PAWTUCKET – About 198 nursing home caregivers picketed in front of Pawtucket Genesis Nursing Home, Hopkins Manor Nursing Home in North Providence and Charlesgate Nursing Center in Providence, Oct. 17, calling for a $15-per-hour starting wage as part of their ongoing contract negotiations.
The largest number of District 1199 SEIU New England members picketing were at the Pawtucket Genesis location at 70 Gill Ave., where close to 150 workers showed up.
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Nursing home workers’ contract at Genesis company expired in earlier October.
“We are currently in negotiations with Greenville Genesis as we speak. We expect to bargain with Genesis Pawtucket next week. And at Hopkins, we are scheduling another bargaining session next week or in [the] near future,” said Emmanuel Falck, spokesman for the union.
Deb Armfield, a certified nursing assistant at Pawtucket Genesis for almost 28 years, said in a statement, “In Rhode Island, nursing home workers need to earn a living wage to stay in the job. We are seeing more and more staff turnover, which hurts the quality care our residents receive.”
A 2013 analysis using survey data from a nationally representative sample of 1,174 nursing homes demonstrated that nursing homes with high CNA turnover had more than triple the odds of resident pain, and approximately double the odds of both pressure ulcers and urinary tract infections, according to the union.
It is vital for Rhode Island to raise wages soon because in July of 2018, Massachusetts home health aides will be earning a minimum starting rate of $15 per hour, said Falck.
Rob Borkowski is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Borkowski@pbn.com.
