Group home worker strike averted

Group home workers called off a strike after agreeing on a $184 million state funding package for the next two years, a union spokesman said Friday.

More than 2,100 caregivers were due to strike at 6 a.m. as they demanded livable wages and benefits, affordable health insurance and a path to retirement, said Pedro Zayas, communications director of the New England Health Care Employees Union. They listed their demands in a “Long-Term Care Workers’ Bill of Rights.”

Ron Baril, president of District 1199 New England, SEIU, said, “We believe this additional funding will resolve the open contracts. We have made substantial progress toward our goals for a $20 minimum wage, with major progress on retirement and other benefits.”

“This is a great victory for racial and economic justice for the majority of Black and Latina women who make up this workforce of caregivers,” he said. “All strike notices have been immediately withdrawn.”

The new funding agreement for group home workers at Oak Hill, Whole Life, Sunrise, Network, Mosaic and Journey Found marks the second major settlement for long-term care workers in Connecticut in the past month, Zayas said. Recently, more than 4,000 nursing home workers won new contracts with improved wages and benefits.

The two sides had been negotiating for weeks and had already agreed once to delay a planned strike. But the workers were planning to walk out Friday morning had the settlement not come.

Group homes had already begun bringing in replacement workers, and some had moved residents to vacant nursing home beds. Meanwhile, the union had designated 12 picketing locations across the state. The homes are for people with developmental disabilities.

“We cannot preserve a labor model for group home long-term care services that relies on poverty wages,” Baril said Thursday, before the agreement was reached. “We need to make the same advances that nursing home workers achieved with recent funding allocations: create a pathway to $20 an hour minimum and retirement, and provide access to affordable health insurance for group home workers and their families.”

Two top aides to Gov. Ned Lamont — budget director Melissa McCaw and Chief of Staff Paul Mounds — helped broker the agreement.

The state Department of Public Health received the strike withdrawal notices late Thursday night after the tentative agreement between the union and group home owners was struck, a spokesman for Gov. Ned Lamont said Friday.

Lamont said, “This is an important agreement which represents my administration’s commitment to respecting the collective bargaining and negotiation process, while also ensuring those in the care of these homes are receiving the services they need. This agreement is a positive step forward for the workers as they will receive pay increases and more support. I thank SEIU and the industry leaders for working collaboratively with our administration to reach this agreement.”

The governor’s office also was instrumental in helping to broker the deal between the same union and nursing home operators in May, which also prevented a strike. Like the nursing home workers, the group home employees are seeking better wages and benefits and more staffing.

A group home pact seemed likely last month as well and the union decided to postpone its strike, which had initially been scheduled for May 21.

“We need to reach parity with nursing home workers to pull poor Black, brown and white working women out of poverty,” Baril said Thursday. “Caregivers risked their lives during COVID-19.”

The union is pushing for a $20 an hour minimum wage; officials have said many caregivers in Connecticut make between $12 — the state minimum wage — and $15 an hour.

Christine Dempsey may be reached at cdempsey@courant.com. Daniela Altimari may be reached at dnaltimari@courant.com.

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