Western NY Nursing-Home Workers OK Near-Deadline Contract
The new pact includes a 10-step wage scale based on years of experience, a pension increase, Juneteenth as a paid holiday, increases to weekday/weekend pick-up bonuses to help with staffing, and an increase in shift differential.
By Steve Wishnia
Workers at four rural nursing homes in Western New York voted to ratify a two-year contract, 1199SEIU announced June 21. The agreement, reached just before a strike deadline of June 13, covers about 300 workers at facilities in Allegany, Aurora Park, Orchard Park, and Westfield operated by the for-profit Absolut Care/RCA Servicer chain.
The deal, the union said, includes a 10-step wage scale based on years of experience, a pension increase, Juneteenth as a paid holiday, increases to weekday/weekend pick-up bonuses to help with staffing, and an increase in shift differential. It runs through April 30, 2026.
The union set a deadline for an unfair-labor-practice strike in early June, after management imposed its last, best, and final offer, a deal that would have paid workers as much as $2.70 an hour less than people doing the same job at other facilities owned by Absolut Care/RCA or related companies. But it postponed the walkout on June 12, after management “came to the table with some movement.”
The contract “provides for much-needed wage increases and other contractual improvements for these rural workers,” Grace Bogdanove, 1199SEIU’s vice-president for Western New York nursing homes, said in a statement announcing the agreement on June 13. She called it “a first step towards the equity they deserve.” During negotiations, she had said Absolut Care facilities were among the lowest-paying in the area.
“A strike is always a last resort for our members,” she added. “While we still have more work to do to bring these workers’ wage and benefit standards up to where they need to be, we were able to reach a fair agreement hours before our strike was scheduled to begin.”
The four nursing homes’ primary owner is the Living Legends chain, which 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.
As with many nursing homes, their ownership structure is convoluted. Living Legends is the primary owner, but Absolut Care, doing business under the name RCA Servicer, operates some facilities, with others run by the McGuire Group, Taconic Health Care, and VestraCare. McGuire officials negotiated the contract for Living Legends at the four Absolut Care nursing homes.
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. Lieberman, identified in news reports as Edward Farbenblum’s wife, is a co-owner of four other Living Legends facilities.
“1199SEIU members stood united,” Bogdanove said. “We hope that Absolut Care/RCA is finally beginning to understand that the care economy depends on workers who show up day in and day out.”
Meanwhile, on June 13, more than 70 workers at Schoellkopf Health Center in Niagara Falls, the nursing home attached to Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, overwhelmingly ratified a one-year contract that will give them an average 11% raise retroactive to May 1, Juneteenth and Labor Day as paid holidays, and a $3-an-hour differential for licensed practical nurses who take on additional responsibilities in the event of short staffing, 1199SEIU said. Some workers will get raises of as much as 34%.