Healthcare workers are uniting across the state to send a message to the Daughters of Charity Health System: "Enough is enough."The words that came out of Tracey Garces' mouth echo the sentiment of 2,400 union workers who will strike Aug. 28 against a contract that they characterize as "gutted" and "disappointing," although administrators feel that they are doing their part to find a happy medium.
"We have been meeting since March," said Garces, a obstetrics technician at O'Connor Hospital in San Jose, one of the five hospitals that has agreed to strike. "We have told them that their proposals are unacceptable. We will not allow them to undermine our contract. It is time for us to hit the picket lines."
"I think we have made significant progress and have exercised good faith," said Joanne Allen, chief executive officer at Saint Louise, in a July interview.
Allen and other Saint Louise Regional Hospital officials did not return phone messages Friday afternoon.
Nursing assistants, lab technicians, food service workers and hospital clerks - part of the Service Employees International Union, United Healthcare Workers - at Saint Louise and other Daughters of Charity facilities hit the picket lines last month to demand a stronger voice in patient care, increased job security and the ability to bring in a third party mediator to break stalled negotiations. But after four days of negotiations that "weren't going anywhere," union workers felt a strike was in order, said Kristi Murillo, a local steward for the union and an emergency room registrar at Saint Louise, a 93-bed facility.
Murillo said that the last week's final round of negotiations were especially frustrating and that representatives from the administration and their attorneys wasted hours of the union representatives' time. The bosses met privately several times and returned with proposals similar to the original, simply reworded, Murillo said.
"How many times do you think they did that joke?" she asked a fellow worker. They said reworded contracts were presented four times in four days.
Concern centered around a manager's rights clause, which would give the administration veritable free rein, Murillo said.
"What's the purpose of having a union that way?" Murillo said. "We do not want a management rights (clause). Period."
She also worried that the hospital's proposal would stifle the workers' voices in patient care.
"Why is there one (certified nurse's assistant) for 30 to 40 patients at a time at night?" she said. "They don't make much and are doing the most."
The union delivered the notice to strike to Allen Friday afternoon.
"I don't think she was surprised," Murillo said. "But she was nice and pleasant."
