Let's Review The New CHW Contract -

Th following is a copy of a press release from the website SEIU Voice.

UHW's settlement with CHW is truly historic, not only because of the tremendous gains made for thousands of CHW workers and their families, but because it is illustrative of the fact that despite these difficult economic times we can continue to make great strides in improving the lives of workers and those they care for when workers are organized and leading the fight to win in their campaigns and at the bargaining table.

Key elements of the settlement:

*Average wage increases of 26% over four years with some workers achieving increases of up to 35.4%.

*Establishment of a supplemental unemployment fund to provide benefits for workers who are laid off after all other efforts to avoid a layoff are exhausted. For up to six months CHW will supplement the employee's unemployment benefits at 60-80% of their base compensation.

*Creation of six full time Contract Specialist positions, appointed by the union and funded by CHW, to allow rank-and-file members to work full time for a year on implementation of the contract and other union building activities in their facilities. After the one year leave, workers can return to their previous jobs without suffering any loss of seniority or other benefits.

*Eight hours of paid steward time per steward per month for a maximum of twenty stewards per facility.

*An additional $2.3 million dollars in other pay improvements.

*Improved successorship language.

*A 2009 re-opener on retirement to make improvements to the already existing pension plan and other issues.

*Process to meet and discuss the establishment of a union registry in key markets.

*Continued participation in the SEIU United Healthcare Workers West and Joint Employer Education Fund.

These improvements come on top of what is already one of the best hospital contracts in the country where workers have 100% paid family health insurance, a pension and a 401(k) plan, retiree healthcare, staffing committees which allow for binding arbitration by a neutral 3rd party if no agreement can be reached, wage scales and strong job security and union rights provisions.

Good Stuff!

Success! Update on Bargaining - 10/11/08

It's been a couple of days since I last posted, but I do have some good news --

We finally settled on a contract that we can take back to our hospitals for approval...

YES!

I am so proud of the time and effort put in by all involved. Kudos to my fellow bargaining team members, UHW negotiators and staff. Their effort was huge.

WE DID IT!!!

Despite all of the distractions ( attempts by our SEIU International to put us in trusteeship, current economic downturn, etc.) we got the job done. An agreement with no takeaways.

The only regret that I have is that we couldn't bring up all of our facilities up equally high. It kinda makes things feel somewhat incomplete... but in 2012, we'll be ready to pick up where we've left off. There's still work to be done.

Power to the "OUTLIERS"!

Congratulations, UHW!!!

More info on the agreement after I get some sleep. Lots of sleep..............zzzzz....

IN UNITY,
Joe T.

Bargaining Update - 10/10/08

I thought this would be a good day to talk about -

Rumor control.

It seems that there is a lot of misinformation going around about what's been happening with the bargaining. I would like to take a moment to address some of the stuff that has passed my ears:


1) We've settled the contract.

Uh, No. That's why we are still at the bargaining table. We have achieved some tentative agreements on some of the non-economic issues As far as the main economic issues are concerned, we have come to an agreement on the approximate amount of money (the "money bucket", as CHW calls it) to be spent over the life of the contract. Now we have to come to a mutual agreement on how the funds will be distributed for things like wages, benefits, etc.. Which leads me to number...


2) We've settled on wages/pay scales.

Again, no. Not yet. We disagree on how the money should be used for wages - this is very important, as the way that the bucket is divided for each year of the contract will decide what our pay scales and yearly raises will be. We have given CHW a wage/scale proposal, and they have come back with a counter proposal. We are not very far apart, with the exception of how to place wages/scales for the "outliers" (see my post for 10/08/08) CHW still feels that they have to pay lower wages for these areas. We believe that they can do better, and we will show them how to do more at these facilities and stay within the "bucket".

3) UHW is going on strike anyway.
Uh-uh, no,no, no. You notice that I did not say "never". Nothing is 100% never, but unless things totally break down, WE are not striking CHW. Nor are we striking...

4) WOODLAND HEALTHCARE !

