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| City View Multicare Center nursing home in Cicero on April 24, 2020. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) |
Workers at 11 nursing homes in Illinois are threatening to go on strike next week unless they are given raises comparable to other long-term care workers in the state.
Nearly 700 members of SEIU Healthcare Illinois Indiana, part of the Service Employees International Union, voted to strike on Nov. 23 if Infinity Healthcare Management doesn’t meet their demands for higher base pay and pandemic hazard pay. Strike notices were delivered Thursday, the union said.
Most of the workers are women, and many of them are Black or Hispanic.
Most of the 11 homes that would be affected by a strike are in the Chicago area. They include City View Multicare Center in Cicero, which had 249 coronavirus cases, and Niles Nursing & Rehabilitation in Niles, which had 54 COVID-related deaths, the most at any long-term care facility in the state.
Certified nursing assistants, or CNAs, who do most of the hands-on work with patients at the homes, are seeking a starting rate of $15.50 statewide, while other workers such as housekeepers and laundry workers are seeking $14.50 an hour outside Chicago and $15 an hour in Chicago, union officials said.
Infinity facilities received nearly $13 million in COVID-related economic assistance from the federal CARES Act, the union reported, and are seeking more.
Infinity did not answer multiple calls and emails for comment. In general, nursing home administrators have said they are limited by low Medicaid payments, and need government help to weather the ongoing COVID pandemic.
Last year, state lawmakers increased Medicaid funding for nursing homes by up to $240 million — $70 million of which was targeted to address staffing needs.
Statewide, nursing home residents have accounted for more than half of all deaths of people with COVID. Union workers said they were concerned that if they go on strike, their patients would be cared for by managers and contracted outside workers, but put the responsibility on Infinity to provide them with living wages and adequate protective medical equipment. Their contract expired June 1.
“Front-line workers are heroes,” U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García said at a
news conference Monday with the workers. “We must provide them with the
wages, benefits and protection they deserve.”
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