Multi-Racial Strikers Battle Union-busting Nursing Home Bosses

HARTFORD, CT, August 31 — “All the owners care about is money. They don’t care about the patients and they don’t care about the workers!” So declared a nursing home worker on  strike at the Spectrum-owned Park Place Health Center, one of four Spectrum-owned nursing homes in the state that have been struck for four months.

When Spectrum purchased the home following a fire a few years ago, the workers, members of SEIU District 1199, had a union contract. Spectrum has tried mightily to destroy the contract, and, if possible, to bust the union.

The bosses want to tie wages to Medicaid reimbursement, so if the latter increases, wages will increase a little, but if reimbursement declines, so will wages. Workers won’t be able to count on the wages they’ll receive. Furthermore, the owners’ plan will cut holidays.

“We want a fair contract. If we give back, it will just get worse and worse. This with the economy so bad and everything going up in price,” said one striker. “Some of the work is very hard, lifting patients, moving them from one place to another. If we get hurt, we get put on light duty and our pay is cut $4 to $5 an hour. If someone gets hurt, they won’t tell the boss because their pay will be cut, so people are working hurt, which is not safe for the workers or the patients.”

“To me,” said another striker, “it’s as much about the patients as it is about us. One patient came down to the picket line — what were the scabs doing that he got out? — to get shaved by his regular CNA (certified nursing assistant). She shaved him.” In another incident, a patient came down to the line short of breath. “We called 911 to get help for him while the scabs watched from the building,” said the striker. “We and the patients are like family.”

Scabs are crossing the line. One group comprises those who were working before the strike and did not honor the picket line. “The strike would be over if they had come out,” was one comment.

The others are young people fresh out of school who are told by the bosses that they will have permanent jobs if they cross the line. These people are generally dumped after three months before they qualify for medical insurance. As one woman said, “I feel sorry for these young people who were conned into coming here to work and then kicked out. On the other hand, they crossed our line, and it’s our job and our life, so too bad!”

The strike is the sharpest example of class struggle in Connecticut at the moment, so much so that before the Democratic gubernatorial primary, candidate Dan Malloy walked the picket line to “prove” he’s pro-union. PLP can play a role in this strike in exposing unions’ and politicians’ collaboration with the bosses, and showing workers that only a revolutionary fight can win workers’ power.

The workers, Latino, black and white, women and men, are united and optimistic. “We’re going to win. We’re not going to give up,” vowed one woman. PL’ers have been organizing strike support and introducing communist ideas to the strikers.