Says new contract should foster a respectful, rewarding, flexible, patient-centric and sustainable environment
October 1, 2024
Dear Women & Infants Community,
Tomorrow, we begin negotiations for new contracts with 1199SEIU. As the teams get ready to meet, I wanted to share with you how the WIH negotiating team and I are thinking about these important conversations.
First and foremost, our guiding force is to develop a contract that allows WIH team members and the organization overall to be their very best. We are an essential health service in Rhode Island. There is no other organization that does exactly what we do, so we must always rise to the occasion and lead the way for women’s health. Doing so demands an environment that is respectful, rewarding, flexible, patient- centric and sustainable. It calls for us to be a best place to work so we can retain and recruit the best of the best.
These are the elements we will be striving for with every proposal that we put across the table. It is our hope that 1199SEIU shares these goals and we can have very productive conversations and strive for a contract that benefits you, the hospital, our patients and the communities we serve.
Additionally, we will provide you with frequent and factual information about the negotiations. We will launch a simple, easily accessible website for this purpose soon at WIHfacts.org. We will be adding information about negotiation progress to this website that you can access from anywhere and on any device without having to log into your WIH system. We are also creating an “Ask Us” function so you can send in any questions you have about proposals, process or other negotiation related topics. And as always, your managers are excellent resources.
My promise to all of you is that we enter these conversations with a commitment to do our very best, to get creative and curious to find solutions and to negotiate with respect and urgency so that this is not a distraction to you but rather a thoughtful process that makes the organization better, both for our workforce and the families that we care for.
Please reach out with your questions.
Respectfully,
Shannon