A group of nursing home workers at the Danbury Health Center – owned by HealthBridge – voted 10 to 1 on Friday, April 13 to join with 1199, uniting their strength with the rest of the workers at Danbury and throughout HealthBridge who are already members of 1199.

The workers stuck together to overcome an aggressive anti-union campaign from HealthBridge management.

“I really feel like we are a team now,” said Adam Nemergut, an Occupational Therapist.  “We were before as a rehab dept, but after going through the past few months, and especially the past 2 weeks, I feel we are closer as a team than ever. We stood up for ourselves, and having won 10-1 it feels great. It’s just the first step but I now feel like our voices are being heard.”

The newest 1199 members are looking forward to negotiating their first contract and having the same protections that every other union member has.

“We now realize that working as a team we were able to stand on common ground to accomplish this great task,” said Erin Espitee, a Speech Language Pathologist.  “We look forward to having our voices heard and being able to stand with our co-workers to fight for what we all deserve!  Our goals are to provide our patients with the best care possible, and win a fair benefit and compensation package that we can all afford.”