Apr 06, 2008  
Bargaining – 4/4/08
 
If we gave in on no subcontracting, it would leave our members open to outside contractors and their inevitable cuts in pay, benefits, and workers.

Management delivered a package proposal that covered standards and rights preserved, subcontracting, grievance and arbitration, and no strike, no lockout stipulating that the whole needed to be accepted or rejected in total. Here's what they proposed:

STANDARDS PRESERVED
A. Was the same as previously agreed.
B. Management Rights are to be retained – as is – by the administration. [The union usually gets management to give up some of these rights for the employees' protection.]
C. Complete Agreement covers matters subject to collective bargaining, but also stipulated that both sides can meet and attempt to reach agreement over issues, first with mediation, and then – if mutually agreed – arbitration. If we don’t resolve these matters they can be deferred to the next contract negotiations. The union members said that the administration still has power to impose unresolved changes on our members by simply not agreeing to arbitration. We didn’t want either party to be able to impose this on the other. Management disagreed.

SUBCONTRACTING
Enloe's management said they would increase notice of their subcontracting from 30 to 60 days. Any union member displaced by subcontracting goes to the top of the list for bidding on any open bargaining unit job. Charlie, our chief negotiator, said going to the top of a hire list would not help people like the pharmacy techs or lab phlebotomists who have no choice – if they want to work in their field of expertise – than to go elsewhere to find work.

GRIEVANCE AND ARBITRATION
Was kept the same as previously agreed.

NO STRIKE, NO LOCKOUT
The administration only accepted language that they said would allow them to run the hospital. They did change from a position of no picketing at all to one where we can picket against other employers like Compass, if we make it known to the public that the picketing is not focused on their administration of Enloe.

The union members caucused and addressed the administration's proposal. In response we said we could agree to Standards Preserved and the Complete Agreement if management would agree to our [no] Subcontracting, and our No Strike, No Lockout proposal which would also settle the Grievance and Procedure article.

The administration caucused, returning with their response: a counter offering us a union shop. But, we could not accept this while giving up our [no] Subcontracting and No Strike, No Lockout protections. If we gave in on no subcontracting, it would leave our members open to outside contractors and their inevitable cuts in pay, benefits, and workers. If we gave in on our no strike, no lockout, it would give management the right to discharge or discipline employees for actions against unfair practices by management, even if those actions were on the employee's off time, which, we feel, woould be a violation of our 1st amendment rights of Freedom of Speech. We have the right to do what we want on unpaid time, our own time.

The administration said no tentative agreement; package off table. A member reminded them of how unfair their outsourcing had and has been. He related a tale of one doctor on the Board saying that Housekeeping and Nutrition workers were immigrants and liked minimum wage jobs. The union member said that this was a "very racist" remark.

WHAT'S NEXT?
After management left, we discussed our next move as a union, which is our informational picket that will be held on 4/18/08 starting at 6:00am and ending in the evening. If members want to get these negotiations finished, we’d better come together and support these actions, because management isn’t listening. The petition last month was a start. Now the informational picketing.

Informational picketing is not a strike. It is done on our time off: before work, after work, or on our breaks.

These actions will reinforce our insistence on a fair contract with protections for our members. Let’s support this and each other. If we stand together we can win. You will be asked to sign pledge cards to show up for the picketing during your off time. Please do so for yourselves; for us all. We can’t ignore four years of management stalling and fighting us. We can't allow these calculated actions of theirs to wear us out. We can't ignore how they feel about us being less than our neighbors in Red Bluff and Redding. We've started our push for fairness and respect, and we must finish it.