Published May 13. 2021 5:00PM | Updated May 13. 2021 7:37PM
KEITH M. PHANEUF and JENNA CARLESSO, The Connecticut Mirror
Gov. Ned Lamont announced a tentative deal between the state’s largest health care workers’ union and the nursing home industry late Thursday afternoon that would avert a strike Friday at 26 facilities.
The agreement came two hours after the administration sweetened its offer to fund the industry in the next state budget.
“I’m very confident we’ll have some news on that before the evening is out,” the governor said at 4:20 p.m. as he opened his televised briefing on the state’s coronavirus containment efforts.
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Strike deadline nears for 3,400 Connecticut nursing home workers
Workers at 33 nursing homes in Connecticut could begin a strike on Friday, May 14, if their demands for better pay, benefits and staffing ratios are not met. More than 3,400 nurses, receptionists, dietary aides, housekeepers and laundry staff at these facilities have been working without a contract since March 15. Contracts at 18 other Connecticut nursing homes have expired as well, and workers at these sites could join the strike, should it occur.
Healthcare workers protest over payroll delays in February outside of Allied Community Services East Windsor, CT. (Photo credit: Shana Sureck with the New England Health Care Employees Union, District 1199, SEIU)
Report finds failures at Connecticut nursing homes as strikes loom
Dave Collins
The report also accuses nursing home owners of failing to follow federal guidance on the use of protective equipment and having inadequate infection control, testing and quarantine procedures during the pandemic. It alleges state officials haven t done enough to oversee nursing homes and hold them accountable.
The report, titled We Were Abandoned: How Connecticut Failed Nursing Home Workers and Residents During The COVID-19 Pandemic, was written by Yale Law School students for the Service Employees International Union s District 1199 New England, which represents about 5,000 nursing home workers in Connecticut. Students in Yale s Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic surveyed employees and reviewed state regulatory documents for the report.
Lamont offers $280M to nursing homes, workers to avert strike
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Gov. Ned Lamont greets Jeanne Peters, 95, a rehab patient at The Reservoir, a nursing facility in West Hartford, after she was given the first COVID-19 vaccination at the nursing home Friday, Dec. 18, 2020. The home, owned by Genesis HealthCare, is among those where a strike has been authorized.Stephen Dunn / Associated PressShow MoreShow Less
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Gov. Ned Lamont is offering up an additional $150 million in Medicaid funding to the nursing home industry, an increase of 4.5 percent for wage increases for workers in each of the next two years, in hopes of quelling the impending strike of thousands of employees Friday morning.