It's been nearly four years since Weinberg Campus agreed to sell the majority of its main nursing home and senior care complex in Amherst to Post Acute Partners, the operators of Elderwood, for almost $47 million.
Yet the sale is still not complete, frustrating many, including the campus' unionized employees who have worked under one-year contract extensions while they wait for the deal to close.
The latest one-year extension expired Oct. 31, meaning just under 200 nursing home workers are working without a contract.
Now, they're considering a job action should their fight for a multiyear contract stall.
That comes days after unionized workers at Mercy Hospital returned to their jobs following a 35-day strike that highlighted the rising level of labor unrest within the health care sector, with workers who stayed on the job during Covid seeking better pay and improved staffing.
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"We just want something for our families," said Stephen Boyd, a Buffalo resident and 21-year maintenance worker at Weinberg.
"We come in, we take care of residents, and we just want to be taken care of,” he said.
Boyd, his fellow workers and 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East officials spoke to The Buffalo News this week, amid their fourth bargaining session since early October.
The two sides have only reached an agreement on "very small negotiations items," said Grace Bogdanove, area vice president for 1199SEIU's nursing home division.
With a deal far away, and the next bargaining session scheduled for early December, Bogdanove said a petition is circulating among union membership to authorize the bargaining committee to issue a 10-day notice for an informational picket.
"Unfortunately, if management doesn't make some significant movements soon, that is the direction we'll likely be taking," she said.
Weinberg Campus President and CEO Robert T. Mayer said the nonprofit is in active negotiations with 1199SEIU and is "committed to coming to an agreement."
The stalled sale to the Elderwood chain of nursing homes and assisted living facilities is complicating the talks. Mayer said the New York Health Department has not been processing approvals for ownership transfers during the pandemic.
"The sale is not yet complete," Elderwood spokesperson Charles Hayes said. "So with that, we have no management oversight for Weinberg, so there’s really nothing we can comment on."
While the union is at the table with Weinberg Campus, Bogdanove said the union's understanding is that "Weinberg has to take these tentative agreements back to Elderwood before formally agreeing to the new contract with us."
While the situation is unique in some ways, given the facility's long-delayed sale, it continues what is a contentious time in the world of health care labor negotiations.
Jackie Ettipio, president of CWA Local 1133, which represents workers in the now-concluded labor dispute at Catholic Health System, said Tuesday the union "just tipped the first domino" at Mercy Hospital.
"I believe that health care throughout the United States needs to change," said Ettipio, a registered nurse. "And I think our members were the breaking point of it, but I also think our community was, too."
And, as it did at Mercy, staffing issues again are taking center stage at Weinberg Campus.
Sale update
The moment leading up to the sale can be traced back to December 2015.
That's when Weinberg Campus' board of directors, eyeing recent operating losses, lower reimbursements and long-term care industry trends, hired an investment firm to explore a possible sale of the 100-acre senior living community.
After nearly two years of uncertainty, Weinberg Campus agreed Wednesday to sell the majority of its main nursing home and senior care complex in Amherst to Post Acute Partners, the operators of Elderwood. The two companies earlier in the day signed a formal sale agreement. Post Acute will take over and continue to operate the Weinberg facilities at 2700
That all led to Nov. 22, 2017, when Weinberg Campus and Elderwood's parent company signed a formal sale agreement for the bulk of the campus, including Forest Creek and Meadows senior citizen apartments, the Rosa Coplon Living Center skilled nursing home, the Dosberg Manor and Garden House assisted-living facilities, Menorah Licensed Home Health Care Agency, Rosa Coplon Certified Home Health Agency and Rosa Coplon Outpatient Therapy.
The deal was expected to close in a year.
Once it did, the new operating company, a 50-50 ownership between Post Acute owners Warren Cole and Dr. Jeffrey Rubin, planned to change the facility's name to Elderwood at Getzville.
State records show the sale received contingent approval in February 2019 from the Public Health and Health Planning Council — the last action listed online.
Health Department spokesperson Jeffrey Hammond said Wednesday the sale requires multiple approvals from the department pertaining to Elderwood's "submission of numerous applications for additional licensures, construction and renovation projects and the change of ownership."
"A number of specific contingencies must be met in order to complete the sale of the Weinberg Campus," Hammond said. "The asset purchase agreement requires a single transaction to close on all assets at the same time."
In limbo
While they wait for the sale to close, those roughly 200 1199SEIU members feel like they're in limbo.
Their last long-term contract ran from 2016 to 2019, said Marshall Bertram, 1199SEIU administrative organizer.
One-year extensions, Bertram said, have not put a dent in longstanding issues at Weinberg Campus, including short staffing, low morale and high turnover.
"It's a Band-Aid on a bullet hole,” he said.
Mayer, the Weinberg Campus CEO, said staff recruitment has been difficult for several years, worsened during the pandemic as the costs of providing long-term care services increased significantly while the state reduced nursing home reimbursement rates.
"Like organizations and businesses across the country, especially long-term health care facilities similar to Weinberg Campus, we are actively recruiting for staff," Mayer said. "We take staffing levels very seriously and have instituted new and creative ways to attract qualified candidates."
Weinberg is having an on-site open interview event on Nov. 17.
What's really needed, union members say, is a significant wage increase that can help recruit and retain employees, which would help ease a staffing crunch that is forcing remaining personnel to juggle more responsibilities.
Some workers brought in via outside agencies make more than Weinberg's permanent employees, said Monique Halton, a certified nursing assistant for 21 years – the last 11 at Weinberg Campus.
At times, she said, two aides will have to care for 30 residents.
"And then you can't even take care of the residents like you want to – spend time with them, brush their hair, talk to them, walk with them," she said. "The things we used to do we can't do because we've got to shortcut it to try to get to the next person to make them happy."
