Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital Workers Win Contract with Raises and No Concessions

Hospital Board voted unanimously to approve Tentative Agreement

Salinas, California - Today, the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System Board of Directors voted unanimously to approve a Tentative Agreement between hospital management and 750 caregivers who belong to the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW). With that vote, NUHW members at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital (SVMH) won a union contract after well over a year of bargaining.

Though the employer had insisted throughout the duration of negotiations on over $16 million worth of concessions, including the elimination of workers’ defined benefit pension plan, an increase in health insurance costs, a wage freeze, a reduction in vacation days and sick leave, elimination of a ban on subcontracting, an extension of the probationary period for new hires and many more takeaways, workers succeeded in settling a contract with not a single concession and with wage increases from 3.25 to 18.25 percent over the term of the contract.

SVMH caregivers achieved this remarkable success by staying united through a period of extraordinary turbulence and confrontation at the worksite and in the Salinas community at large.

For the last two years, workers at SVMH have been engaged in a protracted and at times bruising public battle with the hospital’s Board of Directors to save their jobs and preserve their wages and benefits.

In May of 2010, hundreds of SVMH workers voted to bolt the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and join NUHW in response to SEIU’s failure to provide adequate representation at the worksite and at the bargaining table.

After being officially certified as NUHW members that October, SVMH caregivers mobilized to resist mass layoffs and benefit cuts. When the hospital’s Board of Directors hired outside management consultants to advise them on streamlining operations in preparation for a possible sale or merger of the public district hospital, NUHW members responded by pointing to the hospital’s payment of over $5 million to its outgoing CEO in an unusual severance agreement that became a national news story and that prompted a state audit of SVMH finances. 

Last fall, workers engaged in a one-day strike and were locked out by management for three days.  

Even while NUHW members resisted management’s proposed takeaways, more SVMH workers voted to join NUHW. In January of 2011, 67 formerly non-union technical workers petitioned to become NUHW members and joined their co-workers to fight for a fair contract.

Earlier this week, SVMH workers voted by 388 to 1 to ratify the Tentative Agreement.

NUHW members at SVMH include Respiratory Care Practitioners, Licensed Vocational Nurses, Certified Nursing Assistants, Dietary workers, Clerical employees, Laboratory Technicians, Diagnostic Imaging Technologists and other job classifications.

More than 21,000 Kaiser Permanente Caregivers to Strike Statewide on January 31

OAKLAND - This week, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) notified Kaiser Permanente of the union’s intent to engage in a 24-hour statewide strike on January 31st. 

NUHW’s 4,000 members at Kaiser will be joined by 17,000 Registered Nurses with the California Nurses Association and 650 members of the Stationary Engineers Local 39 who will be striking in sympathy with NUHW in the largest walkout in the HMO’s history.

The January 31st walkout will be the fourth time NUHW Kaiser workers have walked the picket line since they began bargaining in 2010. Last September, NUHW members were joined by CNA RNs who struck in sympathy, for a total of 21,000 Kaiser workers on strike. This month’s action will exceed that total by an additional 650 workers.

Despite record profits over the last three years of more than $5.6 billion, Kaiser management is insisting on major reductions to workers’ healthcare coverage and retirement benefits. NUHW members are committed to holding the line against these cuts, which Kaiser intends to impose upon tens of thousands more employees represented by other unions as their contracts come up for renewal over the next several years.

Even while demanding sacrifice from frontline caregivers in order to increase Kaiser’s profits, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, George Halvorson, took home almost $9 million in compensation in 2010, and numerous top managers at Kaiser enjoy lavish salaries, bonuses and perks, including as many as eight separate pension plans per executive.

In addition to insisting on benefit cuts for workers, Kaiser administrators continue to refuse to address caregivers’ concerns about chronic short staffing and its negative impacts on patient care. Last November, NUHW members exposed gross deficiencies in Kaiser’s mental health services in a published report, available at http://www.nuhw.org/caredenied. The Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) is currently investigating the report’s claims.

Despite its record profits, two weeks ago Kaiser imposed rate increases on 660,000 California policyholders still faltering under the burden of the Great Recession, a move that will garner the HMO an additional half billion dollars in revenue over the coming year. In a letter to the DMHC, NUHW and the Courage Campaign pointed to “significant deficiencies” in Kaiser’s rate review filing for the increases and requested an investigation into the economic justification for forcing this financial burden on California families when they can least afford it.

