A group of 26 Filipino nurses lost two key battles in their fight with a New York nursing home chain over the nurses en masse resignation. The nurses claim that they were not employed as promised including being underpaid and working at locations not promised in their agreements.
On Aug. 31 the Justice Department’s Office of the Special Counsel for Immigration-related Unfair Employment Practices dismissed the nurses’ complaint that Sentosa Care discriminated against them.
The special counsel said there was “insufficient evidence” to bring the nurses’ case to a departmental hearing officer who has the power to impose monetary damages.
On Sept. 4, Philippine recruitment regulators threw out the nurses’ charges that Sentosa Recruitment Agency duped them into emigrating under false pretenses.
Sentosa, the employer, has aggressively fought back against the nurses and in an unprecedented move, law enforcement authorities are going after the nurses on the grounds that their resignation endangered patients. Furthermore, the lawyer for the nurses is also being targeted:
Of the nurses who resigned, 10 face trial in Suffolk on charges of endangering the welfare of children. Prosecutors said their resignations caused a staffing crisis at Avalon Gardens Rehabilitation and Health Care Center, a SentosaCare facility in Smithtown, that endangered the lives of six children in a ventilation unit there. Vinluan is charged with conspiracy for encouraging their actions.