1199 SEIU NURSING HOME WORKERS IN THE HUDSON VALLEY HOLD CANDLELIGHT VIGIL TO PROTECT THEIR PENSIONS

Mount Vernon, NY:  1199 SEIU healthcare workers and their supporters gathered yesterday evening at the Wartburg Adult Care Community in Mount Vernon for a vigil to save and protect their pensions.  The union caregivers work for a common employer, Wartburg Lutheran Services and arrived from across the Hudson Valley:  Wartburg Adult Community in Mount Vernon-Westchester, Lutheran Care Center in Poughkeepsie-Dutchess and Good Samaritan Nursing and Adult Home in Delmar-Albany. 

When the financial markets went into crisis last year, 400 other 1199SEIU employers took the necessary steps to ensure the value of the 1199SEIU Pension and Health Fund by opening and renegotiating contracts.  Wartburg Lutheran Services has refused to do the same.

Wartburg Lutheran Services is putting workers’ pensions at risk.  While caregivers do their jobs with dignity, compassion and high standards of professionalism, Wartburg Lutheran is not doing their part in upholding those high standards---by offering health caregivers security through decent wages and benefits.

Congressman Eliot Engel said, “"As the son of an iron worker I have always supported the rights of workers. We must all stand together in this battle to ensure that caregivers at the Warturg nursing homes have the benefits they deserve. Management must come to the table and negotiate in good faith."

Eileen Curtin, a licensed practical nurse (LPN) from Wartburg Adult Community has been on the job for more than two decades.  She said, “I love my job.  I need to have peace of mind today, so I can give my patients the daily care they need and at the same time know I will eventually be able to retire with the respect and dignity I’ve earned after working here for 22 years.”

Curtin said, “It’s hard to understand what Wartburg Lutheran is thinking when it comes to financial planning.  If the money isn’t added to the Fund now, by the time our current contract expires in 2011, the amount of money needed to maintain the pension will significantly increase.  If a new contract is not negotiated now, the Pension Fund could default under the Federal Pension Protection Act.  Default would mean less money in the pension fund as well as earnings at a lower rate.       

The opening prayer was delivered by Bishop Howard Ricketts of the Mount Calvary Pentecostal Healing Temple in the Bronx.  Reverend Bethea Wright of the Union Grove Baptist Church in the Bronx closed the program.

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With 350,000 members in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland and Washington D.C., 1199 SEIU is the largest and fastest growing healthcare union in the country. Our mission is to achieve affordable, high quality healthcare for all.