“What it all boils down to is Kaiser top executives putting profits before patient care,” said Dr. Spencer Gross, a Psychologist at Kaiser Pleasanton. “Kaiser pays its CEO $9 million a year and has billions in surplus revenue, but that’s still not enough. They want even more sacrifice from caregivers, patients and California’s struggling families so that Kaiser executives can pay themselves like Wall Street bankers.”

Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital Workers Ratify Tentative Agreement with Management

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 19, 2012 - Contact Leighton Woodhouse: (213) 948-3545

Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital Workers Ratify Tentative Agreement with Management

Salinas, California - Members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital (SVMH) approved a Tentative Agreement reached on Monday between management and the union in a vote of 388 in favor to 1 against, or 99% percent in favor of ratification, with a 54% turnout.

Tomorrow, the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System Board of Directors will vote on the Tentative Agreement, which comes with a recommendation to approve from the hospital’s bargaining team.

The agreement caps a lengthy and acrimonious public battle between hospital employees and a majority of the Board’s members.

“We’re relieved and elated that we’ve finally reached a successful conclusion to negotiations that were at times very difficult,” said George Ross, a Licensed Vocational Nurse at the hospital. “We knew that if we stuck together, we’d win a fair contract in the end.  We couldn’t be happier with what we’ve achieved.”

Details of the contract settlement will be made available following the Board’s vote to approve the Tentative Agreement.

Workers at Michigan Hospital Vote to Leave SEIU and Join NUHW

Muskegon, Michigan - Technical workers at the Hackley campus of Mercy Health Partners hospital in Muskegon, Michigan voted yesterday to leave the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) by a vote of 65 to 9, with two votes for “no union.”

Hackley caregivers are the second group of Michigan workers to bolt SEIU for NUHW since last fall. Last September, workers at Luther Manor Nursing Home in Saginaw chose NUHW over SEIU by a margin of more than 2-to-1.

“We’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time,” said Kim Vossekuil, a Surgical Technologist at Hackley. “SEIU is too corrupt and indifferent to its members for us to remain with them for a single day longer. We’ve gone months at a time without ever seeing our SEIU representative, and SEIU staff refused to do anything when management ran roughshod over our contract. We cast our ballots for NUHW because we want a union that workers control and that’s accountable to us.”

SEIU has had a troubled recent history in Michigan, marked by repeated allegations of corruption. The former president of SEIU Healthcare Michigan, Rickman Jackson, was forced from office in 2008 over his receipt of thousands of dollars in improper rent payments from SEIU’s Los Angeles homecare union, where he was formerly employed. Jackson’s replacement, Marge Faville, is paid over $160,000 annually and has her niece, daughter and son on the union’s payroll. The union spent $17,600 in member dues money in 2010 for use of a corporate apartment in Detroit by Faville and her family members, even though the local union is currently $1.7 million in debt.

Yesterday’s election covered approximately 100 technical employees, including Radiology Technologists, Respiratory Therapists, Surgical Technologists, Ultrasound Technologists and Vascular Technologists.

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Kaiser Skirting State Regulations in January Rate Hike on 660,000 Californians

Emeryville, California - Today, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) and the Courage Campaign requested that the Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) “exercise its full statutory authority” to investigate insurance rate hikes that Kaiser Permanente plans to impose on 660,000 Californians on January 1, 2012, due to Kaiser’s failure to provide data required by regulators for their rate review process.

Today, in a letter submitted to DMHC Director Brent Barnhart, the two organizations pointed to “significant deficiencies” in Kaiser’s October rate review filings, and its failure to provide information on six of fourteen factors required by DMHC in its review process. On January 1, Kaiser seeks to boost rates for individual and small group plan subscribers by an average 9.0% and 8.2%, respectively. The rate increases would yield an additional half-billion dollars in revenues for Kaiser.

In its filings to DMHC, Kaiser provided incomplete data on the company’s rate of return, financial surpluses and executive compensation, among other factors that would militate against an economic justification for the increases. The ostensibly not-for-profit HMO has made more than $5.6 billion in profits since the beginning of 2009, and Kaiser’s CEO, George Halvorson, received nearly $9 million in compensation in 2010.

This is the second time in less than a year that Kaiser has attempted to push through a rate hike without submitting crucial data required by the state. This summer, Kaiser imposed a rate increase on 300,000 rate payers in California after submitting a rate review filing with many of the same missing data as in its October filing.

