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By Steve Wishnia

More than 300 workers at four for-profit nursing homes in western New York State will go on strike June 13 if they can’t reach a contract agreement. The main issues, according to workers and the 1199SEIU union, are chronic understaffing and unfair labor practices such as the owners imposing their contract offer on June 2.

The four facilities, in Aurora Park, East Aurora, Orchard Park, and Westfield, are owned by the Living Legends chain. The company owns 20 nursing homes under four interlocking subsidiaries in New York State, in Western New York, the Binghamton area, the Hudson Valley, and Long Island.

“We’re just too understaffed to care for these residents,” says Christina McDermott, a licensed practical nurse at Absolut Care of Westfield, a 120-bed facility about 60 miles southwest of Buffalo. “We have two aides for 40 residents. It’s just not possible. They don’t get changed until late afternoon.”

The 1199SEIU contract expired at the end of April, and negotiations will resume on Monday, June 10. The union has filed three unfair-labor-practice charges against the owners with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging threats of retaliation against union members if they strike, union-busting by failing to hire workers to fill vacant jobs in the bargaining-unit, and bargaining in bad faith.

Workers had voted by a 95% margin to reject the “last, best, and final offer” imposed June 2, according to the union. It offered significantly lower pay than other Living Legends facilities: $16.29 an hour for dietary and housekeeping workers with 10 years’ experience, who get $18.05 at Absolut Care’s Gasport nursing home, and $18.41 for certified nursing assistants with similar experience, who get $21.14 at Gasport. The imposed deal pays $1.10 an hour less than the company’s McGuire Group subsidiary.

“Management effectively plans to implement their wage proposal without making any more movement at the table, and workers noticed that,” Grace Bogdanove, 1199SEIU’s vice-president for Western New York nursing homes, said in a statement. “We believe the employer is negotiating in bad faith, and we were made aware of verbal threats of retaliation against workers who join the strike.”

Those threats, says McDermott, included telling workers that “we can’t hold your schedule” if they went on strike. Staying on the day shift is important for single mothers, who need to work when their children are in school, she explains.

“We’re asking for more money, but it’s not about the money,” says McDermott, who’s been working at Westfield for 5½ years: It’s about understaffing leading to bad care and injuries.

“It’s not fair,” she adds. “These are people with family members. They’re dads, they’re grandmas.”

Nursing assistants on the day shift have to get the patients dressed, give them breakfast, and administer their medications, and “they’re lucky to get through one round,” McDermott says. She starts the shift by wrapping the assistants’ arms in Ace-bandage wrap to mitigate muscle injuries. They have to move patients who weigh anywhere from 80 pounds to almost 400.

“They’re getting hurt,” she says.

Tangled Ownership

As with many nursing homes, the ownership structure is complex. Living Legends is the primary owner, but Absolut Care operates these four facilities and several others. The McGuire Group, Taconic Health Care, and VestraCare operate other Living Legends facilities. McGuire officials have been negotiating the contract for Living Legends at the four, and Absolut Care is listed as doing business under the name RCA Servicer.

The state Department of Health lists Absolut Facilities Management, LLC and Israel Sherman as operator of four Living Legends nursing homes in Western New York: Allegany, Aurora Park, Westfield, and Gasport.

Living Legends owner Edward Farbenblum is in the process of applying to the state Department of Health for a change of ownership at those four facilities, from Israel Sherman to Michael Farbenblum, Orly Lieberman, Mordechai Mendlowitz, and Menachem Tauber. According to department records online, Michael Farbenblum is a co-owner of three Taconic facilities and general counsel for the McGuire Group. Mendlowitz is an elder-care lawyer on Long Island.

Lieberman, identified in news reports as Edward Farbenblum’s wife, is a psychotherapist on Long Island and co-owner of four other Living Legends facilities.

The Health Department also lists Edward Farbenblum as owning 91% of the Bishop Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Syracuse, a 440-bed facility designated as a “special focus facility” by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for consistently poor-quality care.

The other 9% is owned by Eli Rozenberg, son of Kenneth Rozenberg, co-owner of the Centers Health Care nursing-home chain. Centers Health Care was sued by state Attorney General Letitia James last year for engaging in “related-party transactions,” in which a nursing home pays exorbitant amounts for rent or services to a company owned by a relative or collaborator. It accused the company of cutting care to the point where residents “developed infections and sepsis from untreated bedsores and inconsistent wound care.”

Bishop, the Syracuse Post-Standard reported last year, applied in 2022 to transfer that 9% to Kenneth Rozenberg, but then filed a new application that changed it to Eli Rozenberg. Lindsay Heckler, a lawyer with the Center for Elder Law and Justice in Buffalo, told the paper she suspected the switch was intended to evade state regulations intended to prevent owners with histories of poor care from acquiring other facilities.