After several months of local union representatives campaigning
to garner support of 300 service employees at Hazel Hawkins
Hospital, hospital officials said if a union formed it could have
an effect on the financial stability of the community-supported
hospital.
After several months of local union representatives campaigning to garner support of 300 service employees at Hazel Hawkins Hospital, hospital officials said if a union formed it could have an effect on the financial stability of the community-supported hospital.
Gordon Machado, the treasurer of the hospital’s board of directors, said raises due to a union contract wouldn’t necessarily mean Hazel Hawkins would have to lay people off or close its doors, but it likely would have to do a lot of readjusting.
“Dollars would be a factor, no question,” Machado said. “At the end of the year, what we make as a profit, we turn right back into the hospital to do upgrading for instruments, surgery… That could be one area we’d have to cut back in if there’s less profit.”
That could mean the hospital, which is a nonprofit and supported by community funds, possibly wouldn’t be able to hire more people and could lose some of its competitive viability, Machado said.
“There definitely would be changes in wages, but that’s not the biggest impact (of a union),” he said. “The biggest impact is that we’d lose the individuality – we would have to deal with union reps instead of on an individual employee basis.”
But Sergio Sanchez, the organizing director with the Service Employment International Union, said it is premature to speculate on the union’s impact on the hospital financially because a union hasn’t been voted on yet.
Placing an organization in financial peril is not the objective of unionizing, because it serves no purpose to bankrupt the hospital or have employees being laid off, Sanchez said.
“We would look at what’s responsible and affordable for the hospital… what kind of financial capabilities do they have to provide for their workers,” he said. “We always see in the history of organized labor in this county that employers complain that they don’t have the money, (saying) ‘we are a family, we don’t want someone coming into our family, we will go bankrupt if a union comes in.’ We would never put an organization in jeopardy.”
Both registered nurses and licensed vocational nurses have union representation at Hazel Hawkins and it has not affected the hospital’s financial security, Sanchez said.
“It stabilizes the workforce, turnover is less, situations of job injuries and issues of favoritism – they kind of go away,” he said. “I think it affects it, but it affects it in a positive way.”
Anna Martinez, a student nurse in the radiology department, said a lack of representation, favoritism and grievances falling on deaf ears has led many employees into the union’s outstretched arms.
After a falling-out with a supervisor about a year ago, Martinez, who is about to receive her certification as a licensed vocational nurse, said she cannot get a job as a nurse at Hazel Hawkins because she “burned her bridges.”
“Because I upset one person by questioning her they won’t hire me,” Martinez said. “I have a 5-year-old daughter, I’m a single parent – I’m a 40-year-old person who decided late in life that I needed education to better myself and I did. I’ve worked so hard to get to this point and now I can’t get a job here.”
Martinez believes the possibility of employees unionizing could be slim because many people are afraid if they show union support they could lose their jobs, she said.
“Management has put a bug in their ear, and it’s hard to get a job if you don’t have education,” Martinez said. “Most people don’t have degrees – they’re housekeepers, cooks – they want to keep what they have so they just shut up and keep on going. I would say the vibe is it won’t go through, but we’re gonna try.”
Jesse Cordova, who has been a cook in the dietary department for the past 10 years, does not believe favoritism exists in his department and has never had a problem with uncooperative supervisors, he said.
“Why pay someone to protect me when my employer protects me, and I don’t have to pay him nothing – he pays me,” Cordova said. “I’m not saying we don’t have problems, of course we have problems. It’s how they are solved that counts.”
Cordova said he has never been afraid of losing his job and feels the people decrying the hospital’s management are people recently hired and are making less money because of seniority issues, he said.
“Most employees I’ve talked to in our department, they don’t really care for a union. I’ve heard some employees in other departments don’t feel the need for a union, also,” Cordova said. “They feel the same as me – we’re perfectly happy with our jobs, we’re perfectly happy with our wages and we’re perfectly happy with the treatment received from the supervisors and management.”
SEIU has been working on and off with employees at Hazel Hawkins for the past three years to implement a union for all employees that don’t include nurses, doctors, supervisors and administrative staff, Sanchez said.
Only within the past three months has the union been aggressively campaigning at the hospital because of some employees’ discontent, Sanchez said.
There are about 15 separate departments comprising the 300 employees, and to implement the union, 50 percent plus one vote would be needed in each department, he said.
That means if a vote happens, some departments could have union representation and others wouldn’t, he said.
SEIU organizers still have to meet with CEO Ken Underwood, and an exact date for a possible election has not been set, Sanchez said.
“We have signed up many workers in different departments with the intent to file to have an election,” he said. “Employees in all departments have signed cards; in some departments there’s a larger amount of people wanting it than in others… but if there was not enough support I wouldn’t even file. The union is for those who want the union.”
