A Galesburg nursing home won’t be one of 64 that were poised to go on strike as soon as Friday, after their union reached a tentative contract with the association that represents the nursing home.
Service Employees International Union Healthcare Illinois says a tentative deal has been struck with nursing home that are a part of the Illinois Association of Health Care Facilities.
That includes the Aperion Care facility on Frank Street, and other nursing homes mostly in the Chicago area, but also in other parts of downstate Illinois.
And it appears that they got exactly what they were asking for: baseline wages increasing to at least $15 an hour, hazard pay for employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, COVID-19-related sick days, and not having to work if the facility doesn’t have adequate personal protective equipment, among other things.
The union had been asking for just a one-year contract, while the association had claimed that the union was using the pandemic as a negotiating tactic, and that workers were going to leave some of the state’s most vulnerable residents without proper care during the pandemic.
Union members must still ratify the contract.
