(OLEAN, NEW YORK) – While she won’t admit it or take credit for it, make no mistake about it – it appears the return of Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) Local 805 President Rose Teachman and her way of eloquently making her case not to privatize two Cattaraugus County nursing homes played a big role in county lawmakers deciding to send back committee resolutions seeing Request for Proposals (RFPs) to turn the homes over to private entities.

CSEA Local 805 represents a combined 60 or so Union-represented Nursing Home Workers at The Pines Healthcare and Rehabilitation Centers in Olean and Machias.  On Wednesday, July 20th, more than 60 Union Workers and community representatives – holding up Save Our Homes signs – attended two committee hearings that ultimately ruled to seek RFPs.

But after speaking before the County Legislature last week, Teachman (pictured below speaking at the hearing/Photo Courtesy of CSEA Local 805) told WNYLaborToday.com that she also recommended a Union-county nursing home committee be restarted in an effort to re-examine possible cost savings that would ultimately keep the homes in Machias and Olean under the responsible of the county – and not a private entity.

“It was a combination of ‘everyone getting involved’ and the ‘power’ of our (CSEA) Membership,” a more than modest Teachman told Your On-Line Labor Newspaper in a telephone interview from her CSEA Local’s office in the Southern Tier City of Olean.

The Pines’ Olean facility, which has 120 beds, has 63 full-time, 42 part-time and 12 supervision Employees, according to local Union Officials.  Meanwhile, the 115-bed Pines’ Machias facility employs 50 full-time, 48 part-time and 12 supervision Employees.  CSEA represents The Pines’ Cattaraugus County nursing home workforce.

Teachman returned to Western New York after attending the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Convention that was held in Las Vegas, Nevada – during a time when county legislatures quickly moved to push through two separate committee resolutions that pushed forward a process to gain RFPs to private the county homes (See WNYLaborToday.com’s June 25th Labor News Report, Headlined: Southern Tier Labor Mobilizes To Fight Cattaraugus County’s Interest In Privatizing Two County Nursing Homes).

However, Teachman was in attendance at Wednesday’s (July 28th) meeting of the county legislature, where after the CSEA Local 805 president and others spoke, the resolutions were sent back to the committees for further study.

“We need to ‘all sit down and talk’ about this.  We’ve come up with a number of ‘possible’ cost savings already, including the use of solar power on the grounds of both facilities, the possibility of leasing back some of the home’s rural property to area farmers and ‘working with’ grant writers for additional funding, to name some,” Teachman said. 

“But I’ll tell you, I got a little ‘nervous’ when Tim Helwig came over (current CEO of the The Pines, who took the job in Cattaraugus County after overseeing Chautauqua County’s nursing home, which ultimately was privatized despite a long fight led by the CSEA in the Southern Tier) and I imagined a ‘pattern.’   We just held a grievance meeting at The Pines over mandatory overtime for Certified Nursing Assistants.  In the end, they’re not hiring enough people,” she added.

The county’s Human Services and Finance Committees met in late July and passed two individual resolutions seeking RFPs for the potential sale of the two nursing homes.  

However, after the Human Services Committee passed a resolution seeking RFPs - by a 5-to-2 vote that featured two Republican legislators being the only ones to vote against the resolution and with two Democrats voting for it, the Finance Committee was locked in a 3-3 vote on the same resolution, but a vacancy on the committee was quickly filled on the spot by a Democratic legislator (Dick Giardini-Allegany) who voted in favor of seeking RFPs.

At that time, CSEA spokeswoman Sheri Ambuske told WNYLaborToday.com that Organized Labor was “unhappy” with the “back door” opportunity the Finance Committee took advantage of to pass a resolution by the slimmest of margins seeking RFPs: “How ‘back door’ can you get?  It was done for a ‘purpose’ to ‘advance’ their political careers – ‘not for what’s best’ for nursing home residents and the county.  Yes, I ‘agree’ with their statements that ‘they represent’ taxpayers, but ‘we (Union-represented workforce) are taxpayers too.’”

Speaking with Your On-Line Labor Newspaper, Teachman agreed: “These homes were ‘created to care’ (for county residents) and our effort ‘worked.’  We ‘want our homes.’  ‘Never would I have thought they would do what they did’ – ‘at the last minute and back door.  ‘I was ‘shocked.’  I ‘couldn’t believe they would do this.’”