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.
]]>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.”
]]>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.
]]>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.
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.
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:
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, 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.
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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