GLENS FALLS – Nursing home caregivers voiced concerns about wages, staffing levels and other issues while picketing outside of the Center in Glens Falls and at other nursing home facilities throughout the region Thursday.
Healthcare workers, push for fair a fair contract in Glens Falls Thursday
1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East caregivers held picketing events outside five upstate nursing homes owned and operated by Centers Health Care Thursday afternoon. The union members hope to be able to negotiate a new contract.
Donning purple shirts outside Glens Falls Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing on Sherman Avenue, about a dozen concerned caregivers and community members spoke out about the revolving door of staff. Signs and chants gained the attention and support of honking vehicles passing by.
1199SEIU organizer and CNA Mike Zyskowski said they have been in negotiations for nearly a full year.
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“Housekeeping, dietary, laundry services, they’re making minimum wage and we’ve been in negotiations for — next month will be a year,” Zyskowski said. “And our members have expressed in negotiations, we need more money to help recruit and retain staff. And then when it comes to nursing, they can’t recruit and retain staff because the wages are too low.”
Healthcare workers, push for fair a fair contract in Glens Falls Thursday.
Not paying livable wages means that nurses and CNAs can not stay working at a facility long-term, Zyskowski said.
“It’s a revolving door,” Zyskowski said. “They come in, they realize there’s no staff, you’re not getting paid enough, and you’re working short, so it makes it very difficult. So, we’re trying to get a fair contract so we can not only take care of our staff, and their families, but the community as well, the residents that live in our community here. That’s what it ultimately comes down to.”
Healthcare workers were called heroes during COVID, and now it is as if they have been forgotten about, Zyskowski said.
“We don’t give them the respect that they deserve,” Zyskowski said. “They are taking care of our community, so the least hat this employer can do would be to give a fair contract so that they can take care of themselves and their families.”
Facilities are operating with one CNA for 40 residents, Zyskowski said. How much care can they provide for residents when they are that short-staffed, he said.
The ratio is supposed to be 10 residents to one caregiver, said Tassiana Owens, who has come from Mississippi to work at the Center in Glens Falls for the past two weeks. She is a traveling nurse, or “traveler.”
Like many of the nurses and caregivers working there, she came to the Center as part of a 90-day agreement and is taking time away from her family to work in New York.
“Patients are not the problem,” Owens said. “The heads in charge are, the management. Travelers make less than in-house, but travelers are the ones doing the most work, the most time and hours. Our administrators don’t see that.”
Owens said she loves her job, but it is difficult to be able to do her job under these conditions.
Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner, D-Round Lake, came to Friday’s event in Glens Falls and spoke to workers about the issues they are facing.
“This has been incredibly eye-opening, at the horrible conditions these dedicated healthcare workers are being forced to work in,” Woerner said. “There’s no way that this facility is meeting it’s obligations under the state’s safe staffing rules, and the Department of Health and Department of Labor need to seriously investigate what’s going on here.”
Traveling healthcare workers were brought to New York under the guise of being able to make $19 an hour, the reality is they are only being paid $16.33 an hour, Woerner said.
“The Centers are providing housing for them, because they recruited them to come from our of state,” Woerner said. “But the housing is substandard. No plumbing, rats. We heavily regulated housing for the agricultural workers who come here, who’s regulating the housing that this organization is providing. I am outraged.”
Thursday workers at other facilities in Schenectady, Troy, New Paltz and Minoa held similar events.
1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East reports that it is the largest and fastest-growing healthcare union in New York and nationwide, representing more than 450,000 members.
Natasha Vaughn-Holdridge is a staff writer. Contact her at: 518-742-3320; nholdridge@poststar.com.
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