Check the pulse of heartless hospital management
Since bargaining resumed with Care New England on Wednesday, August 6th, Butler Hospital workers have offered two counterproposals that significantly reduce the financial distance between the parties to end the lockout. Workers say that Care New England has not responded to their proposals.
On Tuesday, Butler workers held a press conference:
“Today, we want to provide you with some updates on the
bargaining process and share some of the movement that we’ve made to come to a
fair deal,” said Courtney Threats, licensed clinical social worker and part of
the Butler members’ bargaining committee. “On Wednesday, August 6th, after more
than a month without negotiations, we met with Butler’s legal team and the
federal mediator. During that time, we spent 18 hours coming up with two
counterproposals that we hoped would get us to a fair deal. Despite the
movement we made, hospital leadership decided to get up at 3 am and walk away
without any resolution.
“The movement we made was hard and painful, but it helped us
stay true to our core values, which are to lift the least paid members of this
organization out of poverty while ensuring that Butler is a safer place for
everyone.
“Despite those efforts, the hospital decided against
honoring the bargaining process, took to the press, making inflammatory
statements about us, attacking us as workers, and attacking our character
instead of coming to the table and making a fair deal. Regardless of their
attempts to attack us, we have tried to stay strong, putting forward proposals
that, hopefully, bring us closer to them.
“Our last two counter proposals brought us within $1.2
million, over four years, between our wage proposal and the employer’s
proposal. That’s $300,000 a year. In addition, we agreed to take on a new
premium for our HSA healthcare plan. Despite those efforts, we still have no
resolve, no answers, and no contact with Mary Marin (President of
Butler Hospital) or Michael Wagner (CEO of Care New
England), who have remained silent and distant throughout this process.
“As an organization, we’ve come together to support one another in good times and in bad. Today is day 90 of this lockout. Today, Care New England and Butler Hospital still choose to spend $65,000 every single day on unemployment. They choose to spend $36,000 investing in inflammatory radio ads, and untold millions of dollars on lawyers and replacement workers.
“We’re simply asking the hospital to sign the fair proposal
that we’ve had on the table so that we can get back to work and get back to
caring for the most vulnerable people in Rhode Island, who have been depending
on us. We want to get back to work to take care of our families and move
forward from this place we were in, hoping that we can heal and recover from
everything we’ve gone through over the last 90 days.”
“I want to take a moment to remind everybody who the bargaining committee is,” said Dawn Williams, a registered nurse at Butler Hospital for 10 years. “It is all of us, every single member. We take the time to listen to each other, understand where each other is coming from, and make proposals that we all agree on. As Courtney said, coming up with the last two proposals we presented on Wednesday was very painful. It was very difficult because these aren’t numbers on a page. They represent a real impact on our people, our members, their lives, and their families. We take these decisions very seriously and made difficult cuts and choices because we want to return to work.
“We’re ready to get back to work. We’re ready to do the work
that needs to be done to get a proposal. We are ready, but where are they? Why
did they walk away? Why aren’t they ready? Why aren’t Butler Hospital and Care
New England ready?
“The answer is because it’s never been about money for them.
It’s about power and greed. They want it all. We want to get back to our work
so we can help the families that need us, and help ourselves.”
“This has been rough for all of us,” said Virgil Soares, head chef at Butler Hospital. “I’m on the bargaining committee, and at one point, I had to agree to movement on my wages. I’m not going to lie. It’s been a tough pill to swallow, but it’s the right thing to do because I believe in lifting the lowest-paid workers out of poverty. If it means they can finally pay that extra bill a month or get us back to work, it’s worth it for me. But this process is frustrating because we’ve come so close and don’t know what else they want.”
“I want to talk to you about our health insurance,” said Brooke Huminski, a clinical social worker in Butler’s inpatient assessment center. “I understand all too deeply the value of affordable healthcare. About three years ago, I developed a rare health condition that’s become a chronic illness that thankfully I was able to survive, due to being able to get treatment from our health insurance and not being in incredible medical debt.
“I truly understand what we’re fighting for here, and I have
been an advocate the whole time of making sure our health insurance plan is
affordable, not just for myself, but for all members.
“Last week, as has been discussed, we had to make some tough
decisions. And one thing we did was add $110 to our health insurance premium
per month.
“That is considerable movement on a plan that I deeply
value. We understand the cost of healthcare is rising all around us, so we’re
willing to pay a little bit more to have a really good health insurance plan as
well as to get this done.
“It’s been 90 days. Why are we still out here? We are ready
to go back to work.
“Butler Hospital, do the right thing. This is for our
community. This is for all of us. Anyone watching right now can be affected by
mental illness. It does not discriminate. Get us back to work.”
Reporter: Why did you make these concessions in
your counterproposal now?
Dawn Williams: We realize that we have to get
back to work, and to do that, there will have to be difficult decisions. What
matters to us is what we’re trying to hold onto: fair wages, affordable health
insurance, and a safe environment.
It’s not too much to ask. We are not being unreasonable, so
we took harder cuts. We’re trying our best to get back to work and get a deal.
Reporter: Is there more room for movement on
your side, or is this what we consider the best?
Dawn Williams: They have the ball. It’s their
turn. It is their turn to make a move. We’ve made moves. It is their turn. They
have the ball, they have our proposal. It is their turn.
Reporter: Do you have any bargaining scheduled
in the next week?
Dawn Williams: No. Right now, we do not have
anything scheduled.
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