Feb 04, 2008  
Support your coworkers...sign the petition...support yourself
 
A letter from a coworker to the rest of us: why we should support our bargaining team, as we come down to the wire...

February 2, 2008

Dear coworker,

I’m writing this letter because it’s so hard to find the time to communicate about union matters. This is an update on our bargaining situation. There is a petition our union members here at Enloe are circulating at this time, and I am asking you to consider for a moment whether or not you should sign it. Please just hear me out and consider my argument. If you disagree, that’s fine, but please, hear me out.

The reason for this petition is simply to remind Management that we are standing as one behind what our representatives are doing for us. It has been a few years since the vote, and evidently our representatives feel the need to remind Management of this fact. There is a flier that accompanies the petition I have and it says:

“Bargaining Update: Our bargaining team has successfully reached tentative agreements with our employer on over 22 different issues, ranging from seniority issues to the definition of a work week. However, we are now dealing with issues that cannot be won by the bargaining team alone. Management has told us that in Chico, we are not worth as much as those in Redding and Red Bluff. It is time to show our employer that we are committed to winning the best contract possible to encourage the best patient care possible through recruiting and retaining the highest quality employees. Stay tuned for further updates.”

There is more information available on that flier, including the proposed wage scale (which shows a significant raise in pay) and some of the “issues” they’re talking about, so please ask if you’d like to see a copy. Your personal email address would be very helpful in that it would allow better communication regarding these matters. There is also a website where you can find the bargaining team updates: enloemedicine.org. The next bargaining team meeting is scheduled for February 5th.

For those of you who don’t think you should sign a union petition, even one as benign as this, I offer the following as reason and encouragement to do so.

One of my coworkers asked me recently what was in it for us, i.e. why should we bother working with the union when our department head has recently come forward and told us they are going to hire a few more employees and contemplate the work-at-home program. Here is the short answer as I see it personally: sign, or don’t sign - we have only two choices here: 1) to sign and show Management that we stand behind the union that represents us, or 2) don’t sign and show Management we are on their side of the arguments. Choosing to NOT stand with our coworkers who are in the same life-raft, if you will, that we are in (many of whom do not yet have the working conditions they desire), we are showing ourselves as their enemies. There are two sides in the argument, only two: employees or management. Whether you voted for the union in the first place is irrelevant: you are in it. And I’d like to also remind you that they are going to do something that will significantly affect your pocketbook in a good way. Yes, we will be forfeiting 2% of our paycheck as union dues, but that “significant” raise I mentioned a moment ago is approximately 25% - at least it was for me. That makes 2% sound like a pretty small price to pay, at least in my opinion.

As I am sure you know, the very purpose of a union is to show Management that we employees are one and that to offend one of us is to offend all of us. I doubt there is a union anywhere in which all the members agree with all of the decisions that are made by those who make the decisions. It’s no different than any level of our elected government – nobody can make all the people happy all of the time, and this will be no exception.

The point I want to make is as follows. I would think that if we choose to exclude ourselves from all union conversation, we will most certainly NOT be granted any special favors at the bargaining table. If, however, we chose to help our coworkers achieve their goals by taking action that shows we are on their side of the equation, we will have more of a voice if the time ever comes that we need to ask them to go to bat for us. If we do not stand behind them now, they will most probably not stand behind us later. Interestingly enough, I ran this logic past someone who knows the bargaining team this morning (1/29/08), and he assured me that this would not be the case (that the union will go to bat for us even if we choose to sit on the sidelines and do nothing but watch them doing all the work).

To those of you who still don’t want anything to do with SEIU (and I know there are some of you), I will remind you that the voting process is over and we are in a bargaining unit. Several of my coworkers I have spoken with have come to terms with this reality, and although they did not vote for the union in the first place, they recognize that it behooves us to pay attention to what is happening and accept the reality of our union presence. You can help build this “house” or you can stand back and do nothing, not even sign a little piece of paper, and expect them to give you a nice suite of rooms when they’re done building it. Ask yourself: is this a realistic thing to do? I don’t want anyone to violate their own conscience, but I do want to cause you to think for just a few minutes about the situation we are in. Personally, I want our bargaining team to like us. I don’t want them to think of us as traitors, backstabbers or cowards (those are my words, not theirs). It’s possible that they might just be too sweet and nice to ever think things like that about their coworkers, but then again, maybe not. I don’t even know who they are. Do you?

I’m writing this letter because I know this hospital is filled with people, our coworkers who are represented by SEIU, who are not being properly compensated, in many ways, for the work they do. I don’t feel like I’ve been tread upon by Enloe, not by a long shot, but there are those of us who have. We scarcely ever see them because of where we work, but they are at the hospital working hard, taking care of the patients, maybe even someone in your family, and they deserve better than what they’re getting. I’m doing this for them.

AR