Narrowly averting a strike that would have affected over 2,200 patients (see WIT for Sept. 13, 2002), health and human services union 1199/Service Employees International Union and Premier Home Health Services Incorporated reached a contract agreement yesterday. The several thousand 1199/SEIU members employed at Premier unanimously approved the fifteen-month contract which contains a twenty percent increase in pay and benefits, including employer paid health insurance, paid holidays, overtime and sick days. The contract represents a major victory for the low paid home health aides in an often rancorous two-year fight for a first contract (see WIT for Sept. 16, 2002), and may serve as a basis for settling contract negotiations covering 8,000 city-employed home health workers.
See RANDI F. MARSHALL, Newsday, September 18, 2002