PORT ANGELES — Olympic Medical Center and a union bargaining team resumed contract talks Thursday in the wake of a court ruling that declared a threatened workers’ strike illegal.
No announcements were made after the mediated negotiations between Clallam County’s largest employer and Service Employee International Union Healthcare 1199NW.
“We don’t receive updates on the bargaining sessions as a matter of course,” OMC spokeswoman Bobby Beeman said.
“When we have information we can share publicly, we will definitely call you.”
The union, which represents 205 nurses, 120 service workers and 38 dietary workers at the Port Angeles hospital, had threatened to strike between 6 a.m. and 11:59 p.m. Thursday.
Kitsap County Superior Court Judge M. Karlynn Haberly issued a two-week restraining order on the walk-out Wednesday afternoon. The temporary order expires Aug. 17.
Haberly ordered union lawyers to appear before Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Jay B. Roof on Aug. 17 to “show cause, if any, why they should not be enjoined during the pendency of this action from striking.”
OMC attorney David Smith of the Seattle law firm Garvey Schubert Barer said he will seek a preliminary injunction that would “maintain the status quo for the remainder of the case.”
A one-day strike would have cost the public hospital district about $600,000 to hire and train 150 skilled temporary workers, Chief Executive Officer Eric Lewis has said.
In anticipation of the walk-out, OMC paid a $90,000 placement fee to a temporary agency.
Haberly sided with Smith in ruling that the SEIU Healthcare 1199NW employees are public employees and that a union strike would be illegal.
“If Defendants are allowed to strike, Plaintiff will suffer actual and substantial injury,” Haberly wrote in her ruling.
The case is being heard in Kitsap County because Clallam County judges recused themselves, Smith said.
Negotiations for collective bargaining agreements have been occurring since the last three-year contracts expired in October 2010.
Major sticking points have been medical benefits, guaranteed staffing levels, wages and a ban on outsourcing.
Union employees have said proposed cuts to health care benefits equate to a 10 percent pay cut.
OMC officials said their proposal is competitive with other hospitals’ medical plans.
Both sides took out full-page ads in Sunday’s editions of the Peninsula Daily News.
“We need to have enough nurses and healthcare workers to meet every patient’s needs, but the hospital won’t guarantee the nurse staffing levels we believe would improve patient care, or the healthcare that we can afford for our own families,” the union ad read.
Lewis countered in an open letter that the hospital offers some of the best benefits in the state. Meeting the union’s demands would drive up costs for patients, he said.
Under the OMC proposal, employees and managers would still pay zero for their health care premium.
Employees who work 32 hours or more per week would pay an estimated $95 per month for all of their children and $17 per month more for their spouse.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
