Jun 11, 2008  
Bargaining – 6/6/08
 
This would mean, then, that the only option left is to present the administration’s current weak contract proposal to our membership for a vote of acceptance or rejection. If we rejected their offer, then we would vote whether to strike in order to try and move management in the direction of a fair settlement that would bring us up to the industry standards that the rest of the north state now enjoy.

Today, the members of our bargaining team presented to the administration a counter proposal on wages that compared favorably with Saint Elizabeth’s wage scale (industry standards) as follows:

  Year of Contract   Raise Cap   At Least
  ........1st year..............35%..............4%
  ........2nd year.............30%..............4%
  ........3rd year..............25%..............4%

With this proposal most employees will reach industry standards by the 2nd year of the contract, so 3rd year raises will vary. Our previous proposal would have put the 1st year's cap on raises at 50%. By dropping the 1st year cap to 35%, we in effect would reach industry standards at a slower rate, but would save the hospital about a million dollars compared to the previous proposal.

However, even with this reduction in costs, our new proposal was not well accepted by management, inferring we were “shooting for the moon.”

Charlie, our chief negotiator, retorted, “We are only shooting for Red Bluff wages; the moon is 240,000 away!” This appeared to anger the administration's lawyer, Tom Dowdalls.

When one compares our reasonable proposal for north state wages with the current and past salaries of our administration, one has to wonder who really is shooting for the moon. Dowdalls commented that the reason management gets such high salaries is because Enloe has to make nation-wide searches and offer top dollar to attract "the best" while the service unit staff is picked locally. So, from their perspective, being local makes us worth less; being from Chico makes our value less than folks from Red Bluff!

The Planetree attitude must be in that perspective somewhere, but we on the bargaining team can't find it. This attitude of management makes you wonder just how serious our administration is about Planetree and "employee engagement." Really, can any employee treated as a second-class worker feel appreciated for the work she or he does?

The administration would not budge from their low-ball proposal of 5/27/08, saying our proposal was a “nonstarter.” They rejected it without giving us a counter. Dowdalls said management would only consider it if the union proposal was similar and VERY much closer to their terms.

The administration also remained immoveable on other key issues like subcontracting, no strike no lockout, selling the hospital while denying job security after the change of ownership, leaving Enloe management the right to discipline staff for supporting coworkers and issues even during a worker's off time.

The administration also wants us to accept a wage scale where the TOPPED OUT levels are about the same as the ENTRY levels of Saint Elizabeth’s, Mercy Redding’s and Shasta Regional’s. If we accepted the administration's proposal, that would leave our employees still 30 to 40% below industry standards enjoyed in those other hospitals.

The union maintained its position on all other issues including:
1. No strike no lockout, including no penalty for employees' off time actions.
2. Change of ownership, mergers sales, closures and transfers with a guaranty of job security for our employees.
3. Union Shop with all members, who benefit from a contract, belonging.
4. Employee-employer Committees with binding arbitration; the administration wants the last word with only an "advisory mediation."
5. Grievance – tied to committees.
6. More PTO and sick leave with more extended sick leave; management wants the status quo.
7. Retirement – the administration rejects the union proposal of the hospital adding 2% to its present plan.
8. Field reps visits and shop stewards having full access to the hospital in order to serve its members.

Charlie asked if this was the administration’s best and last offer on wages and other issues still not agreed on, such as change of ownership, no strike, committees, etc., and Dowdalls finally said – in effect – it was. This would mean, then, that the only option left is to present the administration’s current weak contract proposal to our membership for a vote of acceptance or rejection. If we rejected their offer, then we would vote whether to strike in order to try and move management in the direction of a fair settlement that would bring us up to the industry standards that the rest of the north state now enjoy.

More to follow when we get the information and the material to distribute, or if there are any new developments from the administration.

ENLOE'S TAX FILING
Today the union received Enloe's yearly report to the IRS (a.k.a. "the 990") for the tax year of 2006. For some reason Enloe's 990 is not transparent to the public until two years after the fact. [This report will be put elsewhere on this website – see our home page to get access to the whole document.]

This report revealed that the hospital in 2006 paid the Navigant Consulting group $4.8 million to make Enloe "more efficient" or whatever they were supposed to do. This was half a million dollars more than the union's first wage proposal cost to the hospital of $4.3 million, and 1.5 million dollars more than our present proposed cost of $3.3 million.

We also remember that this is the consulting group that recommended that 179 of our coworkers be laid off. Half of those who were laid off were members of our union, which meant that in order to lay these off, the administration would have to – by law – bargain with us first. This ill-advised layoff forced us into a strike – on a very rainy day – that resulted in restoring our members to their jobs with back pay. Unfortunately, the laidoff workers who were not union were not reinstated. Still, Debi Yancer insisted in her 4/17/07 email that “this action does not waive the medical center’s original position, that restructuring operations is consistent with a more effective model of patient care service delivery, and to bring the medical center workforce in line with industry standards. The lay offs will be one of the key points for discussion.” Seems the administration recognizes it own "industry standards."

Elsewhere on this 990, we see that Dan Neumeister, though working only part of that tax year, was compensated $1,000,309; that Phil Wolfe, who didn't even work at Enloe that year, was compensated $240,157; that Yancer, who worked only part of that year, was compensated $197,555. Also of note is the front page of the report and the profit that Enloe made for that year – you decide whether or not Enloe can afford Red Bluff type wages for its employees.

You have to wonder, that at the rate our Board of Trustees and senior management throws millions of dollars at their consistently bad decisions of fighting unions, laying off workers, buying off Chico Community Hospital, hiring innumerable consulting firms, and so on, if money is of much concern to them at all.

[While preparing this update, we have leaned that the administration will give us some kind of a counter on June 12th, Thursday. This meeting will take place at the Oxford Suites from 9am to around 5pm. We shall see how much closer they will come to industry standards. Please come and see your bargaining team go eyeball to eyeball with the management's team. Let's see if they still maintain their condescending attitude toward the service unit.]