If Governor Lamont cannot come up with a last-minute deal with the Service Employees International Union to prevent the strike by 3,400 nursing home workers Friday, he plans to resort to military forces to defeat the strike.
By Jenna Carlesso and Keith M. Phaneuf, CT Mirror
The head of the state’s largest health care workers’ union said Wednesday that the labor group and the state have not yet reached a deal to avert a nursing home employee strike planned for Friday.
But SEIU District 1199 New England did postpone plans to strike at seven of the 33 facilities targeted to face a work stoppage Friday because those care centers hadn’t made sufficient preparations for temporary staff.
“We are not there yet, although we remain in dialogue with all parties and hope that we can achieve the funding standards that are necessary to move people up,” said Rob Baril, the union president. “This workforce is, frankly, too often ignored.”
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Connecticut Offering $280M to Nursing Homes to Avoid Strikes
Connecticut officials on Monday proposed an additional $280 million in funding for nursing homes in an effort to avoid strikes by nearly 4,000 health workers that are set to begin Friday if negotiations fail.
Democratic Governor Ned Lamont’s budget director, Office of Policy and Management Secretary Melissa McCaw, sent letters to labor union and industry officials outlining the proposed funding, which includes $149.5 million for 4.5% wage increases for nurses, aides and other nursing home workers in the 2022 and 2023 fiscal years.
“We’ve got an aggressive proposal on the table because there’s nothing more important than taking care of our seniors, and I hope to God the nurses are there to do it,” Lamont said Monday.
Published May 13. 2021 5:00PM | Updated May 13. 2021 7:37PM
KEITH M. PHANEUF and JENNA CARLESSO, The Connecticut Mirror
Gov. Ned Lamont announced a tentative deal between the state’s largest health care workers’ union and the nursing home industry late Thursday afternoon that would avert a strike Friday at 26 facilities.
The agreement came two hours after the administration sweetened its offer to fund the industry in the next state budget.
“I’m very confident we’ll have some news on that before the evening is out,” the governor said at 4:20 p.m. as he opened his televised briefing on the state’s coronavirus containment efforts.