Kaiser Permanente announces tentative deal with union coalition, including SEIU
Sacramento Business Journal, May 11, 2012

Kaiser Permanente reaches 3-year contract deal with health workers
The Daily News – Los Angeles, May 12, 2012

Kaiser Permanente, 28 Unions Reach 3-Year Contract for 100K Employees
Culver City Patch, May 12, 2012

Vallejo Kaiser union workers set to vote on new contract
Vallejo Times-Herald, May 15, 2012

Kaiser reaches 3-year deal with 100,000 workers
Fox 5 San Diego, May 13, 2012

Home care providers and care recipients rally to support reform bill SB 1503, a smarter alternative to cuts

More than a thousand home Care providers, consumer and supporters gathered for our final regional rally today in Sacramento to declare that reforming the IHSS program by passing SB 1503 saves more money and protects care better than the proposed cuts in the May Revise.

Instead of cutting the IHSS program, we can create savings in this year’s budget and achieve massive long-term savings by transforming IHSS. Moving to a system of coordinated care, so providers can observe and report symptoms of chronic conditions, will greatly reduce the incidence of nursing home placements and hospitalizations. But it won’t work if the program is cut.

“You don’t fix the engine of your car, and then slash the tires,” said Loretta Jackson, home care provider from Sacramento. “That’s why we are going to Sacramento to say no to even a dollar of cuts to homecare.”

Several elected officials joined the rally in support of SB1503 as a smarter solution to addressing the budget – Asm. Roger Dickenson, Asm. Dr. Richard Pan, and Sacramento Board of Supervisor, Phil Serna. All of them signed a giant pledge of support for our principles of home care reform.

Several organizations also joined the rally in solidarity: United Domestic Workers, SEIU Local 521, United Long Term Care Workers, California United Homecare Workers, Slavic Assistance Center, Sacramento Asian American Minority Inc., (SAAMI) and the Children’s Defense Fund.

As part of the event and to promote getting healthy, healthcare leaders from SEIU-UHW represented hospitals provided free glucose and blood pressure screenings. Over 300 people were screened. Many of whom do not have access to basic healthcare.

Healthcare leaders also lead healthy activities to promote exercise as a way to tackle high blood pressure and other chronic diseases.

SEIU, UDW, CUHW
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 15, 2012
Contact: Michael Cox (916) 799-6784

SACRAMENTO, CA – The day after Governor Brown released his May budget revision, home care providers and care recipients rallied at the State Capitol to declare that home care cuts are off the table in the coming budget year.  The effort was part of the “Let’s Get Healthy at Home” campaign to advance a smarter, more compassionate alternative to the $225 million in budget cuts proposed for In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS), SB 1503.

“Home care providers and care recipients have been fighting to stabilize and strengthen the home care that keeps seniors and people with disabilities healthy and independent,” said Loretta Jackson, a home care provider from Sacramento.  “But we can’t build a stronger system on top of a crumbling foundation, and that’s why we demand that lawmakers reject every penny in additional cuts to IHSS.”

IHSS enables more than 400,000 low-income seniors and disabled Californians to live safely and independently at home at a fraction of the cost of nursing home placement.  Yet the cost effective program has been proposed for deep cuts year after year.

This year is no exception.  The governor’s budget proposal would reduce by 7% the hours of assistance each home care recipient receives.  For those who live with a relative or roommate, it would slash many services altogether, even if the person they share housing with is incapable or unwilling to help them with basic needs like laundry, cooking, and grocery shopping.

These proposed cuts would put vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities in danger.  What’s more, they represent a “pound-foolish” approach to balancing the budget because the cuts would be compounded with the additional loss of more than $200 million in federal matching funds and more than $100 million in county dollars.

That’s why home care workers have joined seniors, Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, and Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg to advance a smarter alternative, reform bill SB 1503.

Instead of cutting the home care services vulnerable Californians need now, SB 1503 creates savings in this year’s budget and achieves even better long-term savings by transforming IHSS.

