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Bay State Medical Workers Gain Allies

Posted on: Monday, 17 October 2005, 15:00 CDT

By Christopher Rowland, The Boston Globe

Oct. 17--Medical workers in Massachusetts have voted to merge with a powerful New York local of the Service Employees International Union, setting the stage for a major unionizing effort in Boston's big teaching hospitals.

Members of SEIU 2020 representing employees at Boston Medical Center and a number of nursing homes and smaller hospitals around the state voted 2,452 to 306 to merge with SEIU 1199 of New York. The secret ballot was counted Friday by the American Arbitration Association.

The vote brings an ambitious and deep-pocketed union into the state. The New York local, which says it has an annual organizing budget of $20 million, sought to merge with Boston workers as part of a plan to expand its reach throughout the healthcare industry on the East Coast.

"Healthcare workers are in desperate need to have a stronger voice in the major hospitals both across the city and across the state," said Mike Fadel, director of organizing for the newly merged Boston local. He would not discuss any details of its strategy for future organizing, saying only, "It will be different case by case."

So far, the most visible effect of SEIU 1199's presence in Boston is an employee training fund that has been set up as a side agreement to a new hospital union contract that is up for ratification today by 1,200 SEIU and 400 AFSCME workers at Boston Medical Center. Boston Medical Center will kick in about $300,000 a year to the fund, which will pay for up to 24 college credits a year to educate workers.

Administered from New York, the fund is replenished with about $20 million from hospitals with SEIU contracts every year, the union said. Unlike Boston Medical Center's existing training programs, the union said, employees tapping the SEIU training fund don't have to pay the money upfront and then apply for reimbursement.

"A lot of people don't go to school because they don't have the money," said Schlander Campbell, 29, a Boston Medical Center dental assistant who is studying to become a registered nurse at Roxbury Community College. Campbell said she did not enroll in summer school this year because she didn't have the $1,500 she needed. "Now, I won't have such a burden with the financial part of it."

James Canavan, Boston Medical Center's director of human resources and chief negotiator of the proposed contract, said it calls for 6 percent raises each year for most employees. It also limits increases in employees' share of health insurance premiums to 13 percent, he said.

The union appeared to pick up an important ally in its bid, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino. The union is planning an event to endorse Menino's reelection campaign today. Menino said in a telephone interview on Friday that he is willing to work as an intermediary if any disputes arise as SEIU's organizing drive gets underway.

"It's too early to tell, but I think it's going to be better for the worker and also better for patients in the hospitals," Menino said. "If they ask for my help, I will be there to mediate between the sides."

Menino said he has had good relations with the SEIU in the past, crediting its members at Boston Medical Center with helping him engineer the hospital's creation through the merger of Boston City Hospital and Boston University Medical Center in 1996.

The big New York local's expansion efforts are being closely watched around the country as a test of the new direction taken by SEIU, which split from the AFL-CIO this year. Dennis Rivera, president of SEIU 1199, has built membership in New York by forming an unlikely alliance with hospital administrators and their trade and lobbying group, the Greater New York Hospital Association.

The union's attempts to work in similar fashion with the Massachusetts Hospital Association thus far have not gone as smoothly. Massachusetts Hospital Association executives have declined to meet with SEIU 1199 officials.

After last week's votes were counted, the hospital association adopted a wait-and-see posture. Association spokesman Paul Wingle said hospital leaders hope the new leadership will continue working with hospitals on issues like affordable healthcare for all residents. As for the organizing climate, he said, "It's hard to judge anything at this early stage."

Labor lawyers who have watched the union's growth say it has typically sought to leverage public sentiment and the support of public figures in its organizing drives.

"SEIU has had some success in other areas, as opposed to other unions who have lost membership," said Barry A. Guryan, who represents healthcare institutions as head of labor and employment law at the Boston office of Foley & Lardner LLP, a national law firm.

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Source: The Boston Globe

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