UNION NEWS FLASH 3/19/07
Religious Leaders Call on St. Joseph Health System to Agree to Fair Union Election
PR Newswire – March 5, 2007
Led by a Catholic priest, a group of religious leaders and laity are calling for a fair union election at a Santa Rosa hospital sponsored by a Catholic religious order. The North Bay Friends of St. Joseph Health System Workers are organizing as a group after previously sending an open letter to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange on the matter. The group is concerned that management is continuing to carry out an anti-union campaign at Santa Rosa Memorial. Workers cancelled a union election set for January 2005 due to intimidation by management, and the hospital subsequently reached a settlement with the NLRB over labor law violations. A majority of workers went on to sign a petition calling for a union election last year.
Collective Bargaining/Strikes
UMass Memorial Labor Negotiator is Leaving
Shaun Sutner – Telegram & Gazette (MA) – March 1, 2007
In a possible peace offering to the Massachusetts Nursing Association, the chief labor official at UMass Memorial has resigned to take a position in the private sector. John P. McMahon took part in unusually contentious negotiations with the MNA, who staged a brief strike in October after six months of fruitless contract talks. The vice chair of the hospital’s bargaining unit said: “Our dealings with [McMahon] were a low point in our dealings with the institution.” A professor of labor relations characterized McMahon’s resignation as “a conciliatory gesture.”
Tri-City Nurses Vote to Stay in Union
Paul Sisson – North County Times (Escondido, CA) – March 1, 2007
Tri-City’s 702 RNs will remain members of the California Nurses Association after a decertification vote failed 342 votes to 197. One of the leaders of the decertification drive said the vote left her satisfied that the nurses had truly wanted to join the union. The nurses originally elected to join the CNA through a card check.
Boosting Voice of Quality Patient Care in O.C. and L.A., More than 1,400 Union Nurses Ratify New Contract with Tenet
UNAC press release – March 5, 2007
Members of United Nurses Association of California/Union of Health Care Professionals have overwhelmingly approved a new, three-year contract with Tenet hospitals. The 1,400 healthcare workers in Orange and Los Angeles counties will see a pay raise of 5.2 percent in the contract’s first year and 5 percent in each of the last two years. The contract will also bar Tenet from stripping nurses of their union rights by designating them as supervisors.
Legal/Legislative
Sick over Spitzer’s Health Cuts
Ridgely Ochs – Newsday (NY) – March 8, 2007
Legislature Acts to Restore Spitzer’s Cuts in Health Care
Danny Hakim – New York Times – March 12, 2007
In a rally organized by the Healthcare Association of New York State, 3,000 hospital workers and their supporters gathered outside the state capitol to protest Governor Spitzer’s proposed cuts to Medicaid. Legislators from the State Senate and the Assembly who addressed the crowd said the governor’s proposed healthcare reforms were inconsistent with cutting nearly $1 billion in Medicaid. The governor’s proposed cuts come on top of Medicaid reductions in President Bush’s proposed budget, which would decrease Medicaid payments to Hospitals in New York State by $7.5 billion over five years. Both houses of the state legislature subsequently introduced bills that would restore some of the funding, including $236 million of the proposed $520 million cuts to hospitals and nursing homes.
Mandating Health Coverage for Workers Would Eliminate 1 Million Jobs, Study Says
BNA – March 5, 2007 – (No Link Available)
A study produced by the Employment Policies Institute evaluated three different ways to expand healthcare nationally and projected that only expanding Medicaid would reduce the number of uninsured as well as increase employment. The EPI forecast that 22.8 more people would be covered if the federal government required that all businesses employing 25 people or more provide health insurance to employees. However, the increased cost to businesses would lead them to hold down their gross wages by eliminating nearly 1 million lower-paying jobs, as well as to shift 1.6 million full-time workers to part-time status to avoid paying healthcare benefits. A second plan to offer tax credits to low-income households to help them purchase private insurance would extend coverage to 1.6 million more workers but would lead to $19.8 billion in increased government costs. In contrast, a plan to expand Medicaid to those earning 300 percent of the poverty level would extend coverage to 5 million more people at a cost of $16.4 million to the government. Employers’ costs would be reduced by $8.3 million, leading them to hire 230,000 more workers.
Woman’s Sons File Suit over Fatal Mistake
Cheryl Powell – Akron Beacon Journal (OH) – March 2, 2007
The sons of a woman who died after a medication error in 2005 have filed suit against the hospital and the nurse and doctors who treated her. The sons are seeking damages and are also asking the county medical examiner to change the woman’s cause of death from cardiac arrest to homicide. Victoria O. Baker died after improperly receiving potassium phosphate intravenously instead of through a feeding tube. The suit is seeking monetary damages from the hospital as well as RN Kristen Toot and doctors James Gannon and Todd Lisy.
California Nurses Union Says It Will Join AFL-CIO
George Raine – San Francisco Chronicle (CA) – March 10, 2007
The California Nurses Association has agreed to join the AFL-CIO after the labor federation’s executive council endorsed a single-payer health plan. The CNA had made its affiliation conditional on the endorsement, and says it will use the partnership to promote a single-payer plan such as an expansion of Medicare to all Americans. The CNA applied for a charter with AFL-CIO after it the sided with the labor federation during its split with Change to Win in 2005. The CNA’s previous split with the American Nurses Association in 1995 and its subsequent raids of ANA affiliates produced some organizational friction, leading the ANA to support only a provisional, and not full, charter.