SB 1503 would move to a system of coordinated care in which the health care system and the home care system work together, with incentives to improve the health of seniors and people with disabilities while maintaining consumer choice to live at home whenever possible.

Under this model, home care providers would be a part of the care team responsible for improving the consumers’ health.   This plan will achieve real savings in the coming years when home care providers receive the training needed to observe and report symptoms of chronic conditions, greatly reducing the incidence of more expensive nursing home placements and hospitalizations.

What’s more, reinvesting savings generated by the reforms will enable California to strengthen home care to accommodate the estimated 800,000 Californians who will need IHSS as California’s population ages over the next decade.   But this transformation won’t be successful if IHSS is cut any further.

“Seniors are here with a clear message for our leaders: more home care cuts are absolutely not an option,” said Bruce G. Johnson, a home care recipient from Stanislaus County.  “It is unconscionable to even consider cutting the lifeline our seniors and people with disabilities are relying on when SB 1503 can save more money and improve our health!”

###

INGLEWOOD – In a sharp rebuke of controversial hospital chain Prime Healthcare, the National Labor Relations Board has issued a complaint against the corporate giant for its treatment of workers at Centinela Hospital in Inglewood. The wide-ranging allegations against Prime include interrogation and surveillance of workers, bad faith contract negotiations with its workforce, and unlawful implementation of an employee health insurance plan.

“This complaint is further evidence of what I have already experienced personally with Prime Healthcare facilities: paranoia, intimidation, and cost-cutting at the expense of its caregivers and the overall health of the community,” said Assembly Member Steven Bradford (D – Gardena). “Prime’s business and labor practices raise serious concerns for the health and well-being of my constituents and I look forward to seeing a full investigation by the NLRB.”

The complaint catalogs a series of sometimes bizarre activities that Prime management at Centinela Hospital directed towards its workers. According to the document, one administrator told a union representative in the presence of an employee that Prime “had cameras everywhere and was watching,” creating “an impression among employees that their union activities were under surveillance” by Prime.

The complaint also describes how members of Prime management “interrogated employees about their union membership, activities or sympathies” and how union representatives were required “to be escorted throughout [the] facility by security guards.”

“The way Prime management at Centinela treats its caregivers undermines the level of care that we’re able to provide,” said Stephanie Allen, a respiratory therapist at Centinela Hospital. “Every minute Prime spends trying to bully and interrogate its workers is a minute taken away from patient care.”

The Labor Board has set a hearing for July 9 to hear testimony regarding the complaint against Prime.

The complaint comes as Prime is already facing allegations from the Labor Board for its treatment of workers. Earlier this month, the Labor Board conducted a hearing in Los Angeles about Prime’s termination of a veteran employee at Encino Hospital Medical Center. In October, Prime fired caregiver Pat Aguirre shortly after she represented a coworker regarding a workplace issue and after she spoke before the state Attorney General’s office about the negative impact of Prime’s business practices on patients and workers.

In a complaint about the firing, the Labor Board claimed that Aguirre’s termination was an act of discrimination by Prime in an effort to discourage membership in her union, SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West.

###

SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) is the largest hospital and healthcare union in the western United States with more than 150,000 members. We unite every type of healthcare worker with a mission to achieve high-quality healthcare for all. SEIU-UHW is part of the 2.1 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the nation’s fastest-growing union. Learn more at www.seiu-uhw.org.

Source: SEIU-UHW

For more information, the CDSS has provided a fact sheet and contact information:

• Download the fact sheet (pdf)
• Call toll free telephone number (888) 362-8947
• Visit their website: www.cdss.ca.gov

The missing information included: IHSS provider names, Social Security numbers, IHSS case numbers, IHSS provider numbers, wages, and the IHSS recipient’s state employer identification numbers.

The department is expected to notify all IHSS recipients and providers of the security breach by mail starting Monday.

Read the details here.

WE DID IT! We defined our priorities, we united to fight for them, and WE WON an amazing new agreement.

That’s right, we just reached a new national agreement with Kaiser that delivers all our bargaining priorities. This agreement . . .

