Workers picket nursing home, claiming breach of contract

The Enterprise — Anne Hayden Harwood

“I can not afford to be sick,” reads the sign held by 2-year-old Anaya McCleanos during a picket at the Guilderland Center nursing home on Wednesday; her aunt is a certified nursing assistant at the facility.

GUILDERLAND — Employees of the nursing home in Guilderland Center picketed along Route 146 on Wednesday afternoon, crying out for justice and demanding to be reimbursed the money they say their employer owes them.

“What do we want?” chanted a young man with a bullhorn.

“Justice!” cried the two-dozen picketers.

“When do we want it?” he asked.

“Now!” they responded.

The employees, members of local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, United Healthcare Workers East, say the owners of the nursing home, the Grand Healthcare System, have repeatedly violated the contract they entered into on Dec. 1, 2014.

The Grand Healthcare System did not respond to calls from The Enterprise asking for responses to the union’s claim.

Mindy Berman, the communications director for the union, listed several complaints, saying the employer:

— Has not been paying for health insurance or long-term disability insurance, despite the fact that premiums for coverage are being taken out of workers paychecks;

— Has not been paying for overtime;

— Has recorded hours of labor inaccurately; and,

— Has not been paying for holiday work.

The facility had 127 beds when it first unionized in 2002, and, under different management, had 170 workers. Those in the union include certified nursing assistants, licensed practical nurses, dietary workers, and workers in housekeeping and maintenance.

1199SEIU represents 110 workers at the Guilderland Center nursing home at this time.

Picketers on Wednesday carried signs with slogans like: “It’s our money and we want it now”; “Stop the fraud”: “Thou shalt not steal”; and “Don’t deduct for healthcare…that isn’t there.”

Pam Gowrie, a dietary worker, said she had been in a car accident, and, shortly after trying to file a claim with her secondary insurance company, received a letter saying her policy had lapsed due to non-payment.

“The money was coming out of my paycheck every week,” said Gowrie. “So I don’t know where it was going.”

Similarly, Erin Lumpumpala, a licensed practical nurse, went to the doctor, expecting her insurance to be active, and was told she had no insurance when she presented her card.

“I got turned away,” said Lumpumpala. “They told me if I wanted to keep my appointment I’d have to pay out of pocket.

“I thought they had made a mistake, maybe entered my numbers wrong, but it turned out everyone at work was having the same problem,” she said.

Gowrie also said that the time clock at the center was broken, and was underreporting the number of hours people had actually worked.

“Every week, people are missing hours in their paychecks,” she said, either through inaccurate recording, or not being paid for sick or holiday leave that had been requested in advance.

Rosa Lomuscio, the vice president of the union, said representatives met with the Grand Healthcare System in January, when the issues first arose, to try to resolve them in an “amicable manner.”

At that point, the Grand Healthcare System had owned the nursing home for only a short time, so, said Lomuscio, the union opted to give the new owners time to rectify the problems as they got things in order.

 

Crying out for justice: Employees of the Guilderland Center nursing home organize a picket on the front lawn on Wednesday afternoon. “This is democracy!” they chanted as they marched in circles. The Enterprise — Anne Hayden Harwood

 

Checkered history

“There has been so much turnover at this place, it’s unbelievable,” said Berman, of the frequently changing management of the facility.

The Grand Healthcare System is at least the fourth owner of the nursing home in the past 12 years, and has only been managing the center for “seven or eight months,” according to Berman.

When the workers of the nursing home voted to unionize, in 2002, it was still privately owned, but was in the process of being sold to a management company.

It took three attempts for the employees to pass the vote to unionize; votes had failed in 1999 and 2000.

The facility has consistently been rated sub par in terms of care over the years, based on inspections by the state’s Department of Health.

From April 2011 to March 2015, it had 54 more “standard health deficiencies” than the average nursing home, 22 more life-safety deficiencies, and 65 more total deficiencies. Twelve percent of the deficiencies found were related to “actual harm or immediate jeopardy,” according to an inspection report from the Department of Health.

In 2008, the then-owners, Guilderland LTC Management, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy; the company that took over after the bankruptcy, Guilderland Realty Holdings Corporation, agreed to pay the city of Albany $1 million in unpaid property taxes to be allowed to remain open.

 

More than two-dozen health-care workers carry signs and echo chants at the nursing home in Guilderland Center on Wednesday. The Enterprise — Anne Hayden Harwood

 

Unanswered complaints

“There’s a direct connection between the livelihood of health-care workers and quality care,” said Lomuscio on Wednesday. “How can health-care workers assist their patients if they are worried about making ends meet at home or are sick because they don’t have insurance?”

She said that, after the Grand Healthcare System failed to resolve the issues with insurance and pay after several months, the union filed a board charge against them.

“They agreed to sit down with us in May to talk things over and they asked for an extension because they said they were trying to work with insurance companies and figure out which employees were owed money,” said Lomuscio.

She said the union agreed to give them until June and told the company that they would picket if the issues were ongoing at that point.

Union representatives met with representatives from the Grand Healthcare System on June 8 and “still, we got no answers,” said Lomuscio.

They were told that the problem was with the insurance companies and not with the management, said Lomuscio, so she asked the Grand Healthcare System to invite representatives from those companies to their meeting, but, they did not.

“They are always saying ‘We’ll fix it, we’ll fix it, we’ll fix it,’” said Berman. “But it’s been months and every day it is something new.”

Union representatives and employees hope that the picket will send a message to the management company and get it to resolve the problems before any legal action is taken.

Six Albany County legislators —Bryan Clenehan, Allison Lane, Joe O’Brien, Raymond Joyce, Noelle Kinsch, and Doug Bullock — are backing the cause; they wrote a letter to the Grand Healthcare System, saying they were “greatly concerned with how the current labor and management situation is impacting workers, residents, residents’ families, quality care, and the local area economy.”

O’Brien and Bullock joined the picket line, as did fellow legislator Frank Commisso, who spoke to the employers and told them he supported their right to protect themselves.

Commisso carried a sign that said, “Honor our contract, give us back our time.”

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