Sonoma Healthcare Center Caregivers to Urge Department of Health Services to Stop Discrimination Against Mexican-Descent Nurse Assistants

Workers from the Sonoma Healthcare Center will gather outside of the California Department of Health Services office in Santa Rosa on Thursday, April 14, 2005 to protest the agency’s recent investigations of caregivers at their nursing home. Caregivers are particularly concerned that the investigations target activists of Mexican descent who have spoken up for nursing home residents by demanding improvements in patient care standards and are leaders in forming a union at the facility.

Employees at Sonoma Healthcare Center have been in a labor dispute with the nursing home and its owner, The Ensign Group, for nearly three years. A majority of employees voted to join the Service Employees International Union in May 2002, and it took a protracted legal battle to force The Ensign Group to recognize the union and begin to negotiate a first contract. The Ensign Group has used a variety of tactics to intimidate employees for supporting a union. The latest has been to enlist the DHS in investigating certified nursing assistants who are also union activists.

Workers have planned Thursday’s event to decry the agency’s involvement in the labor conflict at the facility, and call into question their recent investigations of the union activists at the facility. The Sonoma Healthcare Center caregivers are asking the DHS to immediately cease these investigations.

“I love my work and I want to continue caring for my residents,” said Eulalia Gonzalez, a certified nursing assistant at Sonoma Healthcare Center. “It’s pretty upsetting to hear that I am being investigated by DHS when I’ve never had a single complaint filed against me by any resident at our facility. I hope that this has nothing to do with my involvement with the union, but when all of us who are being investigated also happen to be union activists, I think it’s pretty obvious that something strange is going on.”