By Lisa Rapaport, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Nov. 1--With a contract set to expire at midnight Saturday, Sutter Roseville Medical Center remains at odds with the union representing its service and technical workers over wages and health benefits.
The Service Employees International Union Local 250 represents roughly 450 employees at Sutter Roseville who hold positions ranging from food service jobs to X-ray lab technicians.
Sutter and union officials were at the table Thursday for their fifth day of talks since bargaining started Oct. 18. Four more sessions are scheduled through Nov. 13, and both sides are expected to abide by the current contract while talks continue. Union members in a vote last week authorized SEIU to serve Sutter with a strike notice if talks fail.
To a large extent, the talks at Sutter turn on wage and benefit gains the union has already achieved at area hospitals owned by Kaiser Permanente and Mercy Healthcare Sacramento.
'The industry standard for wages and benefits in Sacramento has changed, and Sutter is not keeping up with the times,' said John Borsos, SEIU hospital division director.
Union gains at other hospitals stem from contracts negotiated after the 3-year-old Sutter pact took effect in 1999. Sutter Roseville wages lag behind local Kaiser and Mercy hospitals, but Kaiser's pact is only 2 years old and wages at recently organized Mercy facilities do not take effect until May 1, 2003.
Licensed vocational nurses, for example, earn starting wages of $15.17 an hour at Sutter Roseville, more than $2 per hour less than they would make at Kaiser or Mercy hospitals, which pay $17.78 and $17.52, respectively.
'We do look at the local market,' said Barbara Nelson, chief nursing executive for Sutter Roseville. 'It certainly influences the package we put on the table, but it can't be the sole driver.'
Sutter has proposed several perks designed to recruit and retain staff, including tuition reimbursement and night shift bonus pay, that have yet to be accepted by the union, Nelson said.
Still, union leaders said Sutter's best offer to date fell short on bigger ticket items like staffing levels and health-care benefits.
Kaiser and Mercy give workers input in staffing and patient care, with binding abitration to resolve labor disputes, said the SEIU. While Sutter does have committees for staff and management to discuss these issues, that contract spells out no process for resolving disagreements.
Moreover, hospitals near Sutter Roseville, including Kaiser Roseville Medical Center and Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael, offer employer-paid health benefits for workers, their spouses, and dependents. Sutter pays 100 percent of premiums for employees' health, dental and vision coverage and 90 percent of premiums for workers' family members.
For Cheryl Stizzo, a unit secretary in the emergency department, fully paid family health coverage is a crucial item. Stizzo, a single mother of two, makes $13.99 an hour, an income level that qualifies her for government subsidized housing and free school lunches for her daughters.
Both girls need braces this year, and Stizzo wants Sutter to pick up more of the cost.
'I like working here,' Stizzo said, 'but it's a question of whether there is another hospital that will pay better and have better benefits that make it easier for me to raise my girls.'
Sutter gave workers an across-the-board 3 percent wage hike in July, responding to changes in the local health-care market and cost-of-living increases in Roseville.
The hospital singled out nuclear medicine technicians for a 26 percent raise, reflecting a shortage of workers with the skills to do that job, a move that didn't sit well with workers in other diagnostic imaging labs, said Bruce Allen, a radiologic technician.
'We have a hard time recruiting and retaining employees,' Allen said. 'Sutter is one of the best hospitals in town, and they should pay everybody the best.'
Sutter Roseville, like every other area hospital, has had a hard time recruiting skilled workers as demand for health-care services has increased. Still, the hospital's retention rate is consistently about 86 percent for service and technical workers, said Sutter's Nelson.
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(c) 2002, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
