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| Sutter Health CEO Pat Fry & Dave Regan |
Tasty hears that Dave
Regan’s concessionary caravan is making its next stop at Sutter Health, the largest hospital
chain in Northern California.
And guess what? An SEIU-UHW staffer -- who’s now
working as one of Sutter’s “Human Resources Partners” -- is actually helping to implement
the company’s cuts.
Here’s what’s happening.
Soon, union contracts covering thousands of SEIU-UHW members will
be expiring at nearly a dozen of Sutter’s hospitals. In recent months,
Sutter’s executives have drooled in sheer delight as Dave Regan gave away
hundreds of millions of dollars of concessions to Catholic
Healthcare West/Dignity Health, the Daughters
of Charity Health System, Kaiser
Permanente and other companies. Regan's concessions include wage freezes, health insurance
cuts, elimination of pension plans, and cuts to workers’ retiree health
benefits.
Now... Regan plans to give up the same concessions to Sutter
Health even though the company has pocketed $1.6 billion in profits during the past
two years, according to the company’s audited financial statements.
At one of Sutter’s largest hospitals -- Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland and Berkeley -- the CEO
recently announced plans to “restructure” the hospital’s operations by slashing
workers’ wages and benefits, and axing 10 percent of the hospital’s staff. Here’s
what CEO Chuck Prosper said in a
June 26th letter to 1,100 SEIU-UHW members at the hospital:
We must ask our labor partners to recognize this situation and cooperate with us as we ask for significant, but realistic, changes in our wage and benefit structure... After taking a hard look at the future, the administrative team has concluded we must restructure and reduce our staffing by approximately 10 percent... This reduction will affect employees and departments throughout our organization.
And in another letter, Sutter executives told workers that their former SEIU-UHW Field Representative -- Dominic
Mitchell -- will be one of the company's “Human Resources Partners” who will implement the cuts and layoffs. Here’s the letter:
So is Alta Bates Summit
Medical Center losing money?
Not by a long shot. In fact, the hospital made more
than $200 million in profits during the past two years, according to reports filed by the company.
So what's going on?
Sources tell Tasty that Dave Regan has become best buddies with Patrick Fry, the CEO of Sutter Health. Fry happens to sit on the Board of Directors of the California
Hospital Association, which recently signed a secret “partnership” deal with
Regan.
Last week, when Sutter delivered layoff letters to workers, SEIU-UHW didn’t even mount a protest against the job cuts… and instead
held a barbeque for employees! Incredible. SEIU literally threw bones to workers while their fat-cat employer announced the destruction of their livelihoods.
And to add insult to injury, Regan sent an SEIU-UHW Field Representative
named Fola Afariogun to try to sweet-talk
the angry and soon-to-be-jobless workers. Afariogun, who last year took home $109,091 in pay
from SEIU-UHW's members, displayed Regan’s keen sensitivity towards "the 99%" by driving up
to the “layoff BBQ” in his shiny Mercedes sports coup. Here’s Afariogun’s pay
from 2011 (click on the image to enlarge it):
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| Source: U.S. Dep't of Labor Form LM-2 for SEIU-UHW, 2011 |
Finally, sources report that Regan’s backroom deal with Sutter has left
the California Nurses Association in
a difficult spot. Sutter is trying to force SEIU’s concessions down
the throats of the hospitals' Registered Nurses, which has caused the nurses to respond with
strikes. Regan, however, has worked hand-in-hand with Sutter to oppose the strikes, even instructing SEIU-UHW’s members to scab against their fellow nurses. Sound
familiar, Kaiser workers?
