Health-care workers rally for better conditions
Union stresses staffing levels in talks on new contract
BY CHRISTINE VARNO
Staff Writer

Members of Local 1199 New Jersey Service Employees International Union demonstrated for better working conditions Saturday outside Monmouth Care Center in Long Branch.

LONG BRANCH –– Nursing home employees demonstrated here Saturday to advocate for improved conditions for healthcare workers and the people they care for at facilities statewide.

“This is really a chain-of-hope type of get together to raise public awareness about conditions at nursing homes in the state,” Roy Garcia, spokesman for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), said last week.

“[Nursing home] workers and caregivers want to express the hardships involved in providing quality care when [nursing facilities] are so understaffed.”

The demonstration was held outside Monmouth Care Center on Bath Avenue from noon to 2 p.m. Workers from Monmouth Care, Victoria House in Matawan, Pinebrook in Englishtown, and several other nursing homes participated.

Workers at Monmouth Cares are members of the SEIU local 1199 New Jersey and their contract expired March 31. The workers are currently negotiating for a contract that offers “equal pay for equal work,” Garcia said.

“Workers are having a hard time providing quality care to residents when they are understaffed,” Garcia said.

“Almost 80 to 90 percent of the staff at [Monmouth Care Center] provides hands-on care to residents and when you are short-staffed, that can be a real problem.”

The average state nursing home caregiver earns $7 to $10 an hour, said Garcia, adding that they are working at these wages in facilities that are under-staffed.

According to Garcia, Monmouth Cares is the third lowest staffed nursing home facility in Monmouth County, with workers there able to spend an average of 2.7 hours per resident per day.

In Monmouth County, which has 32 nursing homes, the average is 3.69 hours per resident, he said, and in New Jersey, which has 356 nursing homes, the average is 3.7 hours.

The recommendation by the government agency the Center for Medicaid, is 4.1 hours per resident per day, according to Garcia.

Sharon Schwarzkopf, administrator of Monmouth Cares, declined to comment on Garcia’s comments, but issued the following statement, “We have a substantial offer of a 12 percent increase over the course of the contract. Health benefits for the current employees are very competitive and we are not planning on taking any of that away from them.”

The SEIU represents 7,000 nursing home workers in New Jersey from Atlantic to Bergen Counties, he said, adding that it is the largest nursing home workers’ union in the state.

In the last two years, the SEIU held two rallies and sent more than 3,000 workers to Trenton to advocate for stopping nursing home budget cuts and for more federal funding for state facilities.

The nursing home workers were able to stop two budget cuts, according to Garcia, who said legislators also responded to the caregivers by passing the Quality Care Improvement Fund Act, which allots $80 million in federal funds to state nursing homes to invest in direct care.

“These workers were going above their call of duty and meeting with legislators to make them aware of poor staffing conditions,” Garcia said.

He added that workers have expressed their concerns to the owners of the nursing homes who have not responded to the problem.

“It is a big crisis. These caregivers want to make sure the staff can perform to their full potential, without being short-staffed or understaffed,” Garcia said.