Then, as now, NUHW and the Courage Campaign urged DMHC to investigate the economic justification for Kaiser’s rate hike, based on its inadequate rate review filing. In September, after discussions with DMHC regulators and at their urging, Kaiser retroactively rolled back its increase by 1.2 percentage points, yielding an estimate $30 million in savings for California consumers. A recently obtained letter describes DMHC’s “deep disappointment” with Kaiser’s July rate hikes in the midst of California’s ongoing recession as well as Kaiser’s failure to justify hikes on consumers.

“Despite DMHC’s clear rebuke of Kaiser’s failure to justify its rate increase from earlier this year, Kaiser administrators have elected to do the same thing once more,” said Rick Jacobs, Founder and Chair of the Courage Campaign. “This is becoming par for the course with Kaiser: rip off policyholders when they’re hurting the most, ignore state regulations, and funnel even more patient care dollars into obscene executive salaries. Governor Brown and DMHC need to let Kaiser know they’ve got Californians’ interests at heart, and bring some accountability to an HMO that’s increasingly out of control.”

“It’s unconscionable for Kaiser to boost its massive profits and exorbitant executive compensation on the backs of California’s small businesses and non-profits, which are struggling to stay afloat, and at the expense of individual consumers still staggering under the impact of the Great Recession,” said Sal Rosselli, President of NUHW. “Kaiser’s finances make clear these rate hikes are excessive, and its repeated failures to meet the state’s reporting requirements show its complete contempt for California’s current rate oversight process.”

Providence Tarzana Medical Center Workers Reach Contract Settlement with Management

LOS ANGELES - Over 550 employees of Providence-owned Tarzana Medical Center in the San Fernando Valley reached a tentative agreement with management yesterday for a union contract that includes annual two percent across-the-board wage increases for all full time and part time workers for three years, and that maintains a ban on subcontracting at the hospital.

The agreement also improves workers’ retirement benefits and increases their protections in the event of a sale of the hospital.

“By showing Providence  we were willing to  stand up for ourselves, we won raises for  every full time and part time worker and kept our ban on subcontracting in  place,” said Julia Sidrow-Thompson, a Monitor Technician at Tarzana.  “That’s exactly why we joined NUHW — to belong to a union willing to fight and win.”

Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital Caregivers Hold Candlelight Vigil for Fair Contract Tonight

What: Candlelight vigil for a fair contract at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital

When: Tuesday, December 13th at 5:30pm

Where: Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, 1165 Montgomery Drive, Santa Rosa, 95405 (follow this link to a map of the location: http://g.co/maps/p35x3 )

Visuals: Hospital employees and community allies standing in front of hospital with lit candles, somber and dignified 

SANTA ROSA - Along with community supporters and faith leaders, caregivers at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital (SRMH) will hold a candlelight vigil tonight to urge management to bargain in good faith toward a fair contract that safeguards patient care.

Over 650 members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) have been bargaining since May over job security, fair wages and safe staffing levels at the hospital.  Even though the hospital reported over $26 million in profits in the last fiscal year and is a regional Level II trauma center, wages at Memorial are among the lowest for major hospitals in the county.

NUHW members at SRMH include Licensed Vocational Nurses, Dietary workers, Nursing Assistants, Phlebotomists, Radiology Technologists, Respiratory Care Practitioners, Housekeepers and other job classifications.

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New Report Describes Gross Deficiencies in Kaiser Permanente Mental Health Services

Survey and interviews uncover systemic failures to provide timely and appropriate care

OAKLAND - A comprehensive new report published by the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) describes gross and systemic deficiencies in mental health services at Kaiser Permanente hospitals and clinics throughout California, including willful violations of state laws and regulations, and routine disregard of clinicians’ treatment recommendations by administrators preoccupied with cost savings.

The report, based on a survey of over 300 Kaiser mental health professionals practicing at 57 Kaiser facilities in Northern and Southern California, along with dozens of open-ended interviews with clinicians and patients, includes these findings:

• Ninety percent (90%) of surveyed clinicians report that there is insufficient staffing at their clinic to provide patients with timely return visits.

• Patients are frequently forced to wait four weeks or longer for return appointments, even though California state regulations require that they be seen within ten business days. These include patients suffering from major depression, suicidal ideation, and other serious conditions.

• Kaiser routinely compels clinicians to “speed up” initial patient evaluations, reducing their durations to as little as half of recommended clinical standards, and then miscodes these sessions “in a manner that may result in fraudulent claims to Medicare and other governmental and private purchasers.”

• Kaiser often funnels patients into group therapy even when their diagnoses call for individual therapy.

