Opening Statements - Collective Bargaining Negotiations Between SEIU & University of Rochester/Strong Memorial Hospital

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

(Bruce Popper, 1199 SEIU Vice-President)

Since 1974, there have been seventeen union contract negotiations in which a
committee of service workers has sat across the table from the management of Strong
Memorial Hospital and successfully reached a collective bargaining agreement. There
have also been seventeen previous negotiations involving service workers from the
University of Rochester campuses. This is the opening of the eighteenth edition.
Every one of our previous negotiations has posed unique challenges. Some of
our talks have been amiable. Some not. Some of our contracts were concluded quietly.
Some not. This year, I predict, the principal challenge before us will not be over a
particular issue or a given dollar amount, but over the very relationship that union
workers have with this institution.

1199 SEIU union ranks have grown to over 1400 UR employees since our last
negotiation. UR has become the largest employer in the Rochester region, and the
Upstate New York leader in medical care and private higher education. UR continues to
enlarge its Medical Center. Strong Memorial Hospital continues to achieve record profit
margins, and to serve more and varied patients. UR is expanding its reach across the
Genesee River into the 19th Ward and Southwest neighborhoods, an area with one of
the highest concentrations of SEIU households north of New York City.
New leaders in both our organizations provide us with an opportunity for a fresh
look at our relationship.

1199 SEIU President George Gresham visited Strong Memorial on July 12, 2007,
less than a month after his inauguration. President Gresham was impressed with what
he saw - high quality, state of the art medical care - and much recent and new building
construction.

He met Dr. Berk, who became head of Strong Health less than a year ago, and
said: “You have a wonderful institution here. It is growing, and we want to support
that growth. Our union is growing too. We want to grow in Rochester with you.”
UR President Joel Seligman, has just completed his second year. I am
encouraged by many of the initiatives taken by his administration - including
community involvement, diversity, and making UR a more family friendly workplace.
As UR grows into its greater role as a Rochester leader, its treatment of workers
and its employment policies become all the more important to the quality of life here.
We believe that workers should be an active part of that growth. But UR must decide
whether to continue its old ways of trying to keep its hourly employees down, or
whether it will join us in a real partnership to better serve the community and to improve
the lives of all workers and their families.

That really is the central challenge in this year’s negotiation. Can we persuade
UR to go down that path with us?

Like the University, the Union has a strategic vision - one deeply rooted in our
dedication to social and economic justice. A few years ago, the Rochester Area
Delegates of 1199 SEIU adopted a statement entitled “What We Stand For.” It was
simple and to the point. It read:
All health care workers are entitled to:
• A voice on the job.
• A living wage.
• Health coverage for every member of their family.
• A secure retirement.
• The opportunity for training, education, and career development.
• A workplace that allows them to provide the best quality of care.

A VOICE ON THE JOB
Union members at UR have a voice on the job through these negotiations. They
elect Delegates and representatives, participate in labor - management meetings, UR
committees, and work out disputes through the contract’s grievance procedure.
Union members at UR have basic rights protected by their contract - recognition,
representation, no discrimination, seniority, discipline only for just cause, due process,
and appeal to binding arbitration.

In these negotiations, WE WILL PROPOSE to improve the grievance - arbitration
process by adding a mediation step for cases that are headed to arbitration.
A LIVING WAGE

UR management has long maintained that the wages paid to union members lead
the “market” in the Rochester area for these job titles. But the sad reality is that we are
still only a half dozen paychecks ahead of the Federal poverty level for a family of four.
While UR can find the resources the pay for top doctors, scientists, and professors, it
must also find the resources to enable its service workers to support their families, to be
able to save, to someday own a home, and to send their kids to college.

The rising cost of fuel, food, and other necessities hits lower paid employees the
hardest since much more of their income is spent just trying to make ends meet.
UR management’s insistence on a lower paid scale for newer employees is not in
anyone’s interest. It is not fair to these workers. It has a depressing effect on wages
and on the standard of living in the very neighborhoods in which the UR plans to
expand. It is a short wrong headed employment policy that makes UR less of an
“employer of choice.”

In these negotiations, WE WILL PROPOSE to increase wages for all workers to
meet the rising cost of living.

