DETROIT (WXYZ) — "We take care of our community and it's time for the nursing home owners to take care of us," said nursing home worker Cheryl Mitchell during a recent rally. Mitchell is a member of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
"We want higher wages and better benefits," said Charles Harden, also a SEIU member, who works at Hartford Nursing and Rehabilitation in Detroit which is owned by Ciena Healthcare.
SEIU leaders are currently getting input from their members at over a dozen nursing home facilities on whether they are ready to take their issues to the picket line.
"I sat in on a couple of the negotiations and you can't even really call them negotiations," said Colleen Mahony, a licensed practical nurse in long term care. "The company's answer to everything is, nope, not in the budget. Not in the budget. Not in the budget."
"If there's not people at the bedside, if there's not people making the food, if there's not people doing the laundry, keeping up the facility, doing the activities, then they don't have a business and we don't feel like we're being compensated fairly for the work that we're doing," Mahony added.
The primary issues involve wages and benefits.
In a statement to 7 Action News, Amy La Fleur, Ciena Healthcare's Senior Vice President of Operations, said they are monitoring the possibility of a strike by members of SEIU Healthcare Michigan at some of their nursing facilities in Michigan and that they are "currently operating under active or extended collective bargaining agreements with the union."
La Fleur went on to say that nursing home providers are facing "unprecedented challenges" when it comes to hiring and retaining workers for "the critical jobs of caring for our patients."
"Ciena stands ready to work with all interested parties to find solutions to the issues facing our industry," she said.
The Health Care Association of Michigan (HCAM) represents Ciena and other nursing home providers across Michigan.
"A strike could be catastrophic to care," said HCAM President & CEO Melissa Samuel.
"Hopefully, everybody will just take a deep breath on this, realize the implications if it (a strike) were to go forward, and sit down and work together," Samuel said.
Samuel said what could help is money from a supplemental bill that Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed in early 2022. It's $67 million to recruit, retain, and train nursing facility employees.
“However, it’s been almost a full year, and those funds have still not been released,” Samuel said. “Understandably, providers are frustrated as they continue to wait for the long-promised relief. We implore the state to immediately release the funds.”
