Unionized group home workers, and operators, are appealing to state leaders to set aside more funding for the industry as a strike scheduled for Friday
Oak Hill School in Hartford, the largest nonprofit agency serving the developmentally disabled.
Hundreds of developmentally disabled group home residents, trapped in a game of state budget brinkmanship, could be transferred into nursing homes next Thursday unless that battle is resolved soon.
At least two of the private, nonprofit agencies hired by the state to run group homes have begun plans to move clients into congregate care centers or to send them to live with their families if about 2,000 human service aides belonging to SEIU District 1199 New England go on strike next Friday.
Union members, who say they have faced years of low pay and poor benefits and then risked illness and death working during the first year of the coronavirus insist conditions must improve.
About 2,000 unionized workers at privately run group homes across the state agreed Thursday to delay a planned strike as the Lamont administration continues to work with both sides in the labor dispute.