Union Vote A Long Time Coming For Home Health Aides

The municipal elections are over but there's another vote pending this week. On November 8, home health aides employed by the Visiting Nurses Association of Southeastern Connecticut will be voting on whether to form a union with AFT Connecticut. 

AFT Connecticut is the largest union of acute care hospital workers in the state, and currently represents approximately 100 nurses based at the VNA of Southeastern Connecticut (VNASC) in Waterford. The AFT said that relations between the unionized nurses and the VNA have historically been good. However, the aides petitioning to join the ATF met with resistance from the VNASC. 

After the VNASC refused the workers petition to form a union in September, the home health aides filed with the National Labor Relations Board, which ordered that a vote take place on October 25. The government shutdown complicated the matter, however. 

On October 1, the NLRB said the election would be postponed if the federal government was not re-opened by October 15. Although Congress didn't voted to end the shutdown until October 16, the NLRB ultimately said the vote could go ahead as scheduled as long as workers and VNASC management consented.

But despite receiving a letter from Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Christopher Murphy urging VNASC's president and chief executive officer to hold the vote as planned on October 25, VNASC management held off.

"The election was scheduled more than a month ago, and management has certainly prepared for it," said Southeastern VNA home health aide Donna Miller in a press release issued by the union before October 25. "They've been talking to us about it one-on-one and in group meetings -- and they've put out a new piece of anti-union literature every week."

AFT union spokesman Matt O'Connor said that management had raised concerns that the union dues will be unaffordable for health care aides, which VNASC has repeatedly said would be $500 a year. O'Connor said that figure is incorrect. Nurses pay $500 a year, he said, but the dues would be less for home health aides because they earn less than nurses.

Details, such as how much home health aides would pay in dues, won't be worked out until after the vote if the workers ultimately opt to form a union. For many home health aides, that vote has been a long time coming but it will be held November 8.