Meadow Park Nursing Home Workers Stand Up For Us All

Meadow Park Nursing home workers at Meadow Park recently welcomed their new boss with a delegation and a letter and a copy of their union contract. Their hope with this action was to start off the relationship with the new Administrator in a way that sent a clear message that they are a strong union facility and want to work with management to find solutions for problems and issues. They got to about a 65% majority on their letter.

Nursing home workers here live in a work culture of little solidarity. In many areas there are informal networks of nursing home workers who pass through the homes and give one another support and information, but the general trend is to be divided, to not support one another in conflicts with the boss and to compete for available hours and shifts.

Most union nursing homes are getting raises in October--less than workers were expecting or want, but the raises are there. In the non-union homes the raises won't show up until January, if then. In the non-union homes people often try to either play the boss or get played to get more money.

The work is hard and isn't steady when nursing home censuses drop. The pay is way too low. Benefits in most union nursing homes are not secure; in non-union homes they are non-existent. The bosses benefit from the union presence in the industry because the union successfully lobbies for things which all homes get and because the union is an added source of industry stability. The union survives because the contracts are weak, the nursing home chains need the lobbying and stability and most workers in most union nursing homes want even a weak union at work.

In 2010 union activity in the nursing homes will pick up. At some point the industry will either turn against the union or step up its efforts to coopt it and render it powerless. The Laurelhurst home in Portland has been fighting the union for months, using all of the classic corporate anti-union moves. You get the sense that at least part of the nursing home industry in Oregon is taking notes and waiting for their chance to smack the union around also. This is why the effort at Meadow Park means so much--workers standing up to the boss in a nursing home at this moment can set the fire needed for union wins in nursing homes in 2010 and build a fighting union for the future.