Posts tagged 1199 SEIU
Editorial: Hochul ‘anti-fraud’ scheme backfires into a taxpayer gift to a monster union
March 3, 2026 // After we and others flagged how loose eligibility rules and other issues had led to a 1,200% spike in CDPAP enrollment, soaring fraud and outlays of $11 billion, the gov used public outrage to pass a reform that she vowed would rein in the program. Yet her “solution” was simply to hire a single company, Public Partnerships, to centralize payments to these aides — which now lets them legally count as PPL employees, and so qualified to unionize.
NY patients come last as 1199 SEIU angles for $200M-a-year Medicaid payday
December 15, 2025 // Hochul’s law makes PPL a private “employer,” so unionizing its caregivers would mean 1199 could force every one of them to pay a 2% tribute — or get fired. At the current number of CDPAP caregivers, 1199 would snag another $200 million a year. PPL is likely cooperating because doing so is something akin to buying protection from mobsters. Everyone in Albany has seen the 1199-financed attack ads lobbed at governors and other state officials who question the size or efficacy of Medicaid. If this unionization scheme succeeds, such public lobbying would explode. The union won’t just have an incentive to keep the caregiver sign-up rules loose — it will have a fiduciary duty to keep wasting public money, and to pressure lawmakers for more.
More than 2,500 nursing home workers across WNY plan to strike
May 13, 2025 // Caregivers from the following facilities are expected to walk off the job starting May 20 at 6 a.m.: Buffalo Center for Rehabilitation & Nursing Comprehensive Rehab and Nursing Center at Williamsville Elderwood at Lockport Elderwood at Williamsville Ellicott Center Garden Gate Manor Gowanda Nursing Home (excluding Pros/Techs) Newfane Rehabilitation & Health Center North Gate Manor Ascension Living Our Lady of Peace Absolut Care of Gasport Safire Rehabilitation of Northtowns Schofield Residence The Grand at Delaware Park Williamsville Suburban Care Center
Another Example of Why Most Workers Can’t Stand Unions
April 15, 2025 // Do most workers want their paychecks skimmed to: compensate a union president’s daughter to travel with him? pay two personal drivers for the union president? pay for a union officers’ retreat at a luxury golf course? pay for very expensive flights to South Africa for unclear reasons? spend $300,000 per year in rent for a penthouse suite belonging to Harry Belafonte’s nonprofit? pay that nonprofit’s president a salary as the union’s “national program director” despite her doing nothing for the union? fund concerts that take place in the same town and at the same time as the union president’s annual family reunion? pay one of the union’s former drivers, who now runs a production company that books artists for those concerts, an even $5,000 three times for “airline tix,” at least partly in cash? help pay Jesse Jackson’s medical bills? These are all expenses alleged to have been paid by 1199SEIU, the largest health-care workers’ union in the country, in a story by Maya Kaufman of Politico. The union’s president, George Gresham, has been in office since 2007, when he was elected unopposed. There hasn’t been a competitive election for union president since 1989.
1199 SEIU boss George Gresham accused of corruption — but no Democrat will investigate
April 14, 2025 // His rivals accuse the chronically ill Gresham (who draws a $300,000 salary) of numerous misappropriations, including: $60,000 to cover his daughter’s room, board and transportation to accompany him on business trips as his caregiver. Over $300,000 on a “get out the vote” concert series that coincided with Gresham family reunions. $17,000 on a hotel next to Montefiore Medical Center when he was receiving dialysis treatment. $86,000 for flights to South Africa in 2014 and 2018. A no-show union job that’s paid a Gresham ally over $1 million since 2009.
Op-Ed: Hochul needs to shut down this pricey home-health-care power grab
September 25, 2024 // And bidders are all too likely to fold: “The political world does not mess” with 1199 SEIU,” snarks Empire Center health-industry expert Bill Hammond. “Any bidder with the slightest understanding of what they were getting into when entering into this contract would know what that meant when [1199 SEIU] put that piece of paper in front of them.” Unionizing 200,000 caregivers would be a huge win for 1199, which already boasts 450,000 members. Yet it would defeat the purpose of the program — which, again, is to help family members, not unionized employees, to care for loved ones.
State Offers Taxpayer-Funded Health Coverage to Unionized Home Care Workers
July 16, 2024 // In a new subsidy for the health-care union 1199 SEIU, the Hochul administration is allowing the union’s benefit fund for home care aides to shift some members into taxpayer-funded health coverage through the Essential Plan. The arrangement appears to sidestep the Essential Plan’s eligibility rules, which normally exclude people with access to employer-sponsored health benefits. The deal gives a further boost to the 1199 SEIU National Benefit Fund for Home Care Employees,
Home Care Unionization Efforts Beginning To Tick Back Up
March 29, 2024 // Another issue that URMHC workers cited was working hours, which could – in theory – be fixed by providers. One of the biggest reasons for turnover in home-based care is volatile scheduling. “I think that’s a problem we’re going to have to solve,” FirstLight Home Care CEO Glee McAnanly told Home Health Care News earlier this year. “Because if you talk to caregivers, they say they want 30 hours. The average client is 20 hours, and so you’ve got a disconnected 10 hours. So, we talk about retention, but how are we going to [satisfy] that caregiver?”
URMC workers union approves contract, avoiding strike
December 29, 2023 //
History in the making as Schofield Home Care workers vote majority to unionize
December 7, 2022 // The employees of the Schofield Home Health Care in the Town of Tonawanda have won the vote to unionize with 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East.