CHEYENNE — Employees of Sierra Hills Assisted Living concluded their strike on Jan. 2, and on Tuesday, the union met with Edgewood Healthcare, which owns Sierra Hills, for another contract bargaining session.
While there is still no tentative agreement reached between the parties, both have expressed a desire to find common ground.
Following claims made by the United Steelworkers Union, which represents Sierra Hills employees, and the employees themselves about Edgewood and Sierra Hills, Edgewood Healthcare President Robert Ford reached out to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle to address those issues.
“I respect everyone’s right to unionize and advocate for themselves. That’s not the problem,” he said. “My issue was the inaccuracies that were brought forward.”
Throughout the strike, employees said they were fighting for a better contract primarily for the health and safety of the residents and the employees, claiming the existing working conditions are unsafe.
While Ford said he believes the employees may have the best interest of the residents in their hearts, the topic of wage increases has been much more important to them in the negotiations than the union has been letting on.
According to documents Ford presented to the WTE, the union’s initial contract was asking for a 52% to 64% wage increase for certified nursing assistants. Additionally, the union is requesting increased staffing. The same document showed a proposed additional 40 hours of staffing per day.
Between the wage and staffing increase requests, Ford said this would cost Edgewood an additional $500,000 to $600,000 per year to meet the union’s demands.
He said that although Sierra Hills has been operating at a loss for the past four years, Edgewood has still been able to increase pay and benefits for its employees.
A report from Alan Silletto, Edgewood’s chief financial officer, shows that wages for frontline workers at Sierra Hills, which includes CNAs, CMAs, cooks, dining assistants and housekeepers, have increased 36.6% over the past four years.
Ford also said that Edgewood has increased benefits for employees by paying 81% of the premium on health insurance, up from 70%.
“We will continue to negotiate in good faith, but simply cannot agree to some of the highly unrealistic demands brought forth by the United Steelworkers Union,” Ford told the WTE in a statement.
William Wilkinson, a staff representative for the United Steelworkers Union, said that the union hasn’t even been able to begin negotiations about wages with Edgewood because the employees are first trying to negotiate for safer working conditions for the employees and the residents.
“We have a proposal for a wage increase, but they (Edgewood) haven’t commented on it. They refuse to bargain on that,” Wilkinson said.
Sierra Hills CNA Jennifer Handelman, who has been there for around 14 years, is one of the staff union representatives. She said that asking for this kind of wage increase is a tactic for better negotiations, but the top priority of the union remains the safety of the residents.
“Safe staffing and remaining in the scope of practice of a Level 1 facility are our chief things and, of course, to achieve stable staffing, you’re gonna have to pay them,” she said.
Because Sierra Hills is an assisted-living facility and not a skilled nursing facility, employees are not allowed to use machinery like mechanical lifts to more easily move residents. Sierra Hills CNA Taylor Ewig previously told the WTE that it is dangerous and difficult for both residents and staff when CNAs must physically lift patients without the assistance of any equipment.
Wilkinson said the primary concern of the employees is safety issues that result from employees performing out-of-scope duties.
“We understand that if someone needs care that’s out of scope right now, and, you know, something comes up, we’re going to provide that care to the best of our ability. But to do it knowingly on a regular basis without the proper training is a problem for us,” Wilkinson said.
For Sierra Hills staff, these issues began when Edgewood introduced hospice care at Sierra Hills a few years ago, shortly after the pandemic. There are hospice nurses who are at the facility a couple of hours per week to care for the residents, but the rest of the time, the burden of care often falls to the CNAs and RNs on the clock.
In situations where timely care is needed, employees have said it can be difficult to get the help of a hospice nurse in time.
In an April report from the Wyoming Department of Health, a CNA at Sierra Hills, whose name was not listed, stated it was difficult to get hospice to respond on the weekends, saying that there was an 80% chance hospice would answer a phone call and a 50% chance a hospice nurse would come to the facility.
