Mar 19, 2008  
Bargaining – 3/18/08
 
...the administration submitted its wage counter proposal. It is substantially below the union's proposed wage scale and is quite embarrassing.

Today the Bargaining committee gave it’s counter on Training and Professional Development after asking for Enloe's Earn to Learn figures of $250,490 for the last 3 years; dividing by 3 and coming up for service unit training with the figure of $60,000. We also proposed a .22% hospital contribution to the UHW Training Fund [see previous: "Bargaining – 3/6/08"]. The administration didn’t want to commit to a fixed amount yearly for Earn to Learn, Loan Forgiveness and Education Assistance, nor contributing to the Union Training Fund, but said they would caucus and come back with a counter.

Management came back with a counter after lunch. They agreed to our request of a $60,000 yearly minimum level of funding for the Training and Development Program for the life of our contract. They did not agree to the 0.22% contribution for the UHW Training Fund. The administration insisted that by paying into the Union Fund they’d be subsidizing other hospitals programs since there are no such programs set up to benefit Enloe. Charlie, our chief negotiator, said that other hospitals pay higher into the fund and actually help to subsidize smaller hospitals like ours and that it’s in our interest to set up classes in this area because we are the largest in the area and can centralize classes that will train and help fill jobs Enloe needs. We also reminded the administration that not only is Enloe the area's largest hospital, but that we are also trauma unlike most of the other hospitals our administration surveys.

Charlie asked if the hospital's fund would cover single classes and, per management, it does. He also asked if it could cover some one day classes that would benefit all, and the administration again said yes. It would cover 6-week or quarter classes, per them.

The union wanted unused monies to be rolled over to the next year, but the hospital said no, but that the union could suggest ways to best use the cash before the year's end. If both sides agreed, it would be used thus. We set this aside until the union could see the rest of the administration's economic proposals.

Lastly, the administration submitted its wage counter proposal. It is substantially below the union's proposed wage scale and is quite embarrassing. The administration said they compared wages to Feather River Hospital, Freemont Rideout, Oroville Hospital, and also St E’s, Shasta Regional and Mercy Redding. Then they figured the minimum and maximum wages and averaged them out. They proposed a wage increase of 2% after the first increase averaging much less than the union's wage increases. [Ask your bargaining team member to see a copy of their wage proposal.] Their wage scale extends over 11 years. The administration said absolutely nothing about their market survey raise of last July that they kept back from us.

Remember, Enloe is the largest private employer in the county, and a trauma 2 center, unlike St E’s, Oroville, Feather River and Rideout. Red Bluff, even with its lower cost of living and its hospital's lower level trauma status, still pays its hospital workers much better than Enloe pays its workers, hands down. We’ll counter as you can well expect.

Enloe's lawyer said this is a first proposal, and we’d come back with a counter. He is OH so right.

Once again, the administration has shown us how they really feel about their workers. Since last November they have come to the bargaining table with nothing but status quo. It has become obvious that they want to show the non-union parts of the hospital that unions are irrelevant. They want to show all of us that we will get only what they want us to get. They have told us that they want to hear what we have to say, but they have proven to us they are not really listening, and never have. They have shown us that though most of our service unit is struggling paycheck to paycheck, that this is irrelevant to them. So much for their core values; so much for their "Enloe family."

Debi Yancer has said that throughout negotiations she would keep in close contact with management's bargaining team. If that is true, then she has allowed the administration's empty "non-proposals" to cross the bargaining table. If that is true, then she has become part of the problem. If that is true, then Debi Yancer is not the answer. We all wanted sooo badly to believe in Debi....

Please contact a bargaining team member tomorrow, Wednesday, for some very important information concerning the petition we've all been signing.