Mountain View workers prioritize residents as company stalls contract negotiations

The workers of Mountain View Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Northumberland County continue to work without a contract as the nursing home’s new owner since January 1, 2025, New Jersey-based Allaire Health Services, stalls negotiations.

Council 13 previously published an article covering the struggles workers are facing at the facility and how it is impacting residents, which garnered much concern and support from the community on social media.

Unfortunately, many of those issues persist, yet the members of AFSCME Local 2016 – the nurses, cooks, dietary aides, maintenance workers, secretaries, and drivers of Mountain View – are working extremely hard to focus on their number one priority: the residents.

AFSCME Local 2016 members show their solidarity at a union meeting in a local fire house!

Meanwhile, the local union’s President and Vice President Amy Thomas and Laura Snyder – Licensed Practical Nurses at Mountain View – along with AFSCME representatives, continue their attempts to get the company to bargain in good faith.

AFSCME Local 2016 President Amy Thomas and VP Laura Thomas stand ready to negotiate for a fair contract for Mountain View workers.

Since the company’s lawyer walked away from the bargaining table in March, a negotiation session took place virtually on April 14, during which the company proposed to freeze wages for the AFSCME members working at Mountain View in 2025. 

Union members remain hopeful that the company will come back to the table with reasonable proposals in writing and a willingness to finalize a collective bargaining agreement effective January 1, 2025, when the company assumed operations of the facility. At time of publication, the hardworking nurses and staff at Mountain View await a written proposal.

Because of Allaire’s refusal to bargain in good faith up to this point, AFSCME filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). An NLRB Field Examiner has been assigned to and is currently investigating the case (04-CA-362795).

The company is slowing negotiations while understaffing runs rampant inside the facility. They attempt to rely on non-union temp workers to make up for staffing shortages, but it’s Mountain View’s AFSCME-represented in-house staff holding the facility together and ensuring residents get proper care.

In addition to focusing on providing the best care possible to Mountain View residents, Local 2016 members have been meeting and strategizing in fire halls and Zoom meetings, supporting one another and staying united.

Mountain View workers gather in a local fire house for a union meeting to strategize their next moves.

Since the new owners took over, many longtime employees have resigned, but many others have continued to show up for work every day, earning less while doing more. They have met the company’s challenges with grace. They have spent their own money to purchase snacks and supplies for their residents when the company didn’t order enough. They have been the voice of reason, experience, and compassion, during a difficult time at a struggling facility.

The workers of Mountain View are simply asking their employer to have enough respect for the difficult work they do to bargain in good faith and make a proposal that substantially invests in the livelihoods of employees, along with the well-being of residents.