With the threat of a strike looming, officials representing both the Harborage Nursing Home facility on River Road in North Bergen and the local union representing the facility’s 180 nursing and technical support assistants reached an agreement at 4 a.m. Thursday morning that would prevent any work stoppage. After a strike authorization was issued on May 10 by the members of the Local 5097 of the Health Professional Allied Employees, contract negotiations continued feverishly this week in an effort to avoid the midnight Saturday strike deadline. The current contract was set to expire Friday and the workers all vowed that they would not continue to work without a new contract in place. However, a tentative agreement was struck at the end of the week. “We’ve reached a tentative agreement and it will be presented to the membership for a vote,” said Bernie Gerard, the HPAE Local vice-president. “We believe it’s a fair agreement and we’re hopeful that the members will ratify the agreement.” Terms of the contract were not disclosed, other than it is a three-year contract that carries until May, 2003. Gerard said that the agreement calls for a “significant hourly increase,” for the 180 workers at the Harborage, which is part of the Palisades General Medical Center. “The members were very serious about their intentions to strike,” Gerard said. “They gave a 10-day notice that they were ready to walk out. They had a membership meeting all set, in terms of picketing details. But we’re hoping that all sides are going to be happy.” Lois Cuccinello, the president of HPAE Local 5097, was unavailable for comment. Gerard said that he had not spoken with any of the union’s members about the tentative agreement, but he felt confident that the worst is over. “The feeling I get is that the members will ratify the agreement,” Gerard said. “It took a lot of time and effort. Negotiations went around the clock. But we feel we’ve done the best thing possible for our members.” A spokeswoman for Harborage administrator Edward Davis said that there was a sense of relief that the agreement was reached. The nursing home was already calling local temporary employment agencies to fill the slots vacated by the striking employees, but there aren’t a lot of people willing to cross a picket line and the facility would have been grossly understaffed. Gerard was equally relieved. “It certainly could have been a disastrous situation for everyone,” Gerard said. “There is a great sense of relief that this was averted.”
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