EDITOR’S NOTE — This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
CORRECTION: Olympic Medical Center settled a three-year contract with UFCW 21 Home Health in April. The original story published today (Aug. 18, 2011) erroneously said OMC settled a three-year contract with UFCW 21 in April. UFCW 21 has four other bargaining units besides Home Health. The other bargaining units are still in negotiations with the hospital.
PORT ANGELES — A temporary restraining order averting a workers’ strike at Olympic Medical Center has been extended for 30 days.
Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Jay B. Roof on Wednesday granted a joint request of OMC and Service Employees International Union Healthcare 1199NW to extend the expiring temporary order.
The new order will expire
Sept. 16, at which time Kitsap County Superior Court Judge M. Karlynn Haberly will consider a preliminary injunction that OMC attorney David Smith of the Seattle law firm Garvey Schubert Barer filed Aug. 8.
A preliminary injunction would maintain the status quo for the remainder of the case and prevent the 369 SEIU-represented nurses, dietary workers and service workers from striking over health care insurance costs and staffing levels.
After mediated contract talks came to a stalemate last month, SEIU had threatened an 18-hour walkout Aug. 11.
Haberly, who is presiding over the case because Clallam County judges recused themselves, issued a two-week restraining order to avert the strike Aug. 3.
“What OMC hopes,” Chief Executive Officer Eric Lewis told commissioners and about 30 people in the audience at a meeting Wednesday night, “is this extension will allow both parties time to focus on a resolution over labor agreements.”
Attorneys representing the union and OMC co-signed the stipulation leading to the judge’s order.
Union representative Linnae Riesen said Wednesday she wanted to get more information before commenting on the stipulation.
Bargaining dates have been set for next Thursday and Aug. 29 and Aug. 30, Lewis said.
At the Wednesday night meeting, three speakers addressed union concerns about staffing levels and a proposed increase in health care insurance costs.
Emergency room nurse Christy Wright said that the union members are asking for guaranteed staffing “because we feel that it’s important — it’s important to the community and to the care of our patients.”
She also said OMC’s proposal for health care insurance benefits would hit part-time workers especially hard.
In his motion for a preliminary injunction, Smith said “the parties remain deeply divided regarding the terms for wages, health care benefits, pension benefits, staffing and management rights.”
Lewis has said it would have cost the public hospital $600,000 to fly in, train and pay 150 skilled temporary workers to cover the walk-out the union had threatened.
OMC officials said they have proposed a competitive health care insurance plan that would continue to fully insure full-time or part-time employees at no cost to them.
However, OMC is asking its employees and managers to pay for 25 percent of their children’s health care insurance, which is now free, and to pay 50 percent for a spouse, which is now about 40 percent.
“Based on the information I’ve seen, I think our medical benefits are above market,” Lewis said.
Hospital officials have said the children’s premium works out to about $95 per month to cover an unlimited number of children up to age 26.
While union members dispute the $95-per-month claim, OMC officials said they don’t have the exact cost because the 2012 rates are not yet available.
“Ninety-five dollars happens to be what it would have been if we had agreed to it at the beginning of 2011,” Lewis explained.
Beyond health care insurance, union members said, the other key issue is safe staffing.
At an Aug. 11 picket, emergency room nurse and SEIU chief negotiator Margaret Cary described staffing in the ER as “not acceptable for patient safety.”
Said Wright on Wednesday: “I wonder how many nurses really have time to comfort and hold the hands of their dying patients.
“We are so busy when we are short-staffed we can barely manage to get our mandatory documentation done and just our tasks.”
Wright said OMC’s proposal for health care insurance benefits would mean part-time workers would pay 100 percent of their spouse’s premium.
“That’s going to go up to $500,” said Wright, adding that children would cost a part-time worker $200 per month to cover.
“That’s a huge increase,” she said.
“A lot of part-time nurses are not going to be able to afford it, and dietary workers certainly are not going to be able to afford it.
“When they’re bringing home $1,300 a month, how can they afford $700 a month in health care?” she asked.
Efforts to obtain the actual proposals from the union and OMC were unsuccessful.
On guaranteed staffing, Lewis said no other hospital in the state offers it in their contracts. He said it would cost millions.
“Olympic Medical Center would be the first hospital to agree to these guaranteed staffing levels,” Lewis said.
“I think, ultimately, our board of commissioners should have control over staffing levels,” he added.
“We do agree that we need to work with our union employees and all of our employees, all thousand of our employees, on having safe staffing levels.”
Lewis said OMC needs to control costs to remain financially viable, especially in a bad economy amid uncertainty over state federal reimbursement levels.
He repeated that OMC has no plans now to outsource services.
“There is no doubt that this is challenging for our employees, but I think shared sacrifice is something that we are going to need if we are going to continue to move forward as an organization,” Lewis said.
“Obviously, employees will have higher out-of-pocket costs, but I think it’s something that if we don’t do, Olympic Medical Center will not be able to survive financially.”
OMC has 344 other union-represented employees from UFCW 21. OMC settled a 3-year contract with UFCW 21 Home Health in April. UFCW 21 has four other bargaining units besides Home Health. The other bargaining units are still in negotiations with the hospital.
“OMC is committed to continuing to bargain in good faith with SEIU and has requested bargaining dates during this extension period,” a statement from the hospital read.
________
Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
