PORT ANGELES — A Kitsap County Superior Court judge has granted Olympic Medical Center an injunction to stop an Aug. 11 union strike.
The 14-day temporary restraining order issued late Wednesday averts an 18-hour walk-out threatened by Service Employees International Union 1199NW.
The strike would have cost the public hospital district covering Port Angeles and Sequim areas $600,000 to fly in 150 replacement workers from throughout the nation, train them and put them to work from 6 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. next Thursday.
“The court agrees with plaintiff’s analysis, that the individual defendants are public employees, that the hospital is a public employer and that the defendants’ threatened strike is illegal,” Kitsap County Superior Court Judge M. Karlynn Haberly wrote.
Union representatives said they would honor the ruling.
The hospital paid a nonrefundable $90,000 fee Monday to secure the temporary workers in anticipation of the strike.
SEIU 1199NW represents 205 nurses, 120 service workers and 38 dietary workers — or 42 percent of the 850 workers — at the OMC hospital in Port Angeles.
“We are pleased with the court’s decision on this matter, as it protects our patients,” OMC Chief Executive Officer Eric Lewis said in a statement.
“We value our nursing staff, service workers and dietary workers who are represented by SEIU, and we look forward to continuing good-faith negotiations with these groups.”
Negotiations will resume today in a fourth round of mediated talks with the Public Employment Relations Commission.
Haberly heard arguments and made the ruling after Clallam County judges recused themselves.
OMC officials have said they have offered a competitive benefits package in the face of unprecedented financial challenges.
Employees would continue to pay nothing for their medical insurance under the proposal on the table.
They would, however, be asked to pay about a quarter of their children’s benefits and about $17 per month more for a spouse.
Management would get the same benefits package as the union workers.
Union representatives said the proposal amounts to steep cuts to health care benefits and fails to guarantee safe levels of nursing staff for patients.
Linda Bryant, a member of the bargaining team, said in a statement that union members “disagree with the judge’s order and think it does not recognize our rights to stand for quality care for all families.
“Our primary goal has always been to settle a fair contract and ensure health care access for everyone,” she said.
Bryant said union members will “return to the bargaining table tomorrow with the mediator, and we will be at the table for as long as it takes to resolve issues of affordable family health care and guaranteed staffing minimums that we believe will keep our patients safe.”
She added: “We could have reached a settlement a long time ago if management had been as resolved to settle a fair contract as they are determined to thwart the rights of nurses and health care workers.”
David Smith of the Seattle law firm Garvey Schubert Barer wrote in court papers filed Monday that the strike would “introduce unnecessary risks to patients” and “deprive or delay some patients the availability of specialty procedures.”
The hospital’s legal team said the union workers have a contractual obligation not to strike, even though the latest collective bargaining agreement expired in October 2010.
SEIU 1199NW circulated a flier in late June announcing that 95 percent of its members had voted for a one-day strike.
OMC officials were informed Friday at 4 p.m. that the union intended to strike Aug. 11.
Union attorneys from the Seattle law firm Douglas Drachler McKee & Gilbrough filed a response to the OMC motion for a temporary restraining order Wednesday.
They argued that walk-outs “are recognized as economic tools used to protect employee rights in the collective bargaining process.
“The union is ready, willing, and able to bargain with OMC every day from Aug. 4 to Aug. 11 in order to reach an agreement and avoid the strike,” union attorney Paul Drachler wrote.
After the ruling, the OMC commissioners’ meeting Wednesday night was filled to capacity as Lewis and Swedish Medical Center Chief Administrative Officer Marcel Loh held a forum on a proposed affiliation between OMC and the Seattle-based medical center.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com
