Over 450 healthcare specialists at several nursing homes and medical centers around Florida recently joined UFCW Local 1625. The new members are employed as nurses’ aids, pharmacy technicians, housekeepers, and dietary staff at Lakeland Regional Health, Aviata Health Group, Blue Circle Healthcare, and Award Care locations. They joined the union looking for better wages, benefits, and fair treatment.
Two of the companies, Blue Circle Healthcare and Award Care, have new owners who weren’t previously under contract with UFCW Local 1625 and agreed to recognize the union rather than fight the employees’ campaign.
Balanced Health Care worker and UFCW Local 1625 member Vidya Sinanan helped with the recruitment effort at Aviata Health Group, where the workers hadn’t gotten raises in several years. “It was easy to sell the healthcare workers on organizing, all I had to do was tell the Aviata employees the difference between working as a union member and working nonunion and they jumped at the opportunity to join.” In addition to the approximately 50 certified nurses’ assistants who came on board, 15 housekeeping and laundry staff also signed the petition to join.
