Coalition seeks higher wages for nursing home workers

Laura Landaker spends 40 hours a week folding and sorting laundry in the basement of the North Central Care Center nursing home in Spokane. When she goes upstairs to greet the residents, some smile, call her “sweetie” and hold up their arms for hugs.

“You get to know them very well, and they become very special to you,” Landaker said.

For the past five years, an unusual statewide alliance has been trying to secure higher wages for Landaker and employees like her.

Several Washington nursing homes have joined with the Service Employees International Union to form Washington United for Quality Nursing Home Care. Their goal is to secure higher Medicaid reimbursements from the state.

The money would be used to pay higher wages and benefits for low-wage employees of nursing homes that receive Medicaid funds. That would include certified nursing assistants, dietary aides, laundry workers and housekeepers.

The money would be directed to the nursing homes, including North Central, with the highest percentages of residents on Medicaid, said Christine Jimenez, a research analyst for SEIU.

Statewide, 13,000 nursing home workers earn less than $10 an hour, Jimenez said. Some 1,100 of them are in Spokane County. The alliance’s proposal calls for up to a $2-an-hour wage increase or health care benefits, she said.

Landaker earns $8.50 an hour. She said her salary is crucial in her household, which includes her husband, her son and his three children. “I try to budget. I buy sale items. I buy ahead of time,” Landaker said. But, she added, “every once in a while I get behind in a bill.”

This year, the alliance is pushing for $15 million more in Medicaid reimbursements to nursing homes to boost wages. The governor’s budget included $7.3 million for the effort and the state Senate’s, $5 million. But the House budget left it out.

That’s not because the House opposes higher wages for low-income workers, said Rep. Dawn Morrell, D-Puyallup, who sponsored legislation involving the nursing home payment system. Morrell said the Legislature is working on “shoring up” the entire long-term care system and wanted to devote more funds to respite services and dental care for family members who care for loved ones in their homes.

“The problem came with budget dollars. We all think it’s important and their jobs are critical,” Morrell said. “It was just a matter of competing dollars. We had to balance it out.”

Lawmakers were still negotiating the budget Friday; must be complete by Thursday, when the 2008 legislative session ends.

Since the alliance was formed in 2003, it has been successful in securing higher Medicaid reimbursement rates and in unionizing nursing home workers.

In 2006, more than 700 workers at 10 nursing homes joined SEIU Healthcare 775NW and earned raises of 6 percent to 14 percent, according to the union’s Web site.

That more than doubled the number of nursing home workers in the union. The alliance had secured $10 million from the Legislature that year.

Randy Hyatt, owner of North Central Care Center, recently joined the alliance, but he said whether his nursing home will unionize “remains to be seen.”

He said he’s been fighting through the Washington Healthcare Association for higher Medicaid reimbursement rates for years and joined the alliance thinking it would be another avenue to achieve that goal.

“I’m not a strong advocate for unionization, but I am a strong advocate for my employees,” said Hyatt, a fourth-generation long-term care provider.

“I’m looking for ways to attract the highest quality people I can to take care of the people I’m responsible for. The better my people, the better we do.”