WE WILL PROPOSE to move up the lower wage schedule for newer employees
to equal that of more senior employees, and thus protect the standard of living that we
have negotiated over the years.

WE WILL PROPOSE that management stop replacing 40 hour per week full-time
jobs with those of less hours per week.

WE WILL PROPOSE to reduce the number of temporary employees and get
those workers on the regular payroll faster.

HEALTH COVERAGE FOR EVERY MEMBER OF THE FAMILY
The cost of health insurance continues to make headlines. It has become one of
the most contentious issues in collective bargaining, and one of the most difficult to
resolve. As long as we, in the United States, rely on a patchwork of public and private
programs, managements and unions alike will be under increasing pressure to meet the
needs of those who still rely on employer sponsored health care. Unfortunately, this
condition will change only marginally during in the next few years. While we lobby for
broader coverage from government sponsored plans like Child Health Plus, we are still
faced with the challenge of continuing coverage for the nearly 3,000 people who depend
on health insurance provided under these UR union contracts.

Since our first contracts with UR, service workers have enjoyed comprehensive,
no cost health insurance provided through a union-management plan called the 1199
SEIU National Benefit Fund. (NBF). For decades, NBF has provided health benefits,
prescription, lab, x-ray, and dental coverage, as well as child college scholarships to
union employees and their family members. NBF has been a very cost effective way to
protect our members’ health.

Union members have placed such a high priority on good health benefits that
they have negotiated the funding of this plan even in years when it meant lower wage
increases. Union members have come to understand the great value of these benefits.
Two years ago, UR management challenged NBF to assume the full risk of
providing these benefits. NBF and union members, in turn, pledged that they would
reduce cost and increase savings by enacting a series of changes in their plan.

We kept our word.
• Union members accepted higher out-of-pocket expenses for medical visits and
other services in April, 2006.
• Union members learned how to order all their maintenance medications for
delivery by mail.
• A new drug formulary was implemented and substantial discounts were
negotiated with a prescription benefits manager. Additional formulary changes set for
October, 2007 are expected to yield even more savings while preserving good
prescription benefits for members and families.
• NBF consolidated the administration of its outpatient and inpatient services
with Preferred Care resulting in both administrative cost savings and better case
management.
• The Preferred Care/MVP national affiliation with Cigna is insuring that out-ofarea
services are paid at discounted rates.
• NBF instituted more effective coordination of benefits with other plans and
more timely termination of ineligible employees.
• We launched a very ambitious campaign called “Protecting Our Health” that
included a DVD, frequent mailings to members, and the commercial publication of 1199’s
own member cookbook of healthy recipes. An $11..99 value, the cookbook is free to
any NBF covered member who fills out a healthy living pledge form.
• NBF staff conducted monthly “Funds Days” in the Hospital cafeteria and at
various Campus locations to emphasize healthy life styles. In July, over 150 Strong
Hospital employees sampled appetizers made by workers in the Food and Nutrition
Department from the 1199 cookbook.

These measures have had an impact. The NBF Rochester plan had generated a
substantial surplus by the end of 2006. This surplus is enough that we will be able to
propose a 3 year contract for the first time in memory. Provided we negotiate adequate
annual wage increases, we will not need an increase in the current NBF percentage rate
for the next three years. The surplus will also allow us to make a long overdue upgrade
to our dental benefits.

Therefore, in these negotiations, WE WILL PROPOSE to maintain the 1199 SEIU
NBF benefits package with no employee copayment of premium.
WE WILL PROPOSE needed improvements in the NBF Rochester dental plan.
WE WILL PROPOSE collective bargaining agreements of three years in length.
Over the past year, our leadership in Rochester has become acutely aware of the
need for a child care benefit to support working parents. The union dispensed several
hundred thousand dollars to 118 Rochester nursing workers last year. That funding has
ended and we are seeking ways to replace it. Distributing this grant money educated us
about the need for such a benefit for all our members. 1199 SEIU members in New York
City have enjoyed child care support from a fund related to NBF. Part of the 1199 SEIU
“Family of Funds,” the 1199 SEIU Child Care Fund has administered benefits for
downstate members for many years. It has a proven track record.

