PHILADELPHIA, Pa.—The new owners of several nursing homes in the Philadelphia area are trying to
slash pay and benefits for their dietary, housekeeping, and laundry workers, SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania said June 21. The New Jersey-based Vita Healthcare Group, which bought Somerton Center in Philadelphia and Garden Springs Center in the suburb of Willow Grove on June 1, has set pay caps that will cut some longtime workers’ pay by as much as $11,000 a year, and it plans to increase the amount workers are charged for family health insurance from $229 every two weeks to $565 on July 1, the union told the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News. The Ohio-based Saber Healthcare Group, which acquired 10 Pennsylvania nursing homes earlier this year, has increased health-insurance deductibles tenfold, from $500 for an individual and $1,000 for a family to $5,000 for an individual and $10,000 for families, SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania said. According to a worker at Statesman Nursing & Rehabilitation in the suburb of Middletown, Saber has increased workers health-insurance premiums there from nothing to more than $500 every two weeks, under a contract with Local 1360 of the United Food and Commercial Workers. Read more
