(Hartford, Conn./WTIC) - Workers at group homes in Connecticut could be readying for a walkout.
Employees at a pair of group home agencies, Whole Life and Network, have set a strike deadline date for October 5th at 6 a.m.
The agencies cover 70 locations and about 500 workers bargaining for new contracts. They serve roughly 4-thousand developmentally disabled clients.
Although the union secured 184-million dollars as part of the Long Term Care Workers Bill of Rights for nursing home workers, they say the operators are dragging their feet toward new contracts for the group home employees.
Rob Baril is president of the New England Health Care Employees Union, district 1199 SEIU. He says the state stepped up to the plate to provide adequate funding, now the agencies need to do likewise.
Union representatives say those at Whole Life and Network make between 14-and-15-dollars and hour in a long term care setting they say is severely underfunded.
They say with high health insurance costs of their own and a 14-dollar an hour wage, they are toiling in poverty.
