You Ask, We Answer
Our first contract negotiation session was held on Wednesday, October 1. We will meet on Wednesdays throughout October and November to reach agreement on a new contract.
The current contracts for all employees who are part of 1199SEIU end on November 30, 2024.
Yes. WIH very much wants to have collaborative and productive conversations for a new contract that supports a rewarding, safe and stimulating environment for all team members