While labor officials at District 1199 of the New England Health Care Employees’ Union expect a quiet year for employees at Women & Infants’ and Butler hospitals, come June they’ll be doing some heavy talking regarding the issue of government-sponsored wage increases for nursing home workers.
Patrick J. Quinn, organizer for District 119, which represents workers at 10 nursing homes in Rhode Island as well as nurses and other staff at Women & Infants and Butler, said last week that contracts for approximately 1,100 nursing home workers in Rhode Island will expire July 1.
Usually these workers, especially certified nursing assistants, remain out of the public consciousness, as long as they’re doing their jobs, Quinn said. But “we give them a strike, then they’re visible,” he said, and come June “we’re going to have a little bit to say.”
While the low wages for CNAs is a longstanding issue, in October, nursing-home
and long-term care advocates stepped up pressure on the state to deal with the
problem, urging that it pay $14.1 million in Medicaid money — which would be
matched with $16 million in federal money — to supplement CNA wages at nursing
homes. According to an industry task force, only 14,000 of the state’s 26,000
CNAs are working in the profession, because of low wages, and nursing homes last
year averaged a vacancy rate of nearly 12 percent.
The average starting wage of a CNA in a private nursing home in Rhode Island is $7.69 an hour, Quinn said — less than what a teenager could expect from a Burger King or 7-11.
Representatives from the Nursing Home Direct Care Staffing Task Force said several states across the country have enacted legislation to resolve this critical staffing issue. Quinn said it’s about time Rhode Island stepped up to the plate and earmarked this $30 million for underpaid direct care workers.
Quinn said there are about 105 nursing homes in Rhode Island, and that while the issue is not specifically a union one, he said they will work to make it “ironclad” that any infusion from Medicaid would go directly to labor and not disappear somewhere else.
While the issue won’t be resolved until the next budget is set, Quinn said there is nothing so far in the supplemental budget on it. He said the first budget message from Governor Almond typically comes in February.
District 1199 is also negotiating its first contract for Blackstone Valley Association for Retarded Citizens (ARC). Quinn said they now represent about 250 people at the agency, which is also completely state funded.
In Rhode Island the union represents just under 3,000 people, and overall represents about 22,000 workers in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts.
