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Children, Families of Dietary and Environmental Services Staff at Enloe Medical Center To March on Management This Afternoon

Posted on: Wednesday, 31 August 2005, 18:01 CDT

CHICO, Calif., Aug. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- This afternoon at 4:15 p.m., children of the housekeeping and dietary employees who staff Enloe Medical Center will form a delegation to address management about concerns regarding their family's ability to survive. The workers, whose jobs were subcontracted to the Compass Corporation by Enloe in June 2003, have not received a raise or cost of living adjustment in over two years, despite the fact that the CEO of Enloe was awarded a 47% wage increase in the last year alone. About half of the dietary and housekeeping workers have no health care coverage for themselves and their children. In fact, children of many fulltime Compass employees working at Enloe Hospital are on public assistance for health care coverage. Enloe is even garnishing the wages of some employees for emergency bills from Enloe.

"Management has cut staff, brought in temp workers and slashed our wages and benefits," said Linda Thompson, dietary aide. "We deal with extremely sick people in need of the cleanest, most sterile environment and food made to their exact nutritional needs. This is a not a fast-food type of setting. When you work in a hospital, it requires a special skill set -- we need to know our jobs or else the patients will suffer. It becomes tougher every day to encourage our dedicated co-workers to stick around, because of the lack of a contract, and the cuts to our wages and benefits."

While patients complain about hospital-borne infections, Enloe continues to ignore the reasonable contract proposals for improving the ability to recruit and retain those staff who are responsible for infection control. The health care workers have been in bargaining for over a year with their employer with no contract settlement. Yesterday, workers met with management again at the bargaining table, and though employees made many counterproposals and offers for movement in their contract, management was unwilling to agree to compromises. The 120 housekeeping and dietary workers who staff the medical center will be participating in a one-day strike on Friday, Sept. 2nd.

The one-day strike will be held in response to numerous unfair labor practices committed by the employer including discrimination against union supporters, not bargaining in good faith and intimidation of employees for exercising their rights as union members.

SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West, with more than 140,000 members, is the largest and most powerful healthcare union in the Western U.S. We represent every type of healthcare worker, including nursing, professional, technical and service classifications. Our mission is to achieve high quality healthcare for all.

SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West

CONTACT: Media Contact, Kathleen Miller of SEIU United HealthcareWorkers-West, +1-510-773-7102

Source: PRNewswire

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