Employees picketed the Alameda Healthcare and Wellness Facility on Willow Street last week to press their demands for better working conditions, pay, and patient safety. The effort is being organized by Service Employees International Union, local 2015, which represents more than 500,000 long term patient care workers statewide.
Alameda Healthcare is one of the largest non-union skilled nursing facilities in the Bay Area. It is also the last such facility on the island to be without worker bargaining representation. It is part of a chain of 80 nursing homes throughout California owned by healthcare millionaire Shlomo Rechnitz and his related companies.
For a union to represent workers, a majority of employees in a bargaining unit must sign cards supporting the move. If the employer does not immediately recognize the union, the National Labor Relations Board will hold an election to determine the outcome.
Union sources say the group has support from 70% of the 145 workers who would be covered by a union contract. An election date has not yet been set due to delays caused by the recent government shutdown.
Employees say the union would help bargain for higher wages and better working conditions. Alameda Healthcare has among the lowest pay in Bay Area nursing homes, $40 per hour for licensed vocational nurses and about half that for aides, one employee said. But the unionization drive is about more than just money. The union claims chronic understaffing, lack of supplies, and discrimination put patients at risk.
“My coworkers and I need the protections of a union because without it, our concerns go unheard,” Marina Nguyen stated in a SEIU press release. “If we had a real voice at work, it would reduce turnover and create the stability that our residents depend on. This union isn’t just for us. It’s for the people we care for every day.”
Press reports paint a grim picture of Rechnitz’s company neglecting patients and former California Attorney General Kamala Harris trying to prevent Rechnitz from obtaining more nursing homes.
In 2024, a Los Angeles jury awarded more than $2 million to an 84-year-old nursing home resident whose rights had been violated on 132 occasions, leading to serious injuries, according to a report posted last week on the nonprofit news website CalMatters.
The same report stated that in August 2024, an Alameda County jury awarded close to $7 million to the family of 71-year-old James Doherty who died while being cared for at Alameda Healthcare and Wellness. Alameda Healthcare was found guilty of more than 1,400 violations of the nursing home Residents Bill of Rights, according to the Long Beach legal firm that represented the plaintiffs. Staff allegedly did not transport Doherty to seven cancer chemotherapy appointments and failed to move the patient in bed, causing a massive sore that became infected according to the law firm’s press release.
Rechnitz and his companies have denied all allegations of neglect, according to CalMatters. Attorney Mark Johnson is quoted as saying that nursing homes are often targeted with “abusive lawsuits that accomplish nothing but depleting resources for patient care.”
Representatives from Alameda Healthcare were unavailable for comment.
David Boitano is a contributing writer at the Alameda Post. Contact him via [email protected].