“I think this (became a problem) when we had about 13 people here on hospice, and that just created a lot of care (duties) for (staff),” Ford said. Currently, there are only three residents on hospice care. “I think that created a reaction, but as far as following regulation, we’ve got the surveys to prove it, we follow that. We don’t want anyone to be unsafe — employees, residents — but we also have to honor that hospice is a benefit people pay into their whole life … you have a right to receive hospice where you want to receive it.”
Ford also addressed several reports about rumors of asbestos, black mold and bedbugs at the Sierra Hills facility. He presented several documents from the Wyoming Department of Health and OSHA stating that all the concerns have been adequately addressed. He added that the reports of asbestos came when Edgewood was installing a walk-in cooler at Sierra Hills.
“We were repairing the roof above it, and somebody along the way, over the years, had used a slab of tar to make a patch that might have had asbestos in it. We had it removed, called the state, had it tested, nothing was found,” Ford said.
Ford also took issue with a previous article where an employee said Edgewood refuses to accommodate employees’ schedules for bargaining meetings, sometimes only meeting for 15 minutes. He said this is false, and they have met approximately 15 times since the union formed in February 2024, and the meetings last for five to six hours, on average.
Additionally, employees have previously told the WTE that they would like to see Edgewood provide them with more personal protective equipment. Ford said he is not sure where that complaint comes from, as there is ample PPE available to the staff on site.
“We believe that we got them to agree to provide the PPE,” Wilkinson said. “We requested booties and safety syringes, but the No. 1 thing is performing work that’s out of scope of the facility.”
At a demonstration outside the facility during the strike, Ewig told the WTE that inside was “complete chaos” and that the staff were operating with a skeleton crew.
Ford said that was not the case.
“I’ve got several employees that have reported it was probably the most peaceful 10 days they’ve experienced since (the union formed in) February,” he said.
Ford said they still had more than enough staff to meet the demands of the residents during the strike, which began Dec. 24 and concluded Jan. 2. He provided documents which showed only 7% of the employees were contracted labor during the strike, people like traveling nurses or traveling CNAs, and the other 93% was staffed by Edgewood employees.
He said some employees even drove hundreds of miles to help fill the reduced staff as a result of the strike.
“Really, that’s just the kind of culture we have,” Ford said.
Those employees who continued to work during the strike received cash bonuses: $75 for each scheduled shift and $125 for each unscheduled shift an employee picked up. Those participating in the strike did not receive a bonus and reported that they were denied requests for paid time off during the strike.
Wilkinson said he believes the bonuses offered to not strike and the refusal to allow paid time off (PTO) during the strike are both illegal actions by Edgewood.
“As soon as we announced the strike, you can’t go around bribing people to break the line. That’s just the rule,” Handelman said. “As soon as we did, they went right behind us. You can’t have your very own PTO? You certainly earned it. But they denied that, too.”
Ford made it clear that employees were not given bonuses if they chose not to participate in the strike, but rather simply if they chose to attend their scheduled shifts. However, the union presented the WTE with seven testimonials from employees who said it was presented to them as though they would receive the bonus if they chose to not participate in the strike.
One testimony read, “the Assistant Executive Director approached me, explaining that the company had refused everyone’s PTO from the end of November through December because ‘… the union gave Edgewood rules for the strike so the company gave us rules that no one is allowed to use their PTO or buy out time if they are striking.’ Edgewood is also refusing to give the employees who striked (sic) any holiday pay and taking PTO that was put in during December.”
Ford said that the union also wants to update things like the company’s PTO and disciplinary policies. However, Ford says they have always been in place, and they have always worked well.
“It’s hard to want to just change all the policies that are solid, good policies. So, hopefully there’s some middle ground that we can find, but that remains to be seen.”
Ford and Wilkinson both said they hope to reach an agreement and conclude negotiations. However, neither said they see an end in sight in the foreseeable future.
“The good news is the folks that are striking, they’re good people and they they’re doing things in their mind for the right reason,” Ford said. “I think there’s just a difference in philosophy and math and stats and a whole lot of things in between that that don’t make sense. But you know, they’re loved by our residents, and they love our residents, and that part, I guess, at the end of the day, makes me feel OK that (the negotiations are) taking a long time, and it might take longer. But at the end of the day, people are still being well taken care of.”