Our focus is to get this contract done. If, and only if, negotiations totally break down would we even consider such an action. We are in a good position now. We want to keep on pushing onward and upward!

5) We will all be paid the same amount of money as our sisters and brothers at Kaiser hospitals.
Our goal is to have all of our union sisters and brothers being paid salaries comparable to the Kaiser (a.k.a the "industry leader") scales. The "money bucket" will allow us to move considerably closer to Kaiser over the life of the contract. As I said before, they (CHW) are much more willing to do that for the large central LA and Bay area hospitals than they are to the others.

More about this later, along with my observations on what I see coming from the division between SEIU vs. UHW.

Stay Strong,
Joe Thomas

Bargaining Info - 10/09/08

Back at it today. I was so tired from last night that I slept right through breakfast. Showed up in time to find out that the CHW side has decided to have some additional reservations about our proposal to distribute wages. They still wish to keep certain hospitals at lower wage scales. It is our goal to keep on pushing to bring scales at ALL hospitals up to area leader standards (or at least as close as possible, based on the overall money both sides agreed upon for this purpose.

As some of the team members who were part of the 2004 bargaining, the amount of time it took to cost out (a.k.a. "divide the money pie") for these new wage scales and yearly wages was much slower than this time around (about 3 times as fast). Occasionally, there will be things that our team members will have to go over with the CHW team to clear up questions they may have regarding job descriptions, how to match positions with different titles to positions on the industry leader, etc..

We started this day at 9 am for breakfast and small group discussions. We are finishing tonight at about 11:15 pm. We have been told that CHW will have some new things for us to consider...

hmmm...we'll just have to wait for this...

Have a pleasant day.

In Unity -- JT

CHW Bargaining - 10/08/08 10:20 p.m.

Day 2 of our bargaining, and things do continue.

Slowly, slowly - but steadily. We spent most of the day divided between working in small groups, discussions amongst the group as a whole, and wondering if the next meal will be as crappy as the one before.

Yeah, I said it... CRAAA-PEE!

Anyway, back to the bargaining stuff. All day the "money people" of CHW and UHW have been working together to match jobs/wages with that of the industry leader (they know who they are), and then deciding on to make the money stretch to that level. It takes a lot of time to match all of the positions as accurately as possible, and then to place the wages appropriately.

CHW continues to talk about paying wages on four(4) different levels based on the location* of the facility:

1) LA area 2) So. Cal. (non-LA)* 3) Bay area 4) No. Cal. (non-Bay)*

* excluding facilities called "outliers" - certain facilities that are supposedly losing money, and therefore, they (CHW) wants to give them smaller raises. Places like Dominican Oaks, Mark Twain, and...

Woodland Clinic.

Yeah, right.

So guess who they will try to keep on the low end of the wage scales--

GOOD GUESS! NOT SO FAST, CHW!

We are committed to bringing all of the "outliers" up, up, up. With wages more in line to where they should be.

Oh, wow.

I've just realized how tired I am. However, I am in a room with others still very motivated to getting as much done before we call it a day as possible. We will probably be here past midnight...

Check back here often. Tell your co-workers.


IN UNITY,

Your humble volunteer servant - Joe

joe4uhw.blogspot.com

Chw Bargaining on 10/07/08

Here's what we've been up to...

On Tuesday, we started with discussions on the general process of how the financial "pie" will be divided. We talked over how wages will be decided on (in terms of % of wage rate increase, as well as wage scale increases. As a group, we are leaning towards "backloading" the money for wages. This means that the raises in the first part of the new contract (and we would already be at least 6 MONTHS into the new contract) we would take a slightly smaller increase. Doing so would create a much greater wage increase in the later years of the contract.

That is just one option. We are also considering taking bigger raises early(although our "money people" tell us that we will get less money during the life of the contract), as well as just breaking the wages up evenly over the life of the contract. More about this later...

We , as a team, also discussed what our priorities on the non-financial items still to be negotiated. We are all trying to make sure that we create the best contract possible for all of our menbers. We all take this responsibility VERY seriously. Gotta go now..more later..!

In Unity,
Joe