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Nursing Home Workers Strike In Florida For $15

Health care workers were on strike at 19 nursing homes last Thursday.
COURTESY EUNIC ORTIZ
Health care workers were on strike at 19 nursing homes last Thursday.

Nursing home workers were on strike last Thursday at 19 nursing homes across Florida.

Consulate Health Care workers are demanding $15 an hour. Kimberly White is a certified nursing assistant striking in Lake Mary.

“We’ve asked them for a decent living wage time and time again,” White said. “We’ve often been met with a 5 cent raise, 10 cent raise, the most being 15 cents. … So we’ve come to the point where we understand if we keep taking pennies, we’ll receive pennies. Now it’s time to start demanding dollars.”

Videos online show workers striking in Kissimmee, many in blue scrubs, chanting for $15 an hour. The health care workers union represents certified nursing assistants and others who work at Consulate Health Care.

“While we are disappointed in the union’s decision to strike, the continuity of patient and resident care will remain unaffected thanks to the combined efforts of our dedicated staff and compassionate fellow care center volunteers,” company officials wrote in a statement. “We will continue to work in good faith, as we have always done, towards a resolution.”

Reporter Abe Aboraya is part of in Orlando.  WMFE is a partner with , which receives support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Copyright 2020 Health News Florida. To see more, visit .

Health News Florida reporter Abe Aboraya works for WMFE in Orlando. He started writing for newspapers in high school. After graduating from the University of Central Florida in 2007, he spent a year traveling and working as a freelance reporter for the Seattle Times and the Seattle Weekly, and working for local news websites in the San Francisco Bay area. Most recently Abe worked as a reporter for the Orlando Business Journal. He comes from a family of health care workers.