Barnegat Nursing Home Workers Hit the Street to Rally for Wage Increase

Unionized employees at the Barnegat Rehabilitation and Nursing Center are watching the clock tick down on their current contract, and this week, they joined workers at other nursing homes around the state in rallying for what they say are small but necessary wage increases.

On Thursday, members of the 1199 Service Employees International Union who staff the Bay Avenue facility spent the afternoon on the sidewalk outside their workplace, chanting slogans and waving signs to passing cars, hoping to draw attention to contract negotiations they say are being stalled by unfairly low increase offerings by management. It was one of several similar rallies held this week at nursing homes staffed by the 4,000 members of union’s New Jersey chapter, who will see their current contracts end this month.

Gail Hastings, a certified nursing assistant at the Barnegat facility and a township resident, said she and her coworkers would face very real hardships if their requests for modest wage increases and assurances of benefits don’t go through, she said

“We have our own families to support, our own households to keep up,“ said Hastings. And having healthcare employees without proper healthcare coverage hurts workers and patients alike, she said.

“We care about our residents,” Hastings said. “I need to continue to be healthy so I can continue to provide top-notch healthcare to them.”

Vicki Morgan, a CNA at Barnegat for seven years, said times are tough for nursing home staff. “We’re working hard,” she said. “We have 11 residents apiece on a good day.”

Workers also want to keep their education assistance, so they can further their careers. Instead, said Morgan, those benefits are being cut and recycled into paltry raises.

“They’re just moving money,” she said. “It’s not right.”

Union executive vice president Milly Silva said that while nursing care workers provide an essential service, their wages tend to be on the low end of those in the healthcare industry.

“When this group is asking for fair wage increases, we’re talking not about workers getting dollar increases, we’re talking about cents,” Silva said. “These are modest wage increases.”

Modest, but important, she said, because studies have shown that the level of quality care in nursing facilities is directly tied to the quality of staffing. That means nursing homes need to put a priority on retaining their trained workers. 

Morgan said she was trying to stay positive as they worked toward a contract deal, “but at this point, they’re not even trying to meet us halfway.”

Jonathan Levitan, general council for the Barnegat facility’s management company, Seniors Management North, disagreed.

There have only been four negotiating sessions with the employees so far, he said, and while he agreed that there’s been little movement, he said he’s confident they’ll reach an agreement, just as they have over the last 15 years of negotiating.

And the union could do more to find common ground, Levitan said.

“We suggested getting federal mediation involved, which they have flatly refused,” he said. And despite the fact that the economy in general and the nursing care industry in particular are in dire straits, he said, the staff at the Barnegat facility have seen steady pay increases in recent years.

“They’re coming off a three-year contract where they got a 12 percent increase in the worst economy in our lifetimes,” said Levitan.

In a time when costs are climbing across the board, federal reimbursements for nursing homes are barely budging, he said. In 2008, Barnegat Rehabilitation and Nursing Center got $217.30 per day per Medicaid resident, he said. As of June 30, it’s only gone up three cents. 

“We’re trying to deal, but everything goes up,” he said. “I’m not sure (the workers) are willing to recognize that." 

But Vicki Morgan shared the sentiment Thursday.

“Everything’s going up but our paychecks,” she said.