Nursing Home Chain Guilty of Unfair Labor Practices
Beverly Enterprises, the nation’s largest nursing home chain, has been found guilty of unfair labor practices at 35 facilities in 13 states by a National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge.
The ruling, made in Washington by Judge Martin J. Linsky, was based on a 1987 NLRB staff complaint that the $2-billion-a-year corporation engaged in a nationwide pattern of harassment and assaults against employees who attempted to unionize.
Managers of nursing homes told employees they could not discuss unions, wear pro-union buttons, distribute union literature or solicit union support, the complaint said. Some workers were offered bribes not to join unions and were physically assaulted while engaging in union activity that is protected under the National Labor Relations Act, the complaint said.
“The simple fact is that Beverly’s unfair labor practices were egregious,” Linsky said.
Linsky’s ruling was rare because it held a corporation liable for labor law violations that occurred at individually managed corporate subsidiaries. Beverly Enterprises had claimed, as corporations usually do, that it should not be held responsible for these problems.
The corporation was ordered to reinstate and pay back wages to 18 workers who the NLRB complaint said had been fired for union activity. It also included a cease-and-desist order that requires Beverly to post a notice in each of the 863 nursing homes it operates explaining workers’ rights to organize.
A spokesman for Beverly, which earlier this year relocated its corporate headquarters to Arkansas from Pasadena, said the firm will appeal the ruling to the NLRB.
John Sweeney, president of the Service Employees International Union, one of several unions that have organized about 15% of Beverly’s 70,000-member work force, called the ruling “a great victory for the tens of thousands of workers at Beverly nursing homes, many of whom lost jobs (and) endured years of harassment.” Sweeney’s union has organized about 3,000 employees at 50 of Beverly’s nursing homes.
The violations cited by Linsky occurred in Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Texas, West Virginia, Missouri, Washington, Michigan, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.
Beverly contended that labor relations are handled locally, with no central direction from headquarters.
In recent years the corporation has acquired a reputation for poor care. It has been plagued by substantial debt accumulated during a seven-year acquisition spree. Some of the financial problems were caused by a generally low level of Medicaid reimbursement and rising labor costs due to a growing shortage of reliable workers. The number of homes under the chain has fallen by 200 in the past two years.