Protects our healthcare. Employer paid healthcare with the same $5 co-pays we’ve always had AND Kaiser will reward our better collective health with a new Total Health Incentive Bonus in addition to our PSP. No Takeaways!

Protects our pension. The same great defined-benefits pension plan we currently have. No takeaways!

Improves our job security. We maintained one-year income security in event of layoff, and made it easier to find another job in Kaiser.

Wins raises. 3% a year for each of the three years of the contract.

Many other improvements! Come to the vote to learn about them.

“Wow! We just hit a home run. We bargained an agreement that delivers on all four of the priorities that a majority of SEIU-UHW members identified last fall! I’m proud of all the members across California who took action and showed Kaiser that we are unified.”

- Lasonia Cosio, Kaiser Panorama City

• Voting starts on Thursday, May 17. For voting times and locations, talk to your Steward or click here to see the voting schedule.

• Want to know more about the agreement? Full summaries will be available at voting and bargaining team members will be on hand to answer questions.

• To turn this agreement into a contract that we can enforce and hold Kaiser accountable to, we need to vote to approve it.

Read our new Tentative Agreement here.

By: Maria Hernandez, EVS, Mercy  Folsom

Like so many of you, protecting our healthcare benefits, job security and retirement are  my  top priorities. My family depends on me to provide for them.   Talking to my co-workers in EVS, I know we all have similar situations. We all depend on winning a great contract with no takeaways to our benefits and no subcontracting.

Managements proposed cuts would devastate my co-workers and me. As part time workers, we want to feel secure.  We work hard every day to make sure the hospitals are clean and hygienic and the patients are well taken care of, and so it’s only right that we are able to provide a quality life for ourselves and our loved ones.

We still have a lot of work to do, but from what I’m seeing and hearing, SEIU-UHW members at Dignity are stronger and more united than ever before!

During the two hour drive from bargaining in Sacramento to my home in Redding, I had some time to think about the road ahead. I car pooled with three co-workers who were all anxious to get home to start dinner, check homework and pick up kids. My daughter was waiting for me to take her to fiddle practice. It’s her and her sister who inspire me to work as hard as I do. This contract is as much for them as it is for me.

Many of us have attended rallies at our facilities. If you haven’t already, you should check out the photos here. I attended the Mercy Redding info picket where I met fifty-three workers from our billing department who were told that their department was going to be closed down.  Instead of feeling defeated these workers were the loudest voices at the info picket. They were shouting for job security because they felt firsthand what it means to feel insecure.
When I sit at the bargaining table, I usually think about my girls and the medical care they need to fight asthma , but this week the rally cry from our billing department echoed in my mind. Redding is a small community, and good stable jobs are hard to come by.  We all feel the push to hold on to the good jobs that we have now.  We are not asking for much at the bargaining table. All we want is a chance to live our lives with dignity.  We want jobs we can count on to help us support our families. That’s want I want. That’s what the fifty-three workers from our billing department want. And I am sure that’s what you want too.
How are we going to get it? We must  keep the momentum going throughout the campaign.

We owe it to our families and to each other.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/seiu-uhw/sets/72157629908065683/

California’s home care system is broken and faces cuts. But we’re healthcare workers and we have a better idea. Instead of cutting the budget for California’s home care program, our State Legislators should invest in the health of seniors and people with disabilities and in the training of home care workers.

In a few short weeks, the California State Senate will decide whether or not to pass a bill to fix our state’s in-home care program (SB 1503) and pass the state’s budget. We know better than anyone what happens when our state’s most vulnerable patients–seniors and people with disabilities–don’t get the healthcare and support they need. That’s why State Legislators need to hear from us.

Will you call to ensure that all Californians can get healthy at home?

1.  “My name is <your name> and I’ve been a <job> at <name of facility> for more than <#> years.”

2.  “As a healthcare worker, I see first-hand the importance of preventing chronic disease and helping seniors and people with disabilities stay healthy.”

3.  “Our system of care for our state’s most vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities is badly broken.”

4.  “I want the legislator to fix our state’s home care program by supporting SB 1503 and stopping home care budget cuts.”

Make the call today!