By Steve Wishnia

Workers in two Buffalo-area nursing homes have scheduled a one-day strike for August 28, after management refused to sign a contract it had agreed to in early July.

The 170-odd workers, about 100 at Williamsville Suburban Care Center in Buffalo and 70 at Safire Rehabilitations of Northtowns in Tonawanda, will walk out for 24 hours beginning at 6 a.m.

Solomon Abramczyk, co-owner of the two for-profit facilities, refused to sign because the one-year agreement included experience pay for certified nursing assistants and licensed practical nurses, 1199SEIU organizer Emmanuel White told Work-Bites. That would have given them a 2% raise for each year of experience up to 10 years.

“Their reason was that it would cost too much,” White says.

1199SEIU filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board on July 8, accusing the employer of bargaining in bad faith.

“The owners agreed to our proposal after many weeks of negotiations, and then when it came to signing it, they refused to pay agreed-upon experience pay,” said Penny Burdick, an activities aide at Williamsville Suburban, said in a statement released by the union.  “We need to keep and recruit experienced staff and will strike over this.”

Workers voted to authorize a strike earlier this month, and 1199SEIU gave management the 10-day warning notice required at health-care facilities.

Complex ownership, poor care

Both facilities have overlapping owners. Abramczyk and Richard (Aryeh) Platschek acquired 50% each of Williamsville Suburban earlier this year, when they bought out the majority owners. According to the Buffalo News, they had both owned 4.5% since 2012 and were listed as managers.

Platschek owns 32% of Safire Northtowns, according to state Department of Health records. Judy Landa has 32%; Abramczyk and Schuck 16% each; and Moshe Steinburg 4%. The same group owns Safire Rehabilitations of Southtown in Buffalo.

Abramczyk also owns part of three nursing homes in the Bronx and Westchester and Nassau counties, and is also listed as manager. For example, at South Shore Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Freeport, Long Island, Abramczyk and Robert Schuck own 25% each; Platschek has 5%; and Benjamin Landa, Judy Landa’s husband, has 45%, according to state Department of Health records.

Platschek also owns one-third of four Hudson Valley facilities acquired by the Sapphire investor group in 2017. Schuck has 13.33%, and Machla Abramczyk, Solomon’s wife, 20%. In 2018, the Department of Health found that they had slashed staffing and care enough to endanger patients. All four were sued by patients and their families who alleged that residents were left to “sit for long periods in feces and urine.”

The Buffalo facilities also have records of poor care. The 220-bed Williamsville Suburban has a one-star rating, the lowest possible, from the Department of Health. In the five years from July 2020 to June 2024, it had 128 complaints per 100 occupied beds, more than twice the state average. It got a citation in February for doing an inadequate investigation after one resident attacked another and fractured their spine and arm.

Safire Northtowns, with 100 beds, got a three-star rating out of a possible five. But it is rated one star for patient safety, with 177 complaints per 100 occupied beds. In September 2023, it was cited for several general health problems, including failing to report that all eight water samples taken the previous February were contaminated with Legionella bacteria—neither to the Department of Health nor to the facility’s own infection-prevention specialist. The condition was declared corrected last October.

It was also fined $53,000 by the department in 2022 after a 78-year-old woman was killed when she fell out of a third-floor window.

Related-party transactions

About two-thirds of New York State’s 600-plus nursing homes are for-profit, part of a national trend that is accelerating. According to a 2022 report by the free-market Empire Center for Public Policy, 72% of the for-profit facilities engaged in related-party transactions, such as renting their building, hiring staff, or purchasing other services from a nominally separate company owned by the owners, family members, and/or business associates.

“The aggregate profit margin for these secondary companies was 19.5%, compared to 2.3% for their affiliated nursing homes,” it said. “Owners who engaged in related-company transactions collectively made more money from side businesses than from the nursing homes themselves.”

According to the Buffalo News, Williamsville Suburban rents its two buildings from entities controlled by Richard Platschek, which had acquired them in separate transactions in 2015 and 2017, for a total of $10.2 million.

On Aug. 14, Trusted Nurse Staffing LLC, an unrelated Buffalo travel-nurse company, sued Williamsville Suburban for $272,000, alleging that it had failed to pay for nurses it hired from them.

Meeting Monday

Management at Safire Northtowns and Williamsville Suburban has asked 1199SEIU to meet on Monday, Aug. 26. “It is not a negotiating session,” Emmanuel White emphasizes: The union’s position is that they already have a set contract.

“We proposed our full package,” he says, “and that is the package they agreed to.”