(Hartford) For six months now, members of SEIU District 1199 have been on strike at four nursing homes operated by Spectrum Healthcare following failed attempts to secure a contract, which originally expired on March 15, 2009. In that time, workers have faced intimidation, harassment and at least 14 Spectrum employees have been suspended or fired. Recently the National Labor Relations Board issued a formal complaint against Spectrum for “failing and refusing” to negotiate in good faith.
Interviews with striking workers and supporters: (Transcripts below video)
For more info visit: www.seiu1199ne.org
Transcript of audio:
My name’s Patty Pickis. I’m a LPN at Park Place Center, I’ve been a LPN there for 21years. Basically we went out on strike, April 15. That’s when our struggle began. Spectrum has been told that Spectrum broke the law by the NLRB by firings and hiring replacements. Our strike was basically an unfair labor practice strike against the laws that they were breaking.
Meghan Quinn: Specifically what laws was the management breaking?
PP: They were firing people, first of all. They were suspending people unjustly. And then they hired permanent replacements when we went out. That’s basically it in a nutshell. They actually have a hearing on November 2, to give their side of it. Of course, you know, everybody gets a chance to speak but we know what happened inside.
MQ: You’ve been on strike here for six months. Can you talk a little bit about that?
PP: It’s been a struggle. But we’ve built a lot of tight relationships while being out here. Financially we’re all doing okay. We’d like to have our jobs back, we’d love to have our jobs back. But we’re going to manage until this strike is over. Otherwise we’re caving in to a society of people that don’t have fair wages and decent benefits.
MQ: Is there anything else you want to add?
PP: Just hopefully they’ll start abiding by the law. They’re still breaking the law as to how they’re taking us back. If they just would smarten up and end this strike, everything would be wonderful.
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First of all my name is Taycha Trinidad. I worked as a nurse’s aid at Park Place, in Hartford. We are not “on strike” right now because they don’t consider it a strike, but we’re still struggling for what we need because they’re still breaking the law. I’m out here just to teach my kids that they’ve got to stand up for what they believe in because if not, you’re not going to get anywhere.
One of the things that they are trying to take away from us is the funding for school, and right now I am going to school to become a LPN hopefully a nurse one day. And I think for me that’s one of the things that I’m fighting out here – and my pension, because I want to have something when I get old. And they keep on like that, I’m not going to have anything, you know? So that’s why I’m out here.
MQ: What’s it been like being on strike for 6 months?
TT: It’s been pretty hard having to be out here because I used to work part time. In order for me to make what I was making in there part time, I have to be here forty hours a week. Basically, before I only worked three days. So I am having problems with child care and stuff like that. But I’m getting by. And one of the good things of being out on strike is us as co-workers have gotten to know each other much better and I think when we go back in there we’re going to be a whole lot stronger together as a team.
MQ: How many of you are on strike right now?
TT: All together, it’s about 300 workers, with all four nursing homes. And out here, I think it’s about 100 at Park Place.
MQ: So what have you learned from this whole experience… about labor, about nursing, or whatever?
TT: Just that I think they need to put a whole lot more money than what they’re putting into nursing homes because this is where we’re all going to end up one day or another, you know, believe it or not. They need to spend the time and effort into making it better. And where do you start? With your workers.
MQ: How does this affect the clients in the nursing home to have people who are underpaid taking care of them? I mean, it seems like an obvious equation that you’d want to pay people well who are taking care of your grandparents.
TT: I would’ve figured that that’s what you’d want to do, pay people bettter. Especially people who are doing the job that nobody wants to do, basically. Because a lot of people don’t want to do this kind of job. And we’re out here doing it. And it’s hard when we don’t even get a break. And working short every day. It’s very hard doing that kind of job. We do what we can and I know when I do my job, I don’t do it for the money. But I would like to be compensated for what I’m doing.
I love these patients. They were part of my family. I see them every day, I cry with them, I laugh with them, I hug them, they knew my kids, you know. So it’s hard seeing them suffering there. Because that’s what they’re going through right now, they’re suffering. Because those people aren’t taking care of them the way they’re supposed to.
Dave Rozza: Do you have the support of the patients?
TT: Yeah, we have support of the patients. There’s a few of them that can’t come out and support us of course, but the ones that do, they do come out and they do support us. So that’s a good thing – we know that we have their support.
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MQ: Why are you supporting this effort?
Bill Shortell: These are brave workers. They’ve been been on strike for, trying to get a living wage for 6 months, in the rain, and you’ve got to come out. Actually we get energy from being here.
MQ: Do you think their efforts will be successful?
BS: It’s more the struggle than it is some of the time. The fact that they’re not giving up, the fact that they won’t allow the boss to dictate without a fight, it gives energy to the rest of us. I’m a machinist and we’re going into contract negotiations, and our company United Technologies is attempting to gut out contract so we’re going to need all the help we can get too. (Bill Shortell)
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Steve Thornton, SEIU: Today we’re marking the 6 month anniversary of our struggle at Spectrum Healthcare. In Hartford, it’s the Park Place nursing home, where 120 nursing home workers were forced out on strike on April 15. And that’s after having worked without a contract for over a year. This is an employer who doesn’t want to settle a fair contract with us.
We’ve had 36 other homes who have settled fair contracts with us – modest contracts, nothing we can tout because they’re relatively modest contracts, but this employer – Howard Dickstein, Brian Dickstein, Sean Murphy, David Kelly, these owners of the nursing home chain have decided that they’re going to break this union. These workers are telling them, again, that they won’t let them do it.
MQ: How do you feel at the 6-month mark right now?
ST: No one wants to be out on strike. And certainly in a bad economy it’s tougher. But what’s really absolutely amazing about these workers, these nurse’s aids, dietary workers, laundry workers, housekeepers and nurses, it’s really truly extraordinary is that they got pushed to the wall, and they decided they aren’t going to take this and they went out on strike to protect what they had. I’m just enormously proud of being able to work with them.
I know we’re going to win but I also know that these victories sometimes take quite a while, much longer strikes than what we’ve got right now when we’ve prevailed, so we fully expect to do that too, but we really need to have community support.
So everybody who sits back and listens to this radio broadcast and says “yeah, gee aren’t they good,” they should come and walk the picket with us sometimes. And if they don’t know why we’re doing this, and they need more explanation, they should come and just talk to some of these single moms who are risking everything to protect the gains they built.
MQ: So where are you located if people want to come out and support or just ask questions?
ST: Park Place Nursing Home is at 5 Greenwood Street, which is off Park Street, near Lena’s and Sully’s. We are here from 6 in the morning until 11:30 at night. You may see people sitting occasionally because they’re resting their feet or they’re eating their meals, but in general we’re walking that picket line 18 hours a day.
(Steve Thornton, SEIU 1199)
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