The leader of long-term care workers’ largest union on Monday defended his group’s aggressive actions late last year over the sale of the nation’s largest nursing home chain, Manor Care, to private equity giant The Carlyle Group.
“Unlike Carlyle, we have decades of experience working to improve care in the nursing-home industry. We know that when workers have a union, they stay on the job longer, there are fewer problems with short staffing and care improves. There is a direct relationship,” said Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, in a Washington Post article Monday.
“Long before Carlyle woke up one day and decided that nursing homes would make a good financial target, SEIU has fought for years to improve care in nursing homes,” Stern continued. “SEIU has fought for and won hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to improve care in nursing homes over the last decade. Now, David Rubenstein and friends want to come along and take hundreds of millions out for themselves.”
Stern also told reporter Thomas Heath that the next president should end tax breaks for companies that export jobs, make quality, affordable healthcare a priority and reward hard work and values through a sound economic policy.
