By Linda Taaffe

Hospital workers last week ended a 12-week succession of protests waged against El Camino Hospital after striking a deal with management that will provide employees higher wage increases and improved health coverage in a new two-year contract.

The contract contains substantial gains in several important areas, including wages, health insurance and job security, said Andrew Hagelshaw, a spokesman for Service Employee International Union, Local 715, which represents more than 1,000 hospital employees. An “overwhelming number” of workers approved the contract during a late-night vote July 16, he said.

The final agreement was similar to the hospital’s offer that workers voted down June 20, said hospital spokeswoman Judy Twitchell. The agreement provides an additional 0.5 percent pay increase to the hospital’s original and gives employees the opportunity to vote whether they would like to change their union membership policies.

Twitchell said health-care benefits remained unchanged. Hospital officials vowed to provide 100 percent health coverage for employees, if possible, over the tough economic times, but did not include the stipulation in the formal contract, she said. The hospital will pay at least 95 percent of its employees health benefits, according to the agreement.

Tensions between workers and management had mushroomed over the past month as both groups struggled to reach consensus on a new contract. The hospital’s contract with workers expired June 21.

Health-care benefits were at the center of the dispute. Management’s initial offers would have increased employee health-care benefit costs - an offer some employees called a “cut back.”

Officials from the non-profit hospital district said they were committed to negotiating a fair contract but had a responsibility to the community to be a careful steward of the community’s “limited health-care resources,” especially during the tough economic climate.

Workers staged two public rallies and filed two separate unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board when negotiations allegedly stalled.

“I feel good about the agreement, especially that we protected our health benefits,” said Kary Lynch, a behavioral health worker at the hospital. “The support we got from the community really made the difference.”

Under the new contract, workers will receive a 9 percent raise over the next two years; the promise of full medical benefits for the first two years with at least 95 percent coverage in 2005; improvements in retiree medical benefits, improved job security language; an increase in the dental plan cap; and the right to involve a federal mediator in staffing-related disputes.