Therefore, WE WILL PROPOSE that UR becoming a participating employer in the
1199 SEIU Child Care Fund, making union members eligible for child care stipends and
other support.

A SECURE RETIREMENT
Union members were among those leading the effort for pension reform at UR in
the late 1970’s. The resulting inclusion of hourly workers in TIAA-CREF has served us
well. Senior employees who are now retiring are able to do so with dignity. We are
concerned, however, about the erosion of UR sponsored health care for retirees. There
remains a need for affordable supplementary coverage for those who are covered by
Medicare. We do not want to see the gains in retirement security lost to expensive
health care bills.

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR TRAINING, EDUCATION, CAREER DEVELOPMENT
The UR and the Union have worked together for almost 20 years to sponsor
adult education courses at work. Literally hundreds of individual employees have taken
classes here. In recent years, much of the funding has come from a Medicaid waiver
program called the Community Health Care Conversion Demonstration Project
(CHCCDP). That funding ended abruptly at the end of last year, leaving us with no
resources to continue adult education.

The union secured a grant for the instructional costs and UR matched it with
paid release time so that students could finish GED, A+ computer, and other classes
disrupted by the loss of funding.

With those classes completed, we find ourselves without an ongoing adult
education program at UR and Strong Hospital for the first time in many years. These
programs are of huge value to the workers and to the employer. When coupled with the
additional resources that the 1199 SEIU Training and Upgrading Fund has been able to
secure, they constitute career ladders for workers who would otherwise not be able to
advance. The positive impact on morale and productivity is self-evident.
Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy addressed the training fund’s most recent
graduates at a ceremony held last month. He praised the union and UR for its
commitment to lifelong learning. He pointed out that adult learners are a role model for
their kids, an essential element in school success in the City of Rochester.
By using funds allocated under the NYS Health Care Reform Act, the Training
Fund has now sponsored over 50 graduates from licensed practical nurse programs with
full scholarships in Rochester. It recently entered into an agreement with the Workforce
Investment Board that will dramatically increase its ability for members to complete
associate’s degrees.

Training and adult education represent one of the most successful collaborations
between union and management at UR.

WE WILL PROPOSE establishing a fund to restart essential adult workplace
learning programs for service workers at UR and Strong.

A WORKPLACE THAT ALLOWS THEM TO PROVIDE BEST QUALITY CARE
Our union members work at a first class university and a top rated medical
institution. They perform many of the so-called “invisible” tasks that make these
institutions run. They are proud to do so.

They also engage in activities that defend their employer. 1199 and SEIU
members at UR donate into the unions’ political action funds in the highest percentages
for major SEIU employers in Upstate New York. They register to vote. They volunteer
and work for candidates who support health care and education.

They have financed television ads to beat back Medicaid cuts, gone door-todoor
with petitions, and made innumerable telephone calls. We took on the last
Governor and the current Governor when their budgets hurt our institutions and the
people whom they serve.

We have a very effective partnership with the Greater New York Hospital
Association called the Healthcare Education Project. We have fought and won
expanded health coverage for children, for the establishment of Family Health Plus, and
are now working to gain one million signatures in support of the Federal renewal and
expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
Our unions have also supported the Rochester Fair Share Coalition and other
local initiatives to maintain good neighborhoods in the City of Rochester.
We see these activities also as an essential part of our mission. Our members
constitute a literal army for reform. We challenge UR to work more closely with us.

A VOICE ON THE JOB REDUX

UR workers who are not in a union are not an organized force for reform. They
are less likely to be registered to vote, less likely to be civically active, and less likely to
link the political process that is the primary funder of their employer with their behavior.
They also have no real voice on the job.

And the tragedy is that when they seek to gain the benefits of unionization, they
are fiercely resisted by UR management.

UR’s repeated antipathy toward these workers’ effort to join our union is the
principal stumbling block to our working together. When the employees of the
Highlands at Brighton Nursing Home, a Strong Health facility, tried to form a union two
years ago, UR literally bought the election. A renewed attempt by these employees this
summer was met with hostility by management.

On the very day that 1199 President George Gresham was meeting with Dr. Berk,
Strong Health mailed a package of scurrilous, anti-union propaganda to HAB
employees.

