Nurses and home workers introduce upcoming contract proposals at Nursing Home Bargaining Conference dailyemerald.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dailyemerald.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Don McIntosh
After 23 residents died in nine weeks, six from COVID, 85% of workers at the Rawlin memory care nursing home in Springfield, Oregon, signed union cards and went on strike Feb. 16 to demand union recognition.
Though common in the 1930s, so-called “recognition strikes” are rare today. But nursing home workers felt conditions were too unsafe to wait months for a National Labor Relations Board election to prove majority support for joining Service Employees Local 503. Workers said they were motivated to strike in response to understaffing, severe patient neglect, inadequate training, and high employee turnover. Twenty-six of the facility’s 48 workers took part in the strike.