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Negotiations between health care workers and hospital administration have been ongoing for about eight months. The hospital has made several proposals that would provide wage increases and affordable health insurance, Bill Van Slyke, spokesperson for Columbia Memorial Health, said in a statement Wednesday. “We are confident that we will come to a final agreement that is competitive, equitable and sustainable,” Van Slyke said.
Health care workers have been calling for improved wages and access to better health benefits through access to the 1199SEIU’s benefit fund, which provides health and retirement benefits to its members. Columbia Memorial Health cannot compete with other hospitals in the surrounding area, causing it to lose staff, Greg Speller, executive vice president of 1199SEIU said during the picket. “They’re losing so many qualified caregivers who’d like to stay in their community hospital and take care of members of their community,” he said.
The next step in the negotiation process could be a strike vote, Speller said. “There’s absolutely a potential for a strike vote,” he said. “We certainly don’t want to take that step, but management’s really putting us in a position where we might have to.
We hope they come to the table next time, which I believe is the 24th of September, and try to settle this contract the way it needs to be settled, but again just given their posture the last negotiations, not too hopeful for that.” The decision to strike would be up to members of the union, Speller said. “We [the union] can come up with suggestions, but we definitely will have a discussion with our membership about what the next step is,” he said.
Nurses and other health care workers at the hospital expressed their frustrations with working conditions at the hospital, and shared their thoughts on a potential strike during the picket on Wednesday. Kelly Transue, and her coworker Jen Christman have been working as nurses in the hospital’s ambulatory surgery department for 35 and 18 years, respectively. “We don’t want to go anywhere,” Transue said.
“We think that we like to keep the roots in the community. We’re just losing people right and left.” Transue and Christman both said that they would support a strike vote if the need arose.
“They give us more and more [work] with less and less [staff],” Transue said. “It’s all about number, and we don’t think people should be numbers.” Health care workers should not have to be out picketing, Justine Lavalley, a nurse in the emergency department at the hospital said during the picket.
“They should pay us fair wages, so we can take care of our patients outside of the waiting room, and inside of the department,” she said. Lavelley would go on strike if given the opportunity, she added. “I would strike,” she said.
“It’s not just us not getting paid, our patients are not being cared for properly. It’s not just in the hospital, it’s everywhere. I spent 25 minutes on hold, four times today [Wednesday], trying to schedule an appointment for my mother.
” Roughly 100 health care workers, elected officials and union representatives attended the first picket session Wednesday from 2:30-4:30 p.m. A second picket was set to take place later in the afternoon, from 6-8 p.
m. During the picketing, health care workers and supporters walked up and down Prospect Place engaging in chants while others gathered near the driveway entrance of the emergency department. The saddest part of the negotiations is that the health care workers are not asking for extra, Hudson Mayor Kamal Johnson said during the picketing.
“You’re asking for fair,” he said. “You’re watching everyday as travel workers come in and get paid three times more than all of you, and that money could go to the people that are born here, live here, have families here, work in our community and are doing a great job.” Community engagement is also important, Jennifer Belton, Hudson 4th Ward councilmember said during the picketing.
“I don’t think enough people in their beautiful houses here understand exactly what’s going on at the hospital,” she said. It is also astounding that health care workers cannot afford health care, Belton said. “That’s insanity," she said.
"It’s insane to me that people who give so much of themselves every day to help others are making what someone at Aldi, no offense to people who work at Aldi, what they do. You have education. You’re caring.
And we appreciate you as a community. We really, really appreciate you.” There is a crisis in health care, Assembly member Didi Barrett, D-106, said during the picketing.
“But you’re still here doing the work,” she said. “And it makes no sense not to ensure that those of you doing the work that’s so important are not paid commensurate with the important work that you’re doing.” The hospital needs health care workers to function, Barrett said.
“So, we need you to be able to come to work, and be with our patients, and be able to do the work you’re doing,” she said. “And that means that you’re getting paid, and that means that you have a contract, and that’s gotta happen.” Last month, health care workers from Columbia Memorial Health and representatives from 1199SEIU hosted a meeting to discuss the ongoing staffing and retention issues at the hospital and the ongoing contract negotiations.
Robert Anderson, an X-ray technician at the hospital, was on the panel at the meeting last month, and said health care workers would keep going as long as they have to get what they want. “We’re going to win this one,” he said. “We’re going to win it for the techs [technicians], we’re going to win it for the housekeeper, we’re going to win it for the kitchen workers, we're going to win it for every single person and staff member in this hospital, so keep on fighting.
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