BUFFALO (WBEN) - Represented by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, workers at the Buffalo Community Healthcare Center announced Wednesday a tentative agreement with The Grand Healthcare System, and members will be voting to ratify the contract next week.
More than 100 nursing home workers in Buffalo and Rochester had planned informational pickets Wednesday to demand safe staffing levels, better wages, and healthcare benefits.
Certified Nursing Assistants Tanequa Everett and Angela Robbins expect the contract to be ratified.
“We want safe staffing ratios to better provide for our residents, but we also need better pay rate so people want to stay here,” said Everett. “They hire people every week, and no one stays because they refuse to work for $12.60 an hour. Some people are working 180 hours every two weeks and still can’t make ends-meet.
"I’m a C.N.A. and I only earn $13.50 an hour," she continued. "We need a living wage."
Per the union, workers at Buffalo Community Healthcare Center and Rochester Community Nursing & Rehabilitation, both owned and operated by The Grand Healthcare System, are among the lowest paid caregivers in Western New York, earning below the average wage of workers at other area nursing homes.
Of course, this contract agreement is coming off the heels of the 35-day strike at Mercy Hospital. The common theme in both negotiations? Wages and staffing.
"There's a lot of stress," said Robbins. "You come to work every day, (whether) you're full-time or part-time...and you know that you that you have an assignment that you are supposed to take on but then come to find out it might only be two people for five assignments.
"You still have a family you've got to take care of when you go home at the end of the day," Robbins added. "You've still got things you've got to do with your kids, you know? It's very stressful."
