Barbara said...
Looking forward, we are finally at the bargaining table. We will get a contract!!!! The kind of contract we end up with is totally dependent upon the people we represent backing us up. Participate, ask questions, keep informed, help your fellow workers to overcome their fear. Don't be afraid to discuss union matters in front of others. Visibility is our friend. I am not ashamed to be a Union Steward or a union member. As you speak freely, you educate others and they find their voice too. Come to the bargaining meetings. It is your business to know what is happening in your behalf. Management wants the union to be invisible and ineffective. I am determined to fight for meaningful change in this contract, not just wages but rights for employees and for means to provide better patient care. My name is Barbara Garcia and I don't need my comments to be anonymous. Hope to see you at the next bargaining date, March 18th at the Courtyard at the Marriot.
6 comments:
Barbara, I've noticed also that management wants the union to be invisible and ineffective. Though we must keep trying, it's hard to get any meaningful change when management just DOESN'T WANT any change.
Just as in Dan Neumeister's time, management sees us as a virus. If they could get away with it, they would continue to ignore us as they did for four years. The more I learn about their bargaining techniques, the more obvious it becomes that they never really wanted to change. They are STALLING AGAIN. Every day without a contract is a day they don't have to spend any more money on their workers. Every day without a contract is a day they don't have to pay us the prevailing wages found at other, similar northern California hospitals.
Your call for us to overcome our fear is the right call. Let us take courage knowing that WE are hundreds strong, that WE are Enloe, that WE are Chico, that WE are doing the right thing for our families and our community.
Barb; you are right to be proud of what we are going to accomplish with our first contract. But as you say we can't to it by ourselves. 15 or so people at a table can't accomplish what need to be done without the support you we represent. Our coworkers need get public and let administration and Deborah Yancer know that we are serious about getting to Industry Standards that our management wants to stop our Union members from attaining. Why is this their goal? Power and fear tactics. When they can control us and make us and make our coworkers feel hopeless they can hang on to their misplaced control over every aspect of what's wrong at our medical center. If we don't prevail we will have no way to stop outsourcing, lay offs, job security, or safe staffing issues. The last four year should be a reminder that our admin and board will stop at nothing to stop us as union members from having a voice in what affect us and our coworkers at the only hospital in town. Enloe need to regain the respect of patients, community and staff. We need to work together for the better and can do this only if we get the respect we as union members deserve. We are strong together and that scares Our leaders and their board. They don't see that all we want is to be treated fairly and taken seriously and to help make Enloe the jewel it once was.
Hay did many of you out there see the piece on Enloe Home Care and the hospitals doing with Blue Cross Blue Shield and their failure to meet a settlement on reimbursement for just costs per Enloe Director of homecare. Blue Cross Blue Shield said that the hospitals are too high; that they are more than any others in Butte County. Look like Enloe won't accept Blue Shield or Cross for any type of home care and that means from newborn to 100. Guess who else has Blue Cross and Shield! That right us; Enloe's staff. What does that mean? Will out employer accept it's workers insurance? Good thing we are at the bargaining table. We can tell them that we not only want full coverage for us and our families but that we want an insurance that our employer accepts. We don't want to go to our doctors and be turn away because our has broken all ties with our insurer because of high charges that our insurer won't meet. What good is it if we can't use the insurance. Who chose to do this? What administrator go us into this mess. I may be over reacting but look what's happen before. Outsourcing, layoffs, harassment for union activity, low staffing, low morale for doctors,nurses and staff and low public image. Now we have a new hospital going up and who will fill the halls our administration keeps up it's tactics that turn staff, doctors and patients away because of poor treatment of all of the above. It's time to say we're mad as hell and we are not going to take it any more. If our leaders can't get it right then it may be time for new leaders. Hope Deborah Yancer and Tom Wilgermoth have their finger on the pulse of this hospital because it's pretty low and may go under. Some say that they are looking to sell, but our leaders say, not so. But if we want to make this hospital the shining gem it once was with respect of patients, community and staff we have got to treat everyone with respect and that staff too who are there for others. Enloe needs to be there for us. We also need to be there each other by standing up for one another. One way we can do that now is to sign the petition supporting the standards we deserve for work done just other north state hospitals have; no more, no less
Are not Blue Shield and Blue Cross two separate insurance entities? I saw the article in the latest 3/8/08 Chico News & Review, and noticed that only Blue Shield was mentioned, not Blue Cross. What do you know about this?
OOPs1 Guess you are right. My mistake. Got carried away.
cArol linsh** is on a power trip board members saying
We are A commodity not planetree enloe will always
Have a bad reputatio n until administration attitudes
Change
Post a Comment