VETERANS HOME EMPLOYEES AT ANNA STAGE STRIKE

ANNA, Ill. -- About 37 workers at the Veterans Home in Anna staged a demonstration protesting wages that are lower than at any other veterans home in Illinois.

Anna Veterans Home administrator Joanne Livengood said eight of the protesters left their jobs Saturday as part of a union strike and have since lost their jobs.

"They abandoned their positions," Livengood said. "The National Labor Relations Act states that an employee who walks off the job over economic issues that are being discussed can be permanently replaced."

Five certified nurse assistants, one cook, a dietary aid and an activity assistant were replaced because of the strike, she said. It will be determined whether the remaining 29 will be replaced as well, Livengood said.

Members of the American Federal State County Municipal Employees Union working for the Anna Veterans Home who do not show up for work as scheduled over the next few days will forfeit their positions, Livengood said. They will be replaced with applicants lined up for just this occurrence, she said.

"We began screening applicants when the union gave notice on July 31 of their intent to strike," she said. "All of those applying came under the same screening as those they will be replacing."

Kent Beauchamp, a union representative out of Springfield, Ill., said all but one of the 38 workers have agreed to strike and will not return to work this week. He said it will be difficult for the Veterans Home to replace them.

"The community is with us," Beauchamp said. "It will be tough for them to get replacements because (the replacements) will consider it as working against their own community."

He said even if they were able to replace all 37 striking workers there would be no guarantee they would be able to keep them.

"Whoever they get they won't be able to keep them from realizing how badly they're being treated and join up on our side," Beauchamp said.

Beauchamp said the families of the veterans being cared for at the Anna Home are on the side of the strikers.

"The families are very upset," he said. "They have been saying the home has been running with half its usual staff and the veterans are not being fed properly or monitored properly.

"We gave the home a 10-day notice of intent to strike so they could move the veterans, but they didn't move them."

Livengood, who stressed the type of care the veterans receive is not suffering from the strike, said negotiations between Veterans Home management and the union have reached a roadblock over wages. The state recently turned the Anna Veterans Home over to private management, Diversified Health Services of Memphis, in an effort to cut state costs, she said. But that has meant a significantly lower rate of pay for the Anna employees, she said.

Those employees on strike voted in October 1995 to become members of the union and allow that group to represent their desire for salaries comparable to those of state employees in the same occupations.

"The problem is at other veterans homes in Illinois workers get twice the pay, they get benefits and they get more days off," Beauchamp said. "This employer doesn't want to do that. These (workers) can't even feed their own families."

Livengood said wages at the Anna home are "considerably less" than those at the other Illinois veterans homes. And while management has increased its wage offers to employees, the union has not agreed to accept them.

"We came up to offer $6 an hour to our certified nurses' assistants, our largest employee group," she said. "That's a 29 percent increase over what we have been paying."

She said a veterans home in Springfield pays its certified nurses' assistants between $5 and $5.25 an hour.

Livengood said negotiations have been ongoing since the union was introduced to the Anna Veterans Home in 1995.

The next bargaining session is scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Beauchamp said a picket line has been formed in front of the home and the next step is the bargaining session. "After that we'll just have to wait and see."