Community News 05/01/09
New hospital owners targeted by unionized employees
By Mike Huffman
Spokane Valley News Editor

Pickets marched in front of Spokane Valley Hospital and Medical Center last week, but no employees at the health-care facility were on strike.

Instead, unionized employees of VHMC said they wanted the public to be aware that the new owner of the hospital, Community Health Systems Inc., is trying to break the union shared by workers there and at the downtown Deaconess Medical Center. In response, the Service Employees International Union 1199NW has filed unfair labor practice charges against for-profit CHS.

“Instead of bargaining with us and keeping the promises made to our company, CHS is trying to break our union,” Teri Nicholson, a nurse at VHMC, states on the union’s Web site.

Pickets spent time marching in front of Spokane Valley Hospital and Medical Center, at Mission and Vercler. Other pickets took place downtown at Deaconess Medical Center. Both hospitals were recently purchased in 2008 by Community Health Systems (CHS), based in Nashville, Tennessee.

CHS purchased Empire Health Services – a nonprofit company that owned VHMC and Deaconess – last summer for $158 million.

While CHS officials say they will not discuss details of the negotiation or last week’s pickets, they did release a statement saying that “it is our sincere desire that SEIU would focus its attention on discussions at the bargaining table so that productive negotiations can continue.”

The collective bargaining agreement between the company and the union expired on Dec. 31, 2008, and both parties have been negotiating a new contract for the past several months.

Those picketing said they did not want to dissuade anyone from using the hospital; instead, they just wanted to “make them aware of the situation.”
It took months for Empire Health to be sold to Tennessee-based CHS, requiring the approval of the Washington Attorney General’s Office and the state Department of Health. There were conditions; however, that the new owners would set aside $80 million in capital investments to the hospital over the next five years and that the hospitals expand their level of charitable care.

But tensions arose between the union and new owners after 90 employees were laid off at Deaconess, reportedly due to the recession and fewer patients served. The union has also charged CHS hasn’t supplied information on 401K or medical/dental plans.

Valley Hospital and Deaconess have 511 acute-care beds and treat more than 225,000 patients each year. SEIU represents more than 450 nurses and technical and service workers at VHMC.