Health care workers and management of the Narraguagus Bay Health Care Facility in Milbridge will meet on January 12 to try and diffuse a simmering labor dispute, but tensions have grown between the two sides in recent months.
Workers at the nursing home have been operating without a contract since 2008, and they contend management stopped honoring the old contract when automatic pay hikes for long-time employees were frozen earlier last year. Management contends it isn’t bound by the provisions of the old contract and that any new contract must reflect the harsh economic conditions brought on by the recent recession.
Workers at Narraguagus Health Care do not enjoy high wages, but the long-term care facility provides stable employment in Washington County, the county with the highest unemployment in the state. The pay hikes in the old contract never made anyone rich, says Cathy Cowperthwaite, a worker at the facility and vice-president of the Local 5073 chapter of the Downeast Federation of Nursing and Other Health Professions.
“There’s a kitchen aide that’s been there 20-something years and is still making 10-something an hour,” said Cowperthwaite.
But union instability may have hampered its ability to negotiate a new contract. When a contract was offered by management two years ago with a 2 percent across-the-board increase in wages, the union wasn’t in a position to accept it. At the time, union officers were being investigated for financial impropriety by the U.S. Attorney in Maine and were forced to resign, said Marie Leighton, a worker at the facility and a union member. Cowperthwaite declined to comment on the case because of the pending investigation. Calls to U.S. Attorney Paula D. Silsby’s office requesting details on the case were not returned.
By the time new union officers were installed, the economy soured, revenue fell at the facility, and the 2 percent pay hike was rescinded.
“It’s kind of a mess, the reason why our contract’s not signed,” said Leighton.
Workers further were bothered by the decision of owner Dr. Steve Weisburger, a practicing physician in Gouldsboro, to freeze automatic pay hikes in May 2009. After seeing no progress in the labor dispute during the summer, union members elected to picket the facility for two weeks in November. Cowperthwaite says the pay freeze is illegal because it violates terms of the last agreed-upon contract.
“If they don’t want to give us our steps back, that’s a labor law, so they’re getting into a whole other ballgame. And no one wants to get into that,” she said.
Workers further were angered by the pace of negotiations. They contend that Weisburger offered to meet with them after they picketed, but then delayed the meeting until after Thanksgiving. After the holiday, they heard he had contracted a lawyer. Another meeting was scheduled in December, but scheduling conflicts pushed it back to this month.
Weisburger did not return calls for comment. His lawyer, Gregg Frame, of Taylor, McCormack and Frame in Portland, said it’s important to remember that a new contract is being negotiated during harsh economic times. The state has been late with payments to the facility and it’s been harder to fill beds in the past couple of years, he said.
The health care center went through bankruptcy proceedings in 2005. It’s not in immediate danger of bankruptcy at the moment, but it isn’t generating revenue for its owner, Frame said.
“The only thing that Dr. Weisburger gets from owning Narraguagus is health insurance,” Frame said.
Frame declined to talk specifically about money earned or lost at the facility, but he promised that financial figures would be made available to the union during negotiations. In the November 11th edition of the Machias Valley News Observer, Weisburger is quoted as saying, “The business has had two consecutive years of losing over $100,000.”
Frame argues the pay hike freeze is legal because the last contract expired.
“When an agreement has lapsed, an agreement has lapsed,” he said.
Still, he remained confident that an agreement can be reached. He said much of the tension between the two sides has arisen because of misinformation.
Negotiations are taking place in a bleak national job market and a chronically bleak local job market. A pro-union blog, UnionMaine, points out that the starting wage at Wal-Mart is several dollars higher than the starting wage for many positions at the health care facility.
But there aren’t many year-round jobs in Milbridge for dissatisfied health care facility workers to choose from, especially now. Retail jobs are 45 minutes away in Ellsworth, Maine, and Frame pointed out that they don’t come with the same benefits as at Narraguagus Bay Health Care.
This isn’t the first time labor and management have been at an impasse. Cowperthwaite remembers workers were poised to strike when Weisburger negotiated a new contract just hours before the strike deadline. But she has been warned by union officials not to hold out hope for a quick end to the current labor dispute.
“They say it could be another three months, it could be a year,” she said.
Craig Idlebrook is a freelance writer who lives is Ellsworth.