Nursing homes accept union

Workers at eight nursing homes in Washington have unionized during the past month, and management didn’t fight the efforts.

After 30 years of acrimony and what the Service Employees International Union calls “a bloodletting,” the state’s largest health care union has reached an accord with the owners of nursing homes.

The deal is that SEIU will lend its political clout to nursing homes’ fight for higher Medicaid reimbursements – the financial lifeblood of most homes treating the elderly. In return, nursing homes will let workers organize.

“In the end it’s a new way of doing business. A collaboration that benefits all sides,” said David Rolf, president of SEIU 775 out of Seattle.

Among those nursing homes already organized are two in Eastern Washington, the Whitman Health and Rehabilitation Center in Colfax, and the Clarkston Care Center, owned by Eagle Healthcare Inc., which runs a total of 10 nursing homes in Washington and one each in Idaho and Oregon.

Eagle President and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Marshall said SEIU approached several nursing home owners last year with an offer to change the union-management dynamic.

“At first, I thought ‘No way,’ ” acknowledged Marshall, who for years battled unions as an executive of a large nursing home company based in Connecticut. “I knew the history.”

But he also was faced with a tough business reality.

Nursing home lobbying efforts at the Legislature during the past several years had been reduced to fending off further cuts to Medicaid reimbursements. State government matches the federal dollars to cover the medical and care expenses for the poor.

Marshall said that the state’s reimbursements were falling about 10 percent to 13 percent short of what nursing homes were promised, putting the facilities in a financial hole.

“When SEIU made its offer to collaborate, we had nothing to lose,” Marshall said.

During the last short Legislative session, lawmakers put an extra $10 million in state money toward Medicaid reimbursements for nursing homes. That money was matched by $10 million from the federal government.

The $20 million, Marshall said, is a good start on addressing the problem, and bore out SEIU’s claim of political muscle.

There are 263 licensed nursing homes in Washington, according to the state Department of Social and Health Services. About 78 percent of their revenue comes from Medicaid.

Rolf estimates there are up to 15,000 workers that could be organized at these nursing homes, making it a lucrative recruiting area as unions continue the hunt for new members.

Marshall anticipates that more nursing homes will become unionized.

For years, unions and nursing homes battled over organizing efforts.

Across the country, up to 200,000 nursing home workers are members of a union. Yet in that group, wages aren’t keeping pace with inflation, benefits are lacking and resident care often does not meet the expectations of loved ones, Rolf said.

“That’s the main thing we have in common,” Marshall said, “better wages for the lower-paid workers and better care.”

The turnover rate among the lowest-paid aides is 100 percent.

“Imagine how families feel when there’s a constant turn of new people caring for their mothers?” he said. “Something needs to be done so that we can pay our people a better wage and retain them.”

Fixing the problem for workers, Rolf said, takes a different labor model than the bare-knuckle fights that often mark union-management relations.

If nursing homes are operating in the black with the union’s help, Rolf said, members have something tangible to ask of management.

“That’s what really matters,” he said. “We can bargain for better wages, health insurance for workers’ families, and safer workplaces.

“These are things all sides can agree on if the money is there.”

On this Labor Day weekend, Rolf said its important to realize that the changing times call for changing strategies.

He and Marshall agree that the collaboration may be a framework that unions and nursing home owners in other states can adopt.

“We’re on to something here,” Rolf said.

Added Marshall: “I think we’re making history.”