JournalInquirer.com
When it is time to strike
CT@Work
By Leo Canty
Published: Friday, September 11, 2009 11:38 AM EDT

Having a job and a paycheck is pretty important to most people – especially now. With unemployment numbers rising and opportunities for better jobs declining most people just seem to be hunkering down and riding out the storm. Count your blessings if you have a job even if it’s wearing you out, or you hate the boss or your wages or benefits are being cut. Just suck it up and think about the alternatives. How would you support the house, the car and the kids? What about health insurance, or the pension plan, if you have one? No job means scary times and destroyed lives so leaving or losing a job is serious business.

So why on earth would anyone put his job on the line? Ask Jennifer Briscoe. She’s on strike at the South Windsor Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, and out of a job, for now, along with many of her co- workers at the center. They have opted to put their jobs, and their paychecks and families on the line because they decided that sucking it up was much worse than taking action and fighting for fairness.

Unlike most workers, they have that choice to fight back if they choose to. They have a union — Teamsters local 671.This union and its members are no strangers to standing up for fairness and equity when it comes to fighting for working families. They know that in times like these workers are most at risk to lose hard fought gains in wages, benefits and other job protections. More than ever, everyone’s wages and benefits are at risk. For unionized workers bargaining for a contract to stem the tide of take backs is more challenging than ever.

The workers, many of whom have worked there for many years, have lived through rough times in the nursing home industry and changes of ownership. The Center used to be part of the Haven Health Care chain, and was sold to Connecticut Health Facilities Inc., after Haven spiraled into bankruptcy last year. The new company promised to uphold the union agreements and did, until the contracts expired and everything was up for negotiations.

Briscoe and many of her co-workers average around $14-15 an hour caring for the clients at the nursing home. Their now-expired contract included health insurance a modest pension plan and other fair and reasonable items that union contracts normally include. The problem is, the union members definition of fair is different from the owners who have for instance proposed a 300 percent increase, for some more than $50 a week increase, in health insurance premiums and changes in the pension plan that the workers negotiated in their last contract. The company offered raises as part of the deal but the members know that the total puts them in the race for the bottom as the raises would not make up for the net loss on the deal. They would be working harder and longer for so much less and they decided they couldn’t just suck it up so they went on strike.

Employer retrenchment on wages and benefits is all too common, and according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data the impact is hitting especially hard on women and people of color in lower wage environments, coincidentally the same demographic as the South Windsor Center. And it’s taking a toll on those struggling most to make ends meet. Many of the workers are just one step beyond the need for public assistance programs and don’t want to use the programs but they may need to if smaller paychecks diminish their ability to pay the bills.

These workers are in a fight. It is one that they don’t want but feel they must make. They have decided it’s worse to accept the employer’s deal than to stand up and fight it – no matter the outcome. They have truly demonstrated their resolve to push for real economic justice at work.

Leo Canty a labor and political activist who lives in Windsor.