PAWLING – One-hundred nursing home workers at The Grand at Pawling, who are members of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, have overwhelmingly ratified their first collective bargaining agreement since voting to join the union three years ago.
The nursing home is part of The Grand Healthcare System. Workers in five other nursing homes owned by the network, including one in Poughkeepsie, already have binding contracts.
Negotiations for the Pawling facility focused on wages and benefits that impact the nursing home’s ability to recruit and retain workers and provide the quality care required to help frail, ill and elderly residents.
The contract includes significant wage increases in the first year, for some as high as 11 percent, and takes experience into consideration. Another raise is set for 2018.
The agreement, ratified last Thursday, includes affordable health benefits, a joint labor/management program that provides training, upgrading and education opportunities for workers, and increases shift differentials, and vacations, sick and holiday time.
Sue Stoveland, a recreation aide and a member of the 1199 Pawling Negotiating committee, said the contract “give us the foundation we need to improve our residents’ lives – and our lives. Nursing home workers must be able to care for our own families, at the same time we take care of others.”
