nursing home | Today's Workplace

Share this post

Workers at the Four Seasons Rehabilitation and Nursing home on Monday walked off the job over what they called unfair labor practices during a pandemic.

Essential workers at the home off Newburgh Road say they are working without a contract and without enough personal protective equipment to stay safe. They also want better staffing levels and higher wages.

Workers at Four Seasons Rehabilitation and Nursing walk off the job Monday morning, stating unfair labor practices, in Westland, Michigan on October 19, 2020.

After agreeing to hold off striking for 30 days in August, it’s now back on, they said.

The home is part of a chain where workers represented by the SEIU Healthcare Michigan union are negotiating a contract.

“Governor Whitmer said it best: ‘With COVID-19 cases in Michigan on the rise, we cannot allow our most vulnerable patients to lack vital care.’ But nursing home owners have refused to come to an agreement that would equip us to provide the care our residents deserve,” said Carolyn Cole, a worker at the home, in a statement released by the union.

“We’re going on strike because if our workplace isn’t up to standard, it’s the residents who suffer.”

The nursing homes involved in the effort include the Charles Dunn chains. Calls to them were not returned Monday.

Ciena Healthcare and Villa Healthcare facilities are not included in the strike and reached an agreement with union members last week, the facilities said on Monday.

At 6 a.m., a group of workers gathered along Newburgh Road to march and chant. Workers inside the building walked off the job to join the picket line. A Facebook live video shows workers as they marched in the dark.

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, showed her support for the workers by making an appearance at the strike, tweeting: “The intimidation & racially-charged bullying is disgusting & must stop. Workers deserve a contract.”https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=detroitnews&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1318206599610159105&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.detroitnews.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fwayne-county%2F2020%2F10%2F19%2Fnursing-home-workers-strike-over-unfair-labor-practices%2F3706738001%2F&siteScreenName=detroitnews&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Workers protested in shifts, planning to stay outside of the nursing home until 6 p.m. Monday. Workers say they will continue to strike until a deal is made.

“We’re here until it starts snowing if he doesn’t give us a deal,” said Ken Haney, the executive vice president of SEIU.

Haney said the union and Dunn were in negotiations until 10 p.m. Sunday, but talks ended when Dunn refused to give in to the workers’ demands.

Some of those demands include better health care and more premium coverage, and increased wages for the certified nursing assistants, who say they’ve had to do more work during the pandemic.

“We’ve all just been working all over the place and we’re just tired. He can’t keep staff because of the pay … but you’ll have me as a CNA doing a two- to three-person job, and it’s not right,” said Iyone Pruiett, a CNA at Four Seasons Nursing Home.

Haney said Dunn is violating the union contract by direct bargaining and offering members an extra $1.25 a day to not strike.

“He’s creating violations against the National Labor Relations Act, against the contract by implementing wages without negotiating with the unions, changing working conditions without negotiating with the unions,” Haney said. “We’re still willing to go to the table, but it has to be on the terms and conditions that these employees, these members are saying they want.”

As the pandemic hit Michigan earlier this year, workers inside some of the state’s hardest hit nursing homes rationed protective gear, went without COVID-19 tests and struggled to care for seniors who carried a deadly virus.

Mashala Pate with SEIU, Service Employees International Union, on the sidewalk in front of the Four Seasons Rehabilitation and Nursing where workers have walked out stating unfair labor practices in Westland, Michigan on October 19, 2020.

About a third of the 21 nursing homes that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration selected to care for elderly individuals with COVID-19 at the pandemic’s peak appear not to meet new quality standards under a revamped policy.

On Sept. 30, Whitmer announced an executive order to establish “care and recovery centers” to replace her “regional hubs,” existing nursing homes across the state tapped to care for people with the virus who are discharged from hospitals or reside in facilities that can’t properly isolate them.

The Legislature and Whitmer are still working out details and trying to come to an agreement. Whitmer’s handling of nursing homes has been a topic of heated debate for months. About 32% of Michigan’s 6,781 COVID-19 deaths have been nursing home residents, according to state data.

A sign on the side door of Four Season Rehabilitation and Nursing where workers have walked off the job, stating unfair labor practices in Westland, Michigan on October 19, 2020.

In Detroit, where the COVID-19 virus has devastated communities of color and the majority of nursing home workers are Black women, workers aim to draw attention to racial justice disparities inherent to their fight.

