Nov 12, 2007  
Bargaining – 11/12/07
 
Monday, 11/12/07, was mostly spent, again, trying to reach agreement on Article 33: "Field Representative Visits and Shop Steward Meetings."

This article is just one of the approximately 40 articles – basically a complete contract – our union presented to management at the very beginning of negotiations back in May of this year. Our union and management have reached Tentative Agreements (TA) on 22 of these proposed articles.

We did not get a TA on Article 33. Instead we set it aside with the other three articles on which we previously failed to reach agreement.

The sticking points were as follows:

1. Enloe Management insisted on union reps giving a 24-hour notice when visiting union members at the medical center. The union reminded management that a shorter notice is more the norm than the exception. We feel the administration's 24-hour notice is a restriction on union representation and presence in the hospital. This 24-hour restriction is not in other UHW contracts.

2. Employee Rep meetings per management are restricted to the cafeteria as long as they don’t draw attention to patients or visitors. Our members will not agree to being tied to the café as we feel reps need to be mobile to visit areas where problems may arise. We know that restricted areas exist, but for those ares we can use "accompanied" access.

3. The union asked for use of a meeting room at the Esplanade site in order to make access to meetings for employees and management more easily attended. Management refused this request.

Charlie our chief negotiator accused administration of being more anti-union than he thought and that they are trying to force the CNA (nurses' union) contract terms on our Service Department. He also said that the hospital is not ready for a relationship with our union reps and members.

We agreed to try to reach agreement at the next bargaining session with
1. Article 29: "Career Opportunities"
2. Article 20: "Training & Job-related Education"
and another one that I can’t remember; sorry, but I’ll let you know later.

The team also brought up the matter of management's new insurance – taking effect at the start of next year – and the Argyll Group's going out of network because of it. Both sides decided that it was worth looking into. The union said that we will need to have our research department look into our options, and that the bargaining team needs to discuss what to do. We will look into discussions between the hospital, our union and the doctors, if possible. Charlie also asserted that this change of insurance needs to be bargained over.

The next meetings are on November 29 and 30. If you can come we need your participation and support. The hard stuff continues to come up, and we feel from management's response that they will fight us every step of the way. Charlie said that we won’t win without a struggle, and that the we may need to strike for a day or more to get the standards we deserve. Unless you would rather settle for management's "market survey" 2% raises, lay offs and poor benefits.

PC