SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan
is once again trying to shove massive takeaways down the throats of several
thousand workers at the Daughters of
Charity Health System, according to workers at the chain's hospitals.
As
in 2012, Regan has launched a series of ramrod ratification votes aimed at
pushing a sell-out contract through the union's membership.
Yesterday,
SEIU-UHW staffers conducted "ratification votes" at O'Connor Hospital in San Jose, Calif.
and St. Louise Regional Hospital in
Gilroy, Calif. for a tentative agreement that’s "the worst contract in our
history," according to a worker and SEIU-UHW member.
Among the contract's givebacks is a mega-whopper.
According to
contract language leaked to Tasty, Regan has agreed to slash and burn eligibility
standards for workers' benefits (e.g., health insurance, vacation pay, sick pay,
retirement, etc) so that hundreds of SEIU-UHW members would be stripped of their benefits,
including the health insurance for their children.
What did Regan
do?
Under the current
contract, workers are eligible for benefits as long as they work half time or more – that
is, at least 20 hours per week. This is a decades-old, industry-wide eligibility
standard established by Local 250 and Sal Rosselli's union. Here's the actual
language from the current contract between SEIU-UHW and the Daughters of
Charity will (see the language for "Regular Part-time" employees):
Next, here's
the NEW language that Regan inked during secret negotiations with company
executives. This is the new standard that Regan is trying to ram down workers’
throats. Workers would be required to work at least three-quarters time (30
hours per week) to qualify for health insurance and other benefits. A source leaked the following excerpt
from Regan’s tentative contract language:
Regan's
sharp benefit cuts represent a concession of massive proportions, according
to knowledgeable industry observers.
If SEIU-UHW establishes this standard with
the six-hospital Daughters of Charity chain, other large hospital chains like
Kaiser Permanente, Dignity Health, and Sutter Health will inevitably demand the
same concession.
Of course, Regan has
already gutted healthcare workers' retirement benefits by helping one hospital
chain after another to
eliminate workers' decades-old defined-benefit pension plans and replace
them with cheap 401(k) plans.
"The same thing will happen here," says
a knowledgeable observer whom Tasty consulted about Regan's massive concession
on benefit eligibility standards.
So how are
SEIU-UHW's members at the Daughters of Charity responding?
At
yesterday's ratification vote at St. Louise Regional Medical Center, only 16
workers voted in favor of SEIU-UHW's sell-out contract, according to workers at
the facility. SEIU-UHW reportedly provided so little advance notice to workers that
only one-third of the eligible workers were able to cast ballot.
Most members were not even aware that bargaining was happening… SEIU came in a few days ago and announced that it was a done deal! We have been unable to see the full contract, yet they are holding the vote as I write this! When we found out last week that bargaining was going on, several members asked to attend and were told it was being held in a secret place… It turns out no representative came to the hospital to inform us there was a vote, but one rep came and said, "The contract is settled, it's a done deal."
Another Daughters
of Charity worker offered this comment about SEIU-UHW:
It is obvious that we have a union that is simply an extension of the employer who we have to pay dues to for the privelidge of hearing the same arguments made by the employer against worker's best interests. It's a sad day for Labor.
Meanwhile,
Tasty hears that workers at nearby Seton
Medical Center -- a Daughters of Charity hospital where approximately 700
workers successfully decertified SEIU-UHW and joined NUHW -- are jumping for joy now that they’re
finally out of SEIU-UHW.
Talk about dodging the purple bullet…