“COVID-19 just reinforced what the Black women who work in nursing homes have always known — these homes put profits over people,” said Izella Hayes, a worker at Imperial Nursing Home in Dearborn Heights, in a statement.

“As long as owners continue to treat us like we’re expendable instead of the heroes we are, we’ll continue to stand up for what’s right: a living wage so we can afford to get healthcare just like we provide it, and proper safety protocols and guaranteed PPE throughout the pandemic.”

This blog originally appeared at The Detroit News on October 19, 2020. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Ariana Taylor is a breaking news reporter with The Detroit News.

Share this post

The Trump administration is poised to undo rules issued by the Obama administration last year to protect seniors from a common tactic used by businesses to shield themselves from consequences for illegal conduct.

Under these rules, issued last September, Medicare and Medicaid would cut off payments to nursing homes that require new residents to sign forced arbitration agreements, a contract which strips individuals of their ability to sue in a real court and diverts the case to a privatized arbitration system.

But last month, the Trump administration published a proposed rule which will reinstate nursing homes’ ability to receive federal money even if they force seniors into arbitration agreements.

Forced arbitration can prevent even the most egregious cases from ever reaching a judge. According to the New York Times, a 94 year-old nursing home resident “who died from a head wound that had been left to fester, was ordered to go to arbitration.” In another case, the family of a woman who suffered “two spine fractures from serious falls, a large, infected ulcer on her heel that prevented her from walking, incontinence from not being able to get to the bathroom, receding gums from poor hygiene assistance, and a dramatic weigh loss from not being given her dentures,” was also sent to an arbitrator after they sued the woman’s nursing home alleging neglect.

Moreover, as law professor and health policy expert Nicholas Bagley notes, arbitration tends “to favor the repeat players who hire them—companies, not consumers.” Several studies have found that forced arbitration typically produces worse outcomes for consumers and workers. An Economic Policy Institute study of employment cases, for example, found that employees are less likely to prevail before an arbitrator, and that they typically receive less money if they do prevail.

The Obama-era rules were never allowed to take effect. Shortly after the regulations were announced, a George W. Bush-appointed judge in Mississippi issued a decision blocking the rule—although Judge Michael Mills did caveat his order by stating that “this case places this court in the undesirable position of preliminarily enjoining a Rule which it believes to be based upon sound public policy.”

Important parts of Mills’ opinion rely on dubious reasoning. At one point, for example, he cites a doctrine limiting the federal government’s power to use threats of lost funding against state governments in order to impose similar limits on federal efforts to encourage good behavior by private actors.

But let’s be honest. If the Trump administration wasn’t preparing to end the Obama-era rule, conservatives on the Supreme Court most likely would have done so themselves.

Prior to Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, the Supreme Court’s Republican majority took such a sweeping and expansive view of companies’ power to use forced arbitration that it is likely the Obama administration’s rules would have been struck down in a 5–4 decision. Now that Neil Gorsuch occupies Scalia’s seat, Republicans once again have the majority they need to shield arbitration agreements.

In the alternative universe where the winner of the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election was inaugurated last January, Justice Merrick Garland was likely to provide the fifth vote to uphold the Obama-era rule. But we do not live in that universe. And neither do the many elderly nursing home residents who will be worse off thanks to the Trump administration.

This article was originally published at ThinkProgress on July 6, 2017. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Ian Millhiser is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and the editor of ThinkProgress Justice. He received his JD from Duke University and clerked for Judge Eric L. Clay of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. His writings have appeared in a diversity of publications, including the New York Times, the Guardian, the Nation, the American Prospect and the Yale Law & Policy Review.

Share this post

Find an Employment Attorney

The Workplace Fairness Attorney Directory features lawyers from across the United States who primarily represent workers in employment cases. Please note that Workplace Fairness does not operate a lawyer referral service and does not provide legal advice, and that Workplace Fairness is not responsible for any advice that you receive from anyone, attorney or non-attorney, you may contact from this site.

Select Practice Area:

Your Zip Code:

Select Distance (Radius):

Find an Employment Attorney

Workplace Fairness

Tag: nursing home

Nursing home workers strike over unfair labor practices

The Trump administration is quietly making it easier to abuse seniors in nursing homes

Subscribe For Updates

Recent Posts

Archives

Find an Employment Lawyer

Know Your Rights

Find an Employment Attorney