Nursing Home Employees Picket For Better Wages, More Staff

As a part of a statewide initative by nurse home workers today, about 30 employees of Oak Park Healthcare Center, 625 N. Harlem Ave., picketed outside in a show of support in their fight for higher wages and more support to provide residents of nursing homes better care. 

Oak Park Healthcare Center was one of 50 nursing homes picketed today by nearly 2,000 nursing home workers, according their union. Workers cited a lack of adequate supplies and staff at nursing homes owned by members of the Illinois Association of Health Care Facilities. Workers in Oak Park said the homes' owners should be investing a cumulative $50.5 million in profits made last year back into measures to lower worker turnover rates and provide better care for residents in their homes.

The average employee on the picket line today makes $10 an hour, said Mike Truppa, communications director for the union, SCIU Healthcare.

"That's not enough to raise a family on," Truppa said of workers asking for higher wages.

Truppa and picketers cited the low hourly wages as a reason for high turnover at the nursing homes, which can leave them shortstaffed, they said.

"We are here out of concern for the residents," said Mary Barolow, a certified nursing assistant at the nursing home in Oak Park who was on the picket line today. "We are understaffed and underpaid."

Barolow said that an increase in wages would provide an incentive for experienced workers to stick around.  More staffmembers would help to share the workload at Oak Park Healthcare Center and lead to better care for residents.

"We work hard," said Lillie Hodges, who has worked at the nursing home in Oak Park for 32 years. "The residents require a lot of care—it's not an easy job. We're doing the work. We should be paid for it."