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When the housekeeping, laundry and maintenance staff arrived at the Elmhurst Care Center for their Monday morning shift, they found a few major obstacle stood in the way, namely, a locked front door, security guards and a new contract requiring them to either work for half pay with no vacation or sick days or hit the streets.

Many opted for the last option.

Workers claim since Nov. 17, the Elmhurst nursing home has unlawfully threatened its employees with discharge if they do not sign authorization cards in support of Local 300S, a new union. Confusion further ensued when, on Nov. 26, they were told they would have to sign a new contract with a company called Confidence Management Systems, a subcontractor that workers said would reduce their wages from $14-16 dollars an hour to $8 an hour, eliminate their vacation, sick time benefits and holiday pay and adjust their positions, forcing them to become on-call employees with irregular hours. Workers were told if they didn’t sign on with the new company by Dec. 1, their jobs would be terminated and they would be locked out of the facility, according to staff members.

These terms and conditions come as a surprise to many employees who boast about Elmhurst Care Center’s stellar reputation. In the past three years, the center, which services approximately 240 patients, has received few to no citations or complaints by the Department of Health. Its service and quality of care consistently rank well above the state average and, in 2003, CareScout even crowned it one of the top performing nursing homes in the United States.

“This building has been No. 1 for many years – it’s the cleanest – and we’ve done everything to keep it clean,” said Melissa Griffith, a housekeeping employee who has worked for the nursing facility for nine years. “They told us that if we didn’t sign on with the new company, we’d lose our jobs – even though the company was offering us less than what we were being given. We’ve worked too hard to be pushed out like this. It’s unconstitutional.”

Most of the affected men and women have been employed at the facility for 10 or more years and many are single mothers with families to support, said Sharone Brown, a representative from 1199SEIU, a health care union that has requested that the National Labor Relations Board hold an election to determine which labor union should represent the Elmhurst workers. With children to care for and rent costs ranging between $1,100-$1,600 dollars a month, a slash in pay and benefits this severe could have disastrous consequences for these workers, she said.

“This is an unlawful deduction of wages, vacation and personal time,” Brown said. “They don’t even have a pension plan. If they leave now, they get nothing.”

The actual root of the workers’ strife is nebulous. On Nov. 25, the National Labor Relations Board, a Federal agency that investigates unfair labor practices, issued a charge against the Elmhurst Care Center, alleging it unlawfully assisted Local 300S in soliciting authorization cards, threatened its employees with discharge and let go of five of its employees because they refused to sign cards in support of the new union.

Since on or about Nov. 19, the facility also reduced the pay and benefits of those housekeeping and laundry employees who refused to sign on with Local 300S, the Board alleged.

The law requires that an employer must negotiate with a union on behalf of its employees, said Alvin Blyer, an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board. Elmhurst Care Center agreed to recognize 300S around the same time it opened its doors in 1999, before it had acquired a representative complement of its labor force, he said. The Board is currently investigating the case and hopes to come to a conclusion within the next couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, Morris Tuchman, an attorney representing the nursing home, said the labor union debate is inconsequential. The real issue has to do with the fact that the facility decided to subcontract housekeeping, laundry and maintenance work in November under Confidence Management Systems, which has offered work to all of the employees at Elmhurst Care Center, he said.

“Admittedly, the workers may not be working for the same pay, but no one was fired,” Tuchman said. “It’s up to the workers to decide if they want to work for the company or not.”

But Confidence Management Systems’ modified pay and benefits are not substantial enough to sustain a household, nor are they indicative of the amount of work the housekeeping and maintenance crew provide, said Sharon Joseph, a member of the housekeeping staff who has worked at the facility for nine years.

“We’re the first people you see when you come into the building,” she said. “If anything happens to a resident, we’re also the first to report it. None of us have done anything wrong to warrant this. We need a labor union and we need help. We are hardworking people who deserve better.”