PORT ANGELES — The president of Service Employees International Union local said the union is prepared to take legal action against the Olympic Medical Center board for approving a labor contract not endorsed by its membership.
Diane Sosne, president of SEIU Healthcare Local 1199NW, which represents 350 nurses and other health care workers at OMC as well as 22,000 statewide, said she would rather settle the dispute at the bargaining table than in the courtroom.
“We still believe good-faith bargaining needs to continue,” Sosne said in a telephone interview Friday.
On Wednesday, OMC commissioners approved a three-year labor contract for SEIU-represented registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, certified nursing assistants, emergency room technicians, dietary workers and housekeeping staff at the Port Angeles hospital.
Public Hospital District No. 2 commissioners took the action even though an impasse in 16 months of talks between hospital and union negotiators had been declared.
“They just said: “This is it,’” Sosne said Friday.
“We are deeply disappointed and disturbed that this employer is rejecting the legal rights of our members to collectively bargain a fair contract.”
“We have sent them several letters requesting the parties return to the bargaining table,” Sosne added.
If OMC does not resume talks, Sosne said the union will file charges with the Public Employment Relations Commission, which oversees collective bargaining for public sector workers.
“We intend to enforce our members’ legal rights,” Sosne said.
“We have charges pending, and there will be more.
“We also dispute that there’s a legal impasse they can implement. They proceed at their peril.”
At the same time, Sosne hopes the sides can avoid a legal battle and work out a fair contract.
“And we’ve told them that in writing,” she said.
Union members said they want guaranteed staffing levels in their contracts and a better benefits package than OMC has offered.
Hospital officials have repeatedly said SEIU workers will have the same benefits and raises that management and other union workers have agreed to.
Last year, OMC agreed to new contracts with five United Food and Commercial Workers bargaining units, some of which have consolidated, that included revised benefits packages.
Chief Executive Officer Eric Lewis and several board members said Wednesday that OMC faces significant and unprecedented financial challenges with state and federal cuts combined with rising costs of operations and uncompensated care.
“Collective bargaining in difficult times is difficult,” Sosne said. “We don’t pretend otherwise.
“But we just concluded — this summer and fall — contracts with hospitals covering thousands of registered nurses and service workers, all of whom are facing cuts and difficult reimbursements. And we settled every one of them in a fair, equitable manner.
“What’s striking to me is this management team and board have not been able to do that with us.”
OMC filed an injunction against an Aug. 11 walkout that was eventually upheld in court.
A Kitsap County Superior Court judge ruled that a strike would be illegal because the union members are public employees.
Hospital officials at the time said it would have cost $600,000 to bring in 150 replacement workers, train them and pay them to cover the 18-hour walkout.
Before joining his fellow board members in a unanimous vote Wednesday to approve the SEIU contracts, Commissioner John Nutter said OMC is “in a world of hurt” financially.
Nutter said the hospital district must adapt to pressures from Olympia and Washington, D.C., in order to survive.
“Our nurses are great,” Nutter said.
“They are worth every penny we can afford to pay them, absolutely. I would love to pay them even more.
“But at the end of the day, the plain fact is we don’t have unlimited public money.”
Lewis said OMC is paying an average of $2,800 more per employee per year in benefits than other hospitals in Western Washington.
“This has to be addressed,” Lewis said.
“We don’t have the money from Medicare and Medicaid and other sources of revenue to continue to fund an above-market total benefits plan.”
But Ginny Majewski, an OMC nurse and a member of the SEIU bargaining team, said the hospital can afford to remodel its facilities and buy new equipment.
“We think they are trying to balance the budget on the backs of people that work there,” said Majewski, who described a “bully atmosphere” in recent talks with hospital officials.
“When they turn their backs and walk away, they’re telling us they don’t value and respect the role that we play at the patient’s bedside,” she said.
“We want them to honor those safe staffing measures we think are paramount to providing quality care.”
Sosne said the union was prepared to negotiate a contract that balances OMC’s financial pressures with union members’ concerns over staffing levels.
On Thursday, state Rep. Kevin Van De Wege, D-Sequim, called on both sides to agree to binding arbitration to settle the dispute with a third party.
Van De Wege spoke at a one-day SEIU picket at the hospital last August, urging members to keep “fighting for their rights and for a fair contract.”
Sosne said the union is evaluating binding arbitration.
“Unfortunately, in a down economy, going through binding arbitration frequently can mean members having cuts to their contract,” Sosne said.
Van De Wege, whose 24th District covers the North Olympic Peninsula, is also a unionized firefighter and paramedic for Clallam County Fire District No. 3 in Sequim.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
