Mar 07, 2008  
Bargaining – 3/6/08
 
Management rejects union's proposal for retraining employees....

Today, management presented its counter proposal to the union's Article 20: Training and Professional Development. There was some bantering back and forth about what the union training plan can accomplish in respect to the present Enloe plan. We had talked previously about this article, but left the fund 'til finance and wage negotiations had been presented. Again the administration proposed the status quo: their current program, including Earn to Learn, Education Assistance and Loan Forgiveness, which all help pay or "forgive" part of an employee's educational costs. The program is called Ascending.

The union proposed a contribution to the Joint Employer and Union Training Fund. The contribution would amount to 0.22% of the hospital's eligible employees' payroll. This contribution would go into the training fund which would be managed by both the union and the hospitals that participate in the fund, including Kaiser and Catholic Healthcare West. This would allow hospitals to lump together their resources and work with local colleges to make classes available that would help employees upgrade their careers, and relieve shortages such as in nursing or therapists.

The administration complained that they’d be paying for other hospitals’ training programs and that less that 1% of other hospital staffs participate in the fund. They also stated that they’d have no trustee seat on the fund's board of trustees. Charlie, our chief negotiator, explained that independent hospitals (such as Enloe) have one seat on the board and collectively vote for who will fill it. One time it could be Enloe, but all share in a turn.

The union asked what percent of Enloe employees use their upgrade program and are there classes such as medical terminology or certification for G.I. techs or cardiovascular techs to give service members an opportunity to advance. The administration said that from 2004 to the present $55,000 was spent; $29,950 of that on service employees. Educational assistance for the year 2007 for 33 service unit workers was $12,820. Management feels this works better than the union fund.

Charlie said that by collectively pooling funds our training program can raise standards and get a better bang for the buck, so to speak. He said there must be good in the union's proposed training fund or Daughters of Charity, Kaiser, CHW, Independents and others wouldn’t participate. He suggested our management interprets the fund in a self serving manner that limits options. Charlie finally got the administration to agree that they "just don’t want to" collaborate to lift up our service members. We could plainly see they were very opposed to contributing the .22% to improve our work force. We are important to our hospital's functioning and deserve to be treated with appropriate respect.

An important difference between Enloe's present training program and the one proposed by the union is, with Enloe's, the employee would have to pay for their training up front and then get reimbursed only part of their costs. The union's fund, on the other hand, would fully pay for the employee's training up front.

Another difference is, that with Enloe's, the employee during his or her training – if the training took place during work hours – would be paid only minimum wage by Enloe. The union's fund would pay the employee's regular wage for such class time.

Next time the union will present a counter proposal, but don’t expect us to give in to the status quo. Training is important to both employees and employer, and its implementation needs to be fair for both. Next bargaining is on Tuesday, 3/18/08. Hope to see some new faces there. There were some new ones there today. Remember, this bargaining is for ALL of us in the service unit. We on your bargaining team really appreciate your support.

If there are any questions; ask a bargaining team or C.A.T team member.