Privatized Walter Reed Workforce Gets Scrutiny
Steve Vogel and Renae Merle – Washington Post – March 10, 2007
The former commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center has testified that the Army’s decision to privatize maintenance services at the hospital was a major contributor to the facilities’ problems. In 2004, the Army determined that keeping its maintenance service in-house was more cost-effective than outsourcing. The decision was protested by the contractor IAP Worldwide Services, whose executives once held high positions in a subsidiary of Halliburton. Army auditors then reversed the Army’s initial decision and IAP was awarded a 5-year contract at Walter Reed in January 2006. IAP did not take over at the hospital until last month, and in the interim, nearly half of its 180 facility management workers quit. The American Federation of Government Employees has issued a statement criticizing the Office of Management and Budget for pressuring the Army into privatizing.
‘It’s Not Just Walter Reed’; Soldiers Share Troubling Stories of Military Health Care across U.S.
Anne Hull & Dana Priest – Washington Post – March 5, 2007
Dole, Shalala to Lead Troop-Care Panel
Joh White – Washington Post – March 7, 2007
In response to the Washington Post’s coverage of poor conditions and bureaucratic delays at Walter Reed, veterans from across the country have flooded the Washington Post with their own accounts of neglect throughout the VA system. The mother of one soldier was horrified when her son, who had an open wound, was issued a room in San Diego where fruit flies swarmed over an overflowing garbage can. A soldier from New Jersey wrote: “Scare tactics are used against soldiers who will write sworn statement[s] to assist fellow soldiers for their medical needs.” The problems could grow as more veterans seek help for post-traumatic stress disorder. About 30,000 of the 184,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from PTSD. In addition, many of the VA’s 400,000 pending benefit claims involve mental health, as images of the fighting in Iraq have triggered PTSD in Vietnam veterans. As part of a continuing response to the story, President Bush named former Republican Senator Bob Dole and Donna Shalala, HHS Secretary under President Clinton, to co-chair a bipartisan commission to review the care for wounded troops. The review will look into how troops nationwide are reintegrated into civilian life.
Abandoning Our Mentally Ill
Meg Kissinger – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI) – March 3, 2007
The City of Milwaukee has ordered residents to vacate a home for the mentally ill within 30 days after a resident’s death went unnoticed for four days. The severely decomposed body of 46-year-old Joseph Droese was discovered at West Samaria four days after he was last seen alive by his mother. He was being treated for schizophrenia, asthma, and high cholesterol. Droese’s case manager explained her lack of contact with the patient by saying that he had previously stopped taking his medication and that she could not compel him to open the door to his room to allow her to deliver it. West Samaria will appeal the decision, staying any evictions.
After Another Life Saved, New Effort on School Defibrillators
Michael Gormley – AP State & Local Wire – March 5, 2007
NYSUT will launch nationwide campaign to ensure that defibrillators installed in schools are properly maintained. A 7-year-old boy recently became the 13th child saved by the devices in New York State since they became mandatory in 2002. The national movement to have defibrillators installed in school was started by a NYSUT member, and now the union is looking to make sure that the installed machines are properly housed, charged, and functioning.
HHS to Begin Chartering Local Initiatives to Improve Health Care Quality, Leavitt Says
BNA – March 5, 2007 – (No link available)
The Department of Health and Human Services is looking to launch a national network for quality reporting and will begin chartering local healthcare quality improvement initiatives. HHS will encourage local groups to establish collaboratives of unions, providers, employers, insurers, and others that would use nationally developed quality guidelines to improve patient care. These groups would take part in a national network to exchange information after being chartered by HHS. HHS would recognize both less developed collaboratives as well as more formal “Value Exchanges,” which would implement quality improvement and reporting. The department is launching the network because it lacks the IT infrastructure to run a centrally-controlled reporting system and is also looking to promote local control. The project will receive $4 million in federal funding next year as well as $115 million from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for two years.
Medication Errors Hurt Kids the Most
Angela Stewart – Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ) – March 7, 2007
A new study of surgery patients as found that children are much more likely than adults to be harmed by medication errors. 12.6 percent of medication errors that affect children were harmful, compared to 8.4 percent of medication errors among adults. Surgery-related medication errors were triple the amount of medication errors in all other parts of the hospital combined, with operating rooms seeing 43 percent of all medication errors involving children. The report blamed the errors on communication breakdowns in the “fragmented” system of surgical care and recommended that each OR have a pharmacist to oversee the distribution of all medication.
Union, Nursing Home Alliance Team up; Agreement’s Details Kept Secret Amid $60 Million Lobbying Push
Ralph Thomas – Seattle Times – March 5, 2007
In a secret pact with the operators of several of Washington State’s for-profit nursing homes, SEIU Local 775 has agreed since 2005 to help lobby for increased funding while restricting its own organizing and collective bargaining activities in exchange for access to certain nursing homes. Under Washington United for Quality Nursing Home Care’s ten-year agreement, the SEIU would lobby for increased Medicaid reimbursement for nursing homes, and partner homes would determine which sites could be organized by the SEIU. In exchange, the SEIU would not strike, would not organize more than half of any one company’s homes, and would not speak ill of management due to a “negative rhetoric” clause. The SEIU defends the agreement as being similar to its other labor-management partnerships, and says that nursing homes’ chronic funding shortfalls require a united lobbying front. Critics say that, while nursing homes are difficult to organize due to heavy regulations, the SEIU’s agreement yields significantly more to management than other pacts. The negative rhetoric provision is especially worrying to some, who see it as “forfeit[ing] one of the union’s basic functions” by restricting members’ rights to speak out against poor working conditions.
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