FREMONT, Calif., Nov. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Today caregivers announced that they have settled contracts with Doctors Medical Center San Pablo/Pinole and Washington Hospital in Fremont which include important industry standards designed to protect and improve patient care. Those standards, which have been accepted by every major hospital system across Northern California except Sutter, include a voice in staffing for frontline caregivers and a training fund. The workers covered under the agreement include licensed vocational nurses, respiratory therapists, radiology technologists, certified nurse assistants, lab assistants, and others and are members of the Health Care Workers Union, SEIU 250. Doctors and Washington are publicly run by local health district boards and have 350 and 400 SEIU members respectively.
The Doctors and Washington settlements add strength to the 4,000 caregivers who have been negotiating with Sutter for more than 6 months now. Doctors and Washington join almost 60 private facilities that have accepted industry standard contracts, including Kaiser Permanente, Catholic Healthcare West and Daughters of Charity. Instead of bargaining in good faith over the industry standards, Sutter has been committing unfair labor practices to try to intimidate caregivers and undermine negotiations. Caregivers have filed more than 50 charges against Sutter with the federal government to try to stop these illegal tactics and will be striking 13 Sutter facilities for one day on Dec. 1.
Under the settlement, Doctors Medical Center will give an equal voice to caregivers in setting appropriate staffing levels (Washington Hospital had previously added this commitment to their contract four years ago) and both hospitals have agreed to contribute to an education fund. Workers will be able to access the fund in order to learn new technologies, update their skills and move into hard to fill positions. In addition, employees will receive significant wage increases and benefit improvements, which will help recruit and retain qualified staff. Both contracts also have “successorship” language requiring the contract to be honored if hospital ownership were to change.
“I’m most excited about the training fund, it’s a real victory for workers, our patients and the hospital as a whole,” said Anna Walker, who has been a licensed vocational nurse at Washington for 24 years. “Often times, workers want to move up and learn new skills, but they have child responsibilities or can’t afford it. Now, my co-workers can access this training fund to make sure our hospital is the best place to work and receive care.”
“Now we have public hospitals like Doctors Medical Center and Washington Hospital joining dozens of private hospitals in accepting industry standards designed to protect patients,” said Sal Rosselli, president of SEIU 250. “If public hospitals can do it, then Sutter, which made profits of $465 million in 2003, can too. What’s wrong with Sutter?”
With 100,000 members, SEIU 250 is the largest and fastest growing health care union in the Western U.S. We represent every type of health care worker, including nursing, professional, technical, paramedic and service classifications. Our mission is to achieve high quality health care for all.
Media Contact:
Kathleen Miller 510-773-7102
SEIU 250
CONTACT: Kathleen Miller of SEIU 250, +1-510-773-7102
Web site: http://www.seiu250.org/