Workers at five HealthBridge nursing homes in Connecticut are on strike after management imposed a "last, best, and final" contract offer on them in late June. Workers at one of the nursing homes had been locked out from December to April as a management pressure tactic trying to get workers to accept cuts to health care, sick days, holidays, overtime pay, and more. The contract HealthBridge is imposing on workers includes a pay raise, but cuts benefits and hours so that workers are in effect having their pay cut substantially:
(SEIU 1199)
The union is arguing that HealthBridge's imposition of its contract is
illegal:
"Everything they have done is completely illegal and their rationale for doing this -- declaring that we are at impasse in negotiations -- is also illegal and self-serving," [union spokeswoman Deborah] Chernoff said in an email sent Tuesday.
"Being 'at impasse' has a specific legal meaning. It doesn't mean what HealthBridge seems to think, which is 'we're not getting the huge cuts that we are demanding from our workers, so we're just going to force them to accept them, regardless of the law or human decency.' "
Workers are
picketing the nursing homes.
A fair day's wage
State and local legislation
- As of Saturday, Georgia's unemployed people will have 13 fewer weeks of eligibility for unemployment insurance.
- Florida Legal Services and the National Employment Law Project are challenging Florida's obstacles to people applying for unemployment insurance.
Miscellaneous