News

Sister of Parker Nursing and Rehab Center resident: 'We're depending on them to do the right thing'

The sister of a Parker Nursing and Rehab Center resident spoke in support of the 33 strikers during a news conference hosted by SEIU Healthcare Illinois.

Heather Tvrz, the older sister of Blaine Passini, said it's bad enough family can't have face-to-face visits with Blaine, who suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2015, but now they also can't go into the Streator nursing home and pick up the slack where workers aren't able to do what those striking normally do.

"When we couldn't visit and they had their normal workers there, they know him," said Tvrz. "We depend on the workers that know him, that we watched take care of him correctly for a long time. Not only can we not see him, we now have to worry if he's going to get a bedsore, or if he's getting a shower."

Tvrz said they could trust the workers there, and Passini was being cared for properly.

"I really hope that they can do the right thing," Tvrz said. "We're depending on them to do the right thing and make this work."

"The right thing," in this case, is referring to the striking workers' request for a higher wage. Union Steward Becky Steele told The Times in an article Tuesday she currently works as a certified nursing assistant with 15 years of experience making $12.20 per hour, and a housekeeper also on the picket line said she makes $11.32 per hour.

Workers are also demanding proper protective equipment and hazard pay while working in COVID-19 conditions.

Workers have been without a contract since June.

Shaba Andrich, the Vice President of Nursing Homes with SEIU Healthcare Illinois, said it will review another offer from Infinity, the company that owns Parker Nursing Home, before 8 p.m. Thursday.

The Associated Press reported that Infinity discontinued pandemic pay for employees at the end of July and pays workers base wages well below those of other nursing homes in the Chicago area, although they received $12.7 million in COVID-19 funding through the federal coronavirus relief package. Streator's nursing home is one of 11 mostly Chicago-area facilities operated by Infinity that are on strike.

"A ton of workers have gotten sick from COVID-19, and they are often forced to use all their sick time, or they don't have any at all so they're forced to go home and not be paid when they came to work to sacrifice, do the work and help out during the pandemic," Andrich said.

"We need extra days paid for those workers. We also need COVID-19 pay for all the workers, not just the very few."

Michael Urbanec

Michael Urbanec

Michael Urbanec covers Grundy County and the City of Morris, Coal City, Minooka, and more for the Morris Herald-News