By Elizabeth Cloutman
Contract negotiations between El Camino Hospital District and Service Employees International Union Local 715 appear to be at an impasse.
The dispute over whether service employees should be required to pay for union dues involves not only union representatives and management, but also hospital employees.
SEIU insists on the hospital’s becoming an agency shop, in which all service employees would have to pay about 1 percent of their salaries for union dues, even if they are not members. Service employees are non-nursing staff and include dialysis technicians, laboratory scientists, dietitians, maintenance and nutrition services workers.
Hospital management, on the other hand, wants service employees to have the option of voting for an open shop, where union dues would be voluntary. Management representatives say that in the September 2000 vote on joining SEIU, service employees voted only to accept union representation. Management contends an agency shop is an issue that needs to be decided separately.
The hospital’s 855 service employees appear to be split on their opinion on agency shop. The rift was evident at the April 11 meeting of the El Camino Hospital District Board of Directors, which was attended by about 150 service employees. The public communication period of the meeting stretched into a 90-minute session as employees and others form both sides addressed the board.
Employees who are SEIU members said hospital management is being anti-union by its insistence upon holding a second election to decide the issue of an agency shop. Furthermore, said Jim Maher, radiation technologist and union negotiator, by taking a stance supporting a second election, management has broken its promise, made by former El Camino CEO Richard Warren last September, to remain neutral.
Support employees who are not union members said they had gathered 400 signatures on a petition supporting an election on an agency shop. “I’ve had no one from management or the administration approach me on open shop, We did this on our own,” said Emily Padrera, a respiratory therapist.
After a closed session, the board of directors encouraged management to resolve the issue since employees who spoke at the meeting appeared to be evenly divided.
According to Judy Twitchell, El Camino communications manager, the hospital made two proposals to resolve the agency shop issue in the week prior to the board meeting. The first proposal stated that the hospital would agree to the results of an employee vote on an agency shop. In its second proposal, the hospital proposed to bring a federal into negotiations to resolve the issue. SEIU rejected both offers.
SEIU and management negotiators were scheduled to meet again Tuesday, after the Town Crier had gone to press.
