Hospital Workers Appear to Support a Walkout
Crain’s New York Business; Barbara Benson, 7/15/2014
Long Island Rail Road workers aren’t the only union members talking about a strike.
Contract talks between the state’s largest health care union and the majority of the city’s hospitals ran into friction Tuesday when 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East members started voting in favor of a one-day strike on July 31.
The vote Tuesday comes despite a two-week contract talk extension announced July 11 between the union and the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes. The parties agreed to extend their current labor agreement to July 30 so they can continue to negotiate. It was set to expire on July 15.
1199 SEUI said this morning’s polling of members was a “clear message to management” from more than 70,000 members covered by the master contract for hospitals and nursing homes. Preliminary results of the vote indicated some 90% of union members favored a strike.
“As nurses and health care workers, we never want to strike and we take this decision very seriously,” 1199 SEIU President George Gresham said in a statement.
“But we have been negotiating with management for five months, they do not have a single proposal on the table, and they are severely threatening the quality of health care and jobs for New Yorkers. We are negotiating in good faith to try to reach a fair contract before the expiration date of July 30th.”
A spokesman for the League said it was preparing a proposal to give to the union this week. Talks are still in the extension period, he said, and the strike date is relatively far off. A strike can be avoided if the two sides come to an agreement by July 30 or extend talks further.
One major issue in the negotiations is whether new jobs created by the expansion of ambulatory care facilities will be unionized. In a statement last week, 1199 SEIU singled out the Mount Sinai Health System for using non-union workers in its outpatient facilities, “a business model that is dragging down wages, benefits and standards for working people.”
A spokesman for Mount Sinai said the system was “committed to providing the highest quality of care to patients as we provide opportunity for our employees.”
In his statement Tuesday, Mr. Gresham singled out Mount Sinai and the North Shore-LIJ Health System for “opening outpatient facilities with substandard, non-union jobs which drag down wages, health benefits and standards for workers. New Yorkers don’t need more dead-end jobs.”
Mr. Gresham noted that one third of all health care delivery is shifting from hospitals to outpatient facilities over the next few years.