Justice for Nursing Home Workers

Please sign the pledge to support
Nursing Home Workers!
Below is a pledge to support nursing home workers, please fill it out and fax it back to Jobs with Justice by clicking below.

The report from the successfull Worker Right Board Hearing on the Crisis in the Nursing Home to be released soon

Stay tuned for up coming events!

 

 

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: Nursing Home Pledge

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

We support the Nursing Home Campaign for Dignity and Justice!

IMPROVEMENTS IN NURSING HOME STAFFING for Dignity and Justice! Since there is no adequate legal standard for staffing in our nursing homes the industry is free to provide resident care with too few employees and thats just what is happening. Often one or two certified nurses aides (CNA's) must care for 30 or 40 residents! Such staffing levels show little respect or dignity for residents who regularly have to wait for assistance and they create unmanageable stress on workers whose professional responsibility is to provide quality care.

HIGHER WAGES FOR NURSING HOME WORKERS While responsible for the care of our family members nursing home workers are regularly paid substandard wages. A national study established that very few nursing home workers could afford to rent an apartment in Massachusetts Starting pay for CNA's is regularly well below $24,000.00 a year and the many other workers who insure quality healthcare in our nursing homes-dietary workers, kitchen aides and laundry workers-make much less.

AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR NURSING HOME WORKERS A 2003 survey by the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy found that almost all nursing homes offer their workers insurance but almost 50% of the workers go without it! Among health and human services employees, nursing home workers, on average are asked to make the highest contributions to their plans, while being some of the most poorly paid.

WORKPLACES FREE OF INTIMIDATION AND DISCRIMINATION Nursing home workers often face discrimination in the workplace because English is not their first language or because they ask questions about their rights on the job including their rights to organize a union. Massachusetts has now passed a law (Section 681, Ch.26 of the Acts of 2003), which makes it illegal for nursing home managers to use public health care dollars to interfere in their workers efforts to form a union for a voice at work.. We Will Join the Nursing Home Campaign for Dignity and Justice today!

ENDORSING ORGANIZATION

Contact Person ___________________________ Email address __________________________________

Phone (______)_____________________________Fax (______)________________________________________

Address_______________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Return endorsement to SEIU Local 2020, 21 Fellows St., Boston, MA 02119 Fax: 617-541-6841 Or Jobs With Justice 3353 Washington St., Jamaica Plain, MA 02133 Fax: 617-524-8996

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
April 08, 2004


Background Information

Dear Friends,

Workers and seniors in Massachusetts need your help. Jobs With Justice is working with the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO), Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 2020, and other community leaders and organizations to support the rights of nursing home workers in our state, many of whom are Haitian. The goal is to insure quality patient care while addressing the needs of nursing home workers who are often the only contact that the residents have for the last years of their lives. We hope you will pledge your support as we unite as a community to demand justice for nursing home workers!

On February 10th, 500 people including many nursing home workers, members of SEIU, GBIO congregations, and Haitian community leaders and organizations gathered.  Workers from the nursing homes spoke about what was needed to make the homes, many now owned by large for-profit chains like Genesis, better places for the residents and workers. They spoke of the discrimination that they face on a daily basis in some homes where they are forbidden from speaking their native languages during break times, and called “girl” by their supervisors.

The demands of the workers included:

v     Respect and an end to discrimination.

v     Affordable healthcare.

v     Decent wages and benefits.

v     Better staffing and patient care.

v     The right to join a union to protect their rights.

These are very basic demands that have very far reaching ramifications.  Workers describe their feelings of helplessness as patients’ rights and dignity were compromised due to unsafe staffing levels. When nurses’ aids are hurried and overburdened, the patients suffer.  The conditions in nursing homes need to change for the better, for the residents and the care takers and the workers have begun to organize to demand these changes.

This drive is part of a larger struggle for dignity for all nursing home workers.  This spring SEIU, which represents workers at 17 nursing homes, will be negotiating new contracts at the same time that workers at numerous other homes are seeking to join the union. GBIO is leading a struggle against the discrimination and lack of respect that workers face. Jobs With Justice will be mobilizing to support both of these important efforts and we hope you will sign the enclosed pledge and join us to make Massachusetts a better place for our seniors and the workers into whose care we entrust them.