When an otherwise liberal institution like UR behaves like this toward its less
powerful workers, both union and non-union, it damages its moral authority and
contributes, like some of the worst corporate scoundrels, to the ever increasing
disparity and inequality in our society.

The consequences of this union busting, and the resulting decline of private
sector rates of unionization, are all around us: employees working multiple jobs to
afford the basics of life, children left unsupervised, drugs, gun violence, and a despair
that is killing our City in large chunks.

Kendrus Philips was a17 year old East High School student and member of the
Democrat and Chronicle newspaper’s Teen Council in April, 2006 when he wrote this
description of life in Rochester:

“Yes, it's all equal opportunity here, as when a 16- or 17-year-old inner-city youth
decides to get a job at Burger King or McDonald's. When you live in a house where it's
just your mom and a few younger siblings, and the cost of living is ever rising, and
customers and your manager are talking to you as if you're nothing because they don't
know or just don't care, it's kind of hard to sit back and avoid saying: Why aren't I
selling drugs?...

“We have people who build $5 million houses when welfare and food stamp lines
wind around the corner, not to mention the hundreds of people begging to be in Section
8 government-backed housing because their nursing home job just isn't quite cutting it
for them and their family.”

“...because their nursing home job just isn’t quite cutting it for them and their
family.”

Kendrus Philips is right. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The union members
now at UR are a living example that you can have a voice at work. You can make a
living wage. You can have family health care and retirement security. You can afford to
go to school, upgrade your skills, get a better job. But the odds of doing that without a
union in today’s service sector are slim to nonexistent.

So, in these negotiations, WE WILL PROPOSE that UR agree to abide by the
standards of conduct and procedures set forth in the Employee Free Choice Act
(EFCA).

The EFCA recognizes that our current system, which relies on the National Labor
Relations Act, is broken. The EFCA is supported by some of the UR’s greatest political
benefactors. It is cosponsored by U.S. Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham
Clinton, and by U.S. Representative Louise Slaughter. U.S. Representative James
Walsh, a Republican, voted for it. Governor Eliot Spitzer is strongly urging its
enactment.

The New York Times’ editorial of March 6, 2007 said:
“The House of Representatives passed a bill last week that would strengthen the
rights of employees to form unions, and it drew an immediate veto threat from President
Bush. But if Mr. Bush were, as he claims, truly concerned about rising income inequality
and truly committed to improving the lives of America's middle class, he would support
the legislation and urge the Senate to approve it.”
The Times went on to say: “Labor unions have a role to play in helping to fix
today's economic ills - most notably, worsening income inequality, a problem that's
caused in part by unions' decline and the workers' resulting lack of bargaining power.”
That income inequality is what is destroying the City of Rochester. It is
threatening to tear apart long stable neighborhoods like the 19th Ward.
What we will be asking for is not something particularly new nor unique. The
rights of unorganized workers to join the union without management interference are
recognized by such major employers as the New York City League of Voluntary
Hospitals and Homes, the Kaleida Health System of Western New York, and Kaiser
Permanente, to name just a few.

To reach agreement on these rights in these negotiations will clearly redefine the
relationship between union workers and UR.

CONCLUSION

We should not have to wait until a crisis overwhelms us. We can work together.
After the slaying of Strong Memorial employee William Washington, union
workers and management came together in one of Hospital’s most troubled
departments. In moments of remembering “Bobby” Washington, in playing ball to raise
money for his son, there was no bosses, there were no employees; there were only
people with a common grief and a common cause.

In remembering a different tragedy, UR President Joel Seligman wrote to me last
year. He said:
“Like you, I recognize the significant benefits labor provides this University and
place a strong value on the health and safety of our workforce. Thanks to their
contributions, we are one of the great academic institutions in the world today. Their
talents and energy are a key reason we have grown to be the region’s largest employer,
the major health care provider in the area, and the generator of an increasing number of
new businesses. It is also through this partnership that we will continue to help make
an important difference in the lives of those around us.”
I wholeheartedly agree.

In these negotiations, let’s get to that partnership that we all desire.

Related Documents

• 2007 Colletive Bargaining Negotiations - SEIU Opening Statements 8-8-07