FERGUSON, Mo.—The 104-day strike at the Christian Care Home here ended Mar. 15, as SEIU Healthcare
Missouri members ratified a new contract that will give them a 20-cent-an-hour raise next March or sooner. The about 65 full-time and 25 part-time workers who walked out, including nursing assistants, housekeepers, and dietary workers, now make a median of $9.65 an hour. If Missouri voters approve an initiative on the November ballot to raise the state’s minimum wage from $7.85 to $12, however, the workers would get a 75-cent raise in January and 85 cents in 2020. The deal also requires the nursing home’s management to pay all of the increase in health-insurance rates for this year and half of any increase for 2019 and 2020. It came as the National Labor Relations Board’s St. Louis office was considering whether to issue an unfair-labor-practices complaint. “Management seemed to be betting on workers giving up before Christian Care had to face any real,” SEIU Healthcare Missouri director Lenny Jones said in a statement. “Most of our residents were union members and understood our struggle,” shop steward Brenda Jones, a restorative aide, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Read more
