CT nursing home, group home strikes called off after deal reached
Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror
Latia Maldonado and other members of SEIU 1199 comfort Sylvia Grant after a press conference announcing a plan to strike if a negotiation over wages isn’t reached by May 27.
The state’s largest health care workers’ union reached a last-minute deal Friday with Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration to avert strikes set to begin Tuesday that would have involved more than 6,400 caregivers at 51 nursing homes and 193 group homes for people with disabilities.
The president of SEIU 1199NE, Rob Baril, confirmed Friday afternoon that union leaders and worker representative committees had endorsed the package negotiated late Thursday night and early Friday morning with the administration.
Full details weren’t available Friday afternoon, but Baril said, “We did make meaningful progress on a pathway to $30,” referring to the union’s objective of boosting nursing home worker hourly pay — which currently ranges from $18 to $22 for most staff — to $30 within the next few years.
Group home workers also “move ahead in a way that is important and meaningful,” he said.
The deal also includes a state investment of $164 million over the next three fiscal years combined in nursing facilities and $149 million over the next two in group homes, Baril said.
“The workers in our nursing homes and group homes provide critical support and care to our most vulnerable residents, and in doing so deserve salaries that reflect their dedicated work,” Lamont said. “I am proud to reach an agreement that provides workers with a significant increase in their compensation for the next several years while also addressing the workforce crisis facing many of our nursing and group homes.”
Baril said he realized that negotiations were challenging for state officials, given that Congress is eyeing hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid and other programs, which could cost Connecticut huge amounts of aid from Washington.
Though the work stoppage planned for Tuesday morning is on hold, several more steps need to be accomplished, given that caregivers have been working under contracts that expired back in March.
Lamont and the General Assembly must approve a new two-year state budget that includes the Medicaid payments needed to implement this deal. The governor and legislative leaders are optimistic about wrapping up a new budget before the regular 2025 session ends on June 4.
And private nursing and group homeowners, who receive the bulk of their funding from the state, still must negotiate wage and benefit agreements with SEIU 1199NE. Baril estimated that process will require at least several more weeks.
Matthew Barrett, president and CEO of the Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities, the state’s largest nursing home coalition, praised Lamont and union leadership for averting a work stoppage.
“A nursing home strike, which at its core separates caregivers from residents, is nothing short of harmful, traumatic and costly as was the case in 2001, when 40 homes went on strike and it was a full month before all the striking workers were back delivering care,” he said. “All parties who had a stake in this year’s strike threat, especially the nursing home residents and their caregivers, can rest easier tonight because of today’s announcement.”
Gian-Carl Casa, who heads the CT Community Nonprofit Alliance, which represents group homes, said, “We’re relieved that a strike has been averted.”
But Casa added, “The fact remains that nonprofits of all types have problems attracting and retaining staff” and that the ultimate success of any state agreement with the union hinges on proper funding of human services.
Both nursing homes and nonprofit social service agencies have struggled for more than a decade with state payments that haven’t kept pace with inflation.
And while state government has run up huge surpluses in the past seven years — an annual average of $1.8 billion, and is on pace for a $2.4 billion cushion equal to 10% of the General Fund this year — controversial budget caps limit investments in human services, education, early childhood development, municipal aid and other core programs.
Some legislators have said they expect that any agreement with the health care workers' union would offer limited funding next fiscal year, which begins July 1, and then include greater funding two years out or later.
The upcoming fiscal year will be Connecticut’s first since 2021 that the state did not have access to billions of dollars in emergency federal pandemic aid — resources it could spend outside of budget caps to supplement core programs.
Further complicating matters, additional state investments in nursing and group homes can’t be focused solely on facilities with unionized staff. Many homes employ non-union staff.
The nursing home industry has challenged the legalities of past proposals to focus funds disproportionately.
“Nursing home operators will need to learn more about any proposal that would include any feature favoring compensation and benefits to union employees versus non-union employees,” Barrett added. “It is a well-settled issue that providing public Medicaid dollars to benefit only unionized employees is discriminatory on its face and violates federal law, and this would put hundreds of millions of Connecticut’s Medicaid resources at risk.”
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