Friday, July 14, 2017

Document Details More Cuts Affecting SEIU-UHW's Verity Health Workers


A source shared a copy of SEIU-UHW’s recent agreement with Verity Health System, which reveals even more cuts affecting the union’s roughly 2,000 members at four California hospitals.

First, SEIU-UHW failed to address the effects of a three-year wage freeze negotiated by SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan during the union’s prior negotiations. 

In 2015, Regan agreed to freeze SEIU-UHW members’ wage scales for three years and also agreed to block workers from receiving “step increases” based on their years of service at the hospital.

Under the agreement negotiated last month, SEIU-UHW members are supposed to once again start getting paid according to a wage scale. However, SEIU-UHW’s wage scale is now three years out of date due to the freeze negotiated by Regan. And… SEIU-UHW did nothing to fix that problem during last month’s negotiations.

Second, SEIU-UHW failed to reverse many of the cuts to its members’ benefits that Regan negotiated in 2015. For example, SEIU-UHW failed to restore workers’ Extended Sick Leave, a benefit that had been in workers’ contract for many years and which NUHW members at Verity hospitals continue to receive. Here’s the provision that SEIU-UHW negotiated for its members in 2015:
 
Exerpt SEIU-UHW's contract with Verity Health: 2015-18

Third, SEIU-UHW failed to restore benefits for hundreds of its members who lost their health insurance, vacation pay, sick pay, retirement, and other benefits due to cuts negotiated by Regan two years ago. 

In 2015, Regan agreed to radically change workers’ so-called “benefit eligibility standards” so that SEIU-UHW members must regularly work a minimum of 30 hours a week -- instead of 20 hours a week -- in order to qualify for benefits. In contrast, NUHW members at Verity hospitals are eligible for benefits if they work 20 hours a week or more, which is the decades-old standard in California’s healthcare industry.

Why did Regan and Co. refuse to fight for SEIU-UHW's members?

And why did SEIU-UHW officials swallow such a cheap contract in lightning-quick negotiations some 18 months before workers’ current contract is even set to expire?

Important questions, right?

Dave?

Here's a copy of the tentative agreements that were later signed by officials from both SEIU-UHW and Verity: