NEWS RELEASE -- 07/30/2024
Media contact: Ed Gilhuly, 305-807-6906, egilhuly@leftcom.com

ORLANDO – Members of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, Florida’s largest union of healthcare workers, have voted to picket at 11 nursing homes on August 8  to demand better wages, protections and safer staffing levels for caregivers and patients that would help solve the worsening long-term care crisis in the state. 

The vote to picket came after a lack of progress in contract negotiations between workers and  Aspire Health Group and other facility owners across Florida. Contracts between 1199SEIU workers and management are expiring in almost 50 Florida facilities this year, directly impacting more than 4,000 Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs), dietary aides, housekeeping and other workers and 10,000 patients.

The pickets will occur at the following nine Aspire-owned facilities: Renaissance Nursing Home & Rehab (West Palm Beach); Rosewood Health & Rehab (Orlando); Lake Mary Health & Rehab; Plantation Bay Rehab (Saint Cloud); The Palms Rehab & Healthcare (Palm Bay); Oaktree Healthcare (South Daytona); Spring Hill Health & Rehab (Brooksville); Aspire of North Fort Myers; and Bay Breeze Health & Rehab (Venice).

Workers also will march at Avante at Lake Worth and Palm Garden of Port St Lucie.

Nursing home staff, who are some of the lowest paid healthcare workers and have been negotiating for a living wage to help keep up with Florida’s rapidly rising housing, insurance and other monthly costs. They also have proposed safer staffing levels that will better protect themselves and their patients.

Aspire -- one of the largest rehabilitation and nursing home companies in the nation -- and other owners, often out-of-state private equity firms, have failed to make adequate offers or compromises.  

“The nursing home industry in Florida takes in a windfall each year, with billions of it funded with our taxpayer dollars,” said Margarette Nerette, VP of Long-Term Care for 1199SEIU Florida. “These companies can easily afford to properly pay and protect the caregivers tending to our parents, grandparents and other elderly loved ones.” 

Workers voted to picket to raise public awareness of the care crisis and their fight for fair contracts.  

“We’re standing up and speaking out for ourselves, our patients and our communities,” said Christine Bricker, CNA at Aspire at Spring Hill in Brooksville.  “We’re losing talented, experienced caregivers because they’re burning out from unsafe short-staffing and aren’t paid enough to support their own families.” 

Reduced staff and training standards passed by Florida’s legislature and signed by the governor in recent years also have added to work stress and high turnover in nursing homes because the demanding job becomes even more difficult with more patients to care for at a time.

The Biden-Harris Administration passed bold national staffing standards earlier this year that would improve upon Florida care requirements, although GOP politicians in Washington, D.C. are currently working to undermine these upgrades and reforms.

“This has always been a back-breaking low-paying job, but we’ve done it because we are committed to care for others,” said Antoine Mardy who works as a CNA at Aspire of North Fort Myers. “We’ve reached a true crisis level and are fighting for facilities to put care first, and to respect us, protect us, pay us and staff us.”

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About 1199SEIU: 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East is the largest union of healthcare workers in the country representing more than 450,000 nurses and healthcare workers nationwide, including more than 35,000 in nursing homes, hospitals and other facilities throughout Florida.