They Don’t Get No Respect?

by editor | Mar 16, 2011 | Uncategorized

To paraphrase the Gipper — SEIU? Well, there you go again.

According to the SEIU, Pocono Medical Center workers in East Stroudsburg, Pa. are out on a three day strike this week for “respect”. And just exactly how is PMC dissing on its unionized workers? To start, SEIU alleges that PMC, a non-profit organization, has disrespected its workers by recording a “$21.9 million dollar profit last year while many front line workers struggle to make ends meet.” (How a non-profit shows a profit remains a head scratcher.) SEIU also does some fancy linguistic ju-jitsu to infer that the NLRB has found “a pattern of breaking Federal labor law” based on PMC repeatedly asking union organizers to stop harassing employees in the hospital cafeteria after they filed a deauthorization petition last spring. (Thus bringing down the Wrath of Purple upon them.) But the real serious disrespecting started last fall when PMC offered wage and benefit improvements in the contract currently being negotiated with SEIU in return for an open shop. In exchange for an open shop in a new contract, PMC is further disrespecting the heck right out of its employees by offering them

free health care at Pocono Medical Center
90 % of workers’ health insurance premiums paid
$250 annual credit for those participating in a wellness program
3 % wage increase annually
$9.50-per-hour minimum pay rate, to increase to over $10 per hour
benefit pension plan fully paid by PMC
plus other “current differentials,” which are paid in addition to base pay

Ouch. Meanwhile, SEIU reminds us that the striking workers, who “provide care at the bedside, sanitize patients’ rooms, serve their food, do the blood work and secure medical records,” are essential to quality patient care and deserve our respect and support for not showing up for work and providing that care. So, just to be clear, SEIU busses in hundreds of protestors to disrupt hospital business and calls out on strike hospital workers whose work is critically essential to quality patient care because they don’t get no respect from their employer that has offered them protection from harassment on the job, higher pay, free retirement and healthcare and the freedom to pay or not pay union dues. Got that? Well, neither do 76% of the effected workers who showed up for work yesterday afternoon.

UPDATE

Yesterday afternoon, SEIU took its “respect us or else” fight to ESSA Bank because Gary Olson, the CEO of ESSA, is also the chairman of the board of Pocono Medical Center. Mr. Olson has repeatedly turned down “requests” from SEIU protestors to be screamed at by them because he has no role in PMC negotiations. Watch this video for a disturbing eyeful of just exactly what respectable behavior looks like to SEIU.