Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs), housekeepers, dietary and maintenance workers and members of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers, turned out in force at the Rosewood Health & Rehab Center on Rosewood Way in Orlando, to protest the low wages and sub-standard working conditions of their employer, Consulate Health Care, the largest nursing home chain in Florida and the fastest growing private company in Central Florida.
Headquartered in Maitland, Florida, Consulate Health Care’s President and CEO, Joseph D. Conte boasts on the company’s website, a “[strong] commitment to meeting the needs of those we serve,” but health care workers say, otherwise.
“We are working and making huge profits for Consulate, but the conditions under which we work are horrible. We don’t have the necessities to meet the needs of the residents and when we do, they’re not sufficient,” said Vera Nelson, one of those protesting and who sits at the bargaining table.
Nelson explains that Consulate has been systematically cutting back on workers’ hours – from eight-hour days to seven hours and in some cases from seven and a half hours to seven. And though many of the workers at the Rosewood Health & Rehab Center are unionized, Nelson said, after several months, they have not yet been able to reach a new agreement with their employer.
“All we are looking for is respect and to be treated fairly,” she said. “Consulate must stop cutting our hours, pay fair wages, provide affordable health care insurance and a fair retirement plan.”
Even as Consulate continues to pay low wages and cuts workers’ hours, the company’s profits soared by 770 percent between 2009 and 2010. In 2012, it was ranked as one of the fastest growing companies in Central Florida, by dollar growth and revenue, by the Orlando Business Journal.
In 2011, with an ownership stake of 45% in the company, Conte pocketed $1.3 million after a pay increase of 109% from the previous year. And Executive Vice President Eugene Curcio, who owns a similar share in the company, took home $1.2 million, following a whopping 137% increase from the year before.
“We are here asking for a living wage, health care and respect on the job, and these are things companies should provide,” said Bob Gibson, Vice President, 1199SEIU. “These workers provide health care for the residents and by extension the community, and while the company is making money ‘hand over fist’ it refuses to compensate our members.”
For two hours protestors chanted slogans like, “What do we want? A fair contract” and “When do we want it? Now,” and were joined by state representatives, Karen Castor Dental (D-District 30) and Victor Torres, Jr. (D-District 48).
Asked why are corporations like Consulate and others, which are making record profits not paying their workers a fair wage, Torres had this to say:
“Greed is driving these corporations to pay low wages, not a living wage,” he said. “CEOs and their corporations are benefiting at the expense of low-income workers and middle-class Americans who are struggling to make ends meet. This has got to change and one good place to start would be to raise the federal minimum wage and improve economic security for workers in low-wage jobs.”
Negotiations between Consulate Health Care and 1199SEIU United Health Care Workers, ongoing since May, are expected to resume later this month.
There needs to be a Poor People’s March On Washington!