Statement of Milly Silva, Executive Vice President, on Supreme Court DAPA/DACA decision

Lewiston, NY – More than 150 nursing home workers at Ascension Living at Our Lady of Peace in Lewiston will strike in demand for competitive wages and better staffing levels on Wednesday, March 9th. Negotiations between St. Louis based Ascension Living’s management and union workers broke down over economic issues this week. The nursing home workers are represented by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East.

In 2019, 1199 filed a class action grievance against forty-two home care agencies on behalf of current and former bargaining unit members represented by 1199. The grievance alleged that employers violated their CBAs and state and federal wage and hour laws, including by not always paying for interruptions to sleep and meal times on 24-hour cases, not paying overtime under federal law between January 2015 and October 2015, and not paying travel time prior to 2015. Under the CBA, the grievance proceeded to mediation and then arbitration. Pursuant to the CBA, the Arbitrator must apply applicable state and federal law.

NEW YORK – An arbitrator has issued an historic $30 million arbitration award covering more than 100,000 current and former 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East bargaining unit members employed at 42 home care agencies.

“I’ve always been interested in science and helping people,” says Yvette Vasquez, “so naturally where the two combined is the medical field,” she says. But finding her current position as an Occupational Therapy Assistant (OTA), came with detours. “I’m a germaphobe, and I don’t like needles, so I couldn’t be a nurse. Then I did a year of social work in college, but I realized I’m way too emotional for that—I couldn’t adopt everyone.” Vasquez landed on becoming an OTA because “I had an occupational therapist after a surgery I had as a child.” She wanted to be able to give back the same level of quality care she received at the time.

When Kora Yaineneh, an 1199SEIU RN first arrived in the U.S. from her native Gambia in 1990, she spent a few weeks at 333 East 181st Street, in the home of Abdoulie Touray. In keeping with Gambian tradition, Yaineneh did not join her husband who had already found a job and a home in New York, until she had spent time in Touray’s house becoming oriented.

When 1199 learned of the terrible blaze that claimed the lives of 17 people when it ripped through a Bronx apartment building, the Union feared the worst.

“President Biden should be commended for elevating the need for improved nursing home care and better protections for seniors and their caregivers in his State of the Union address. Thousands of our 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East members who serve in nursing facilities across Florida have been calling for similar reforms for years.

Home care workers have always been essential— they provide the necessary care that allows seniors and people with disabilities to live independently—and with dignity in their own homes. During the pandemic, 1199SEIU home care members have been stretched to their limits more than ever before.

Members at ten New Jersey nursing homes just won a contract settlement with Complete Care Management, a significant victory in what had been a major campaign throughout 2021 against the state’s largest nursing home operator.

The professional unit at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Yonkers, NY, voted to join 1199SEIU in a near unanimous poll on January 18, bringing 60 new members into the Union family. The new titles included Medical Technologists, Pharmacists, Case Managers and Social Workers.