A leading residential recovery specialist at a behavioral health clinic in New London will join dozens of colleagues Sunday morning in a walkout against low pay and unsafe staff conditions.
Kwan Jenkins, 44, has worked with Sound Community Services for three years. He has never received a raise.
“I’ve had the same rate since I started,” he said, at less than $15.40 an hour.
The workers also have other complaints. They say they can’t afford health insurance and don’t have retirement plans. Management doesn’t discipline abusive customers and instead retrains them through different programs, she said.
Employees of the Sound Community Services union will go on strike starting Sunday morning for pay raises, benefits and better staffing conditions. A separate walkout is also scheduled at Gilead Community Services in Middletown beginning May 5. Both strikes will be limited to three days, according to District 1199 Service Employees International Union.
But workers’ frustration isn’t just their employers. These mental health workers are also asking the state to provide an additional 8 percent increase in funding for the state’s Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services this legislative session. This would help fund their demands for fair wages, benefits and adequate staffing, they said.
“The 8% will go a long way toward rectifying low standards in the field of mental health and will help workers achieve higher wages on their contracts,” said Kindra Fontes-May, an elected organizer for union 1199. Workers will be “continually advocating” for this increase in the next two weeks, Fontes-May said.
Workers’ wages at the Sound and Gilead community centers range from $15 to $18 an hour. Most Sound workers make $15.37 an hour, while most Gilead workers make $15.06 an hour, according to the union.
The union has proposed, using a combination of additional state funds and employer compensation, a path to $20 an hour raising minimum rates. The proposal also creates “seniority increases” with the opportunity to negotiate higher wages in the future, the union said.
Gino DeMaio, CEO of Community Sound Services, said this is simply not affordable for his nonprofit. DeMaio said the lawsuits would cost about $1.2 million a year, with the organization only receiving $323,000 more in cost-of-living adjustments.
“It would essentially put us out of business,” he told Hearst Connecticut Media on Friday. The demands of the union, and what the organization can deliver, are “light years away,” she said.
“They have given us a lot of money from budget allocations,” he added.
Sound responded with an increase of $1.78 per person, increased contributions to health care costs and automatic enrollment in 401k plans, with the nonprofit matching what it could. DeMaio said that he has not received a response.
Gilead management has proposed salary increases up from 4 percent offered to state employees on Friday.
Although Fontes-May said Gilead’s accountant is a good start, “the proposal is limited in what it can accomplish and is hampered by the fact that it prevents workers from negotiating additional raises in the future.”
“Inflation, gas and rent go up every year, but salaries in the mental health field have historically remained stagnant,” he said. “Workers’ ability to fight for more is key to raising standards across the state and lifting workers out of poverty.”
Dan Osborne, executive director of Gilead Community Services, also blamed state funding as a problem.
“However, in the last 15 years, we have only received a single 1% increase from the State,” he said in a statement. “As a result, we have not been able to provide our staff with the regular raises they deserve.”
Osborne called on the state legislature to adequately fund all nonprofits facing similar challenges.
“That is why I stand with our staff, the CT Nonprofit Alliance and all of our member agencies in urging our legislative leaders to use the resources at their disposal to change the pattern of underfunding of nonprofit agencies in Connecticut during the last 15 years”. she added.
Rob Baril, president of union 1199, said the state has outsourced public mental health work to nonprofits like Sound and Gilead for the past few decades “under the guise of cutting costs.”
“These services depend on state funding, which has been stagnant for years,” he continued. “We have reached a point where we don’t have enough resources to run these programs and support staff.
“Taking shortcuts is not the way to improve mental health services and care for hundreds of vulnerable black, brown and white people in our communities,” he said.
Union officials said that even in years without increases in state funding, “management at both agencies have given each other raises.”
“When we come to the bargaining table, and year after year they claim poverty when it comes time to pass similar raises to staff, you can imagine what that does to workers who risk their bodies every day,” Fontes said. may. “The years of the boss offering pennies to the staff while they continue to raise their dollars are over.”
Jenkins, the Sound’s top residential recovery specialist, said “our bosses don’t want to give us a dime.”
“I do this work because we are like the only family some of these men and women have.” he said. “When I walk through doors every day on my show, my clients light up when they see me.”
Jenkins prides himself on treating his clients with respect, showing compassion and love, and talking to them instead of putting them down.
“All they want is to be treated with some decency and respect,” he said. “We have to love the work we do. We’re not looking to be millionaires, we just want to be fairly compensated.”
From June 2020 to June 2021, Sound Community Services reported $11.1 million in revenue, of which nearly $8.7 million came from government grants, according to Sound Community Services 2021 Audit Report on ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer.
Although specific salaries were not available in the audit report, it indicated that payroll accounted for about 70 percent of the organization’s $10.46 million in expenses. The organization paid nearly $6.28 million in wages and salaries, $1 million of which went to “management and general,” according to the audit report.
Last year, Sound Community Services reported $10.69 million in revenue and $10.5 million in expenses, according to Sound Community Services tax returns from July 2019 to June 2020.
That year, eight people, including the CEO, collectively took home $1.24 million. The organization paid a total of $7.5 million in salaries, employee benefits and other compensation to 178 reported employees.
For Gilead, from July 2019 through June 2020, the organization reported paying nearly $10.83 million in wages and compensation to its 327 reported employees, according to your most recent tax return available in ProPublica’s nonprofit explorer.
Of the highest-paid employees, the tax return says the CEO earned more than $156,000 from Gilead, and other top employees received between $129,000 and $240,000 from related organizations.
The organization earned $15.1 million that fiscal year and spent $14.49 million, according to the tax return.
Strike at Sound Community Services in New London begins at 6 am Sunday Sound workers are set to resume negotiations Wednesday after the three-day walkout. Gilead workers are ready to resume negotiations also after the strike the week of May 1. If they cannot reach an agreement, the workers can send another strike notice or take additional action.
