successful.”
“We”™ll see how it goes,” he said. “We”™ll try to make the best of it.”
