Tasty hears that an NUHW contract settlement is creating
quite a buzz among healthcare workers in California. Last week, NUHW’s members
settled a contract with Sutter Health’s California
Pacific Medical Center (CPMC), which is the largest hospital in San
Francisco and the second largest hospital in all of California.
So what’s got people talking?
It’s the dramatic difference between
NUHW and SEIU-UHW at the bargaining table.
After SEIU’s 2009 trusteeship, SEIU’s D.C. officials
negotiated big cuts for CPMC’s workers and
even penned a special “side letter” that sold out workers’ longtime community allies in their fight
to preserve medical services for low-income residents.
That helps explain why CPMC’s workers later voted
to get out of SEIU-UHW and joined NUHW.
Then, in 2012, SEIU’s Dave
Regan negotiated huge cuts
for thousands of workers at ten of Sutter’s other hospitals across Northern
California. Regan’s concessions included a deal that forces workers to pay
hundreds of dollars each month for a health insurance plan that’s always been
free.
And at Sutter’s Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland, Regan allowed Sutter
to subcontract
the hospital’s entire business office (almost 100 workers’ jobs), even though
workers’ contract has language to block the subcontracting.
Regan’s sell-out deal with Sutter created some serious
headwind for NUHW during its negotiations with CPMC. But check this out. Last
week, NUHW reached a contract settlement with improvements and not a single cut!
NUHW was able to reverse the cuts that SEIU accepted
during its prior negotiations with CPMC, including cuts to workers’ seniority
rights, layoff protections, reclassification language, reporting pay and shift
differentials.
Plus, NUHW won new pay increases. After workers voted to
leave SEIU, CPMC continued giving them the scheduled wage
increases specified in their old contract -- which is a requirement of federal
law. Meanwhile, workers were negotiating a new contract with NUHW. Then, last
week, NUHW negotiated a retroactive pay increase that goes back to 2012 and gives
workers a 5% wage boost in 2012.
It’s a remarkable story. And it speaks volumes about the dramatic
differences between NUHW and SEIU-UHW.
And get this. SEIU-UHW has basically admitted that NUHW is more successful at fighting and winning for its membership.
Last year, SEIU-UHW’s officials cowardly inserted “me
too” provisions in its Sutter contracts so that
SEIU-UHW’s members would enjoy the superior health benefits that NUHW just negotiated. SEIU knew that NUHW would bargain a better contract. And thanks to NUHW, SEIU-UHW’s members at St. Luke’s Hospital won’t have to suffer
the health insurance cuts that SEIU’s negotiators accepted.