• Kaiser falsifies patient scheduling records to conceal appointment delays from state regulators, through practices such as “shadow” paper records, deliberate miscoding of appointment requests, and deliberately canceling and rescheduling patients’ appointments “while falsely attributing the cancellation to the patient.”

Clinicians interviewed for the report describe an unmistakable pattern of knowing failures and deceptive practices by Kaiser administrators that routinely compromise the health and safety of thousands of patients suffering from emotional pain and distress in order to save the company money. Even though Kaiser has generated over $5.6 billion in profits since the beginning of 2009 and pays its Chief Executive Officer close to $8 million a year, Kaiser management has refused to agree to guarantee its caregivers sufficient staffing to safeguard quality patient care. Through three strikes and nearly twenty months of bargaining, Kaiser caregivers throughout the state have attempted to address these patient care issues with management and have been met with intransigence.

After reviewing the report, the California Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers wrote in a statement, “It appears that there are very serious and clear violations of California law relating to timely access to care and inadequate health care practices at Kaiser that appear to fall short of recommended clinical standards….state and federal authorities should investigate this matter to ensure that mental health clients at Kaiser are receiving timely and appropriate treatment.”

Likewise, a letter from the California Psychological Association affirmed that the organization “supports calls for objective review of the allegations by both federal and state regulators who have the responsibility for enforcing the mental health parity laws and ensuring that the lawful community standard of care is being fully observed.”

View on-camera interviews with patients and clinicians describing Kaiser’s substandard mental health services:

Interview with patient, Bill Hawkins: http://kaiserunited.org/2011/11/bill-hawkins-interview/

Interview with son of patient, Timm Sinclair: http://kaiserunited.org/2011/11/timm-sinclair-interview/

Interview with Psychiatric Social Worker Emily Ryan and Therapist Jim Clifford: http://kaiserunited.org/2011/09/kaiser-mental-health-workers-speak-out/

Read the full report here: bit.ly/CareDenied

See NUHW’s resource page for press and the public: http://www.nuhw.org/caredenied

Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital and the National Union of Healthcare Workers Agree to Assemblymember Luis Alejo and State Mediator's Request for 30-Day Cooling Off Period

NUHW strike scheduled for October 18th withdrawn

Salinas, California - SVMH and NUHW today (October 13, 2011) agreed to a request from the offices of Assemblymember Luis Alejo and the state mediator for a 30-day cooling off period in an effort to put in place a process to reach a contract. The parties also agreed to bargaining dates of October 26, November 7, and November 15. 

As an expression of good faith, NUHW agreed to withdraw its strike notice, while SVMH agreed to pay those employees who were scheduled to work on June 22 and 23 and were denied reinstatement on those dates, following the union’s one-day strike on June 21. 

Both NUHW and SVMH express their appreciation to Assemblymember Alejo and the state mediator for their constructive involvement in these negotiations.

Close to 700 USC University Hospital Workers On Strike Tomorrow for 24 Hours

What: 24-hour strike by close to 700 caregivers at Keck Medical Center of USC (formerly USC University Hospital)

When: Tomorrow, Wednesday, October 12th, beginning at 6am. Picket lines from 6am - 6pm. Strike for 24 hours.

Where: USC University Hospital, 1500 San Pablo St., Los Angeles (Follow this link to a map of the location: http://g.co/maps/7qvgn)

Visuals: Hundreds of caregivers marching with picket signs, many wearing scrubs or lab coats.

LOS ANGELES - Close to 700 employees of Keck Medical Center of USC (formerly USC University Hospital) will strike for 24 hours tomorrow, Wednesday, October 12th, beginning at 6am.

USC caregivers have been bargaining with the hospital since August 2010. Workers are asking that management agree to provide frontline caregivers with a contractually enforceable means of addressing short-staffing problems that compromise patient care. To date, their proposal to protect patients has been rebuffed by hospital administrators.

Even though the university holds a $2.9 billion endowment and the hospital generated $3 million in profits in the last fiscal quarter alone, management has proposed implementing a one-year wage freeze on hospital workers. The hospital further insists on continuing to deny caregivers the same family tuition assistance benefit and retirement plan that they recently agreed to for the hospital’s Registered Nurses, who are members of the California Nurses Association, and that is available to almost every other university employee.

The federal government has issued complaints against Keck Medical Center management for several unfair labor practices, and has scheduled a hearing on them for October 24th.

NUHW members at USC include Respiratory Care Practitioners, Radiology Technologists, Surgical Technicians, Housekeepers and other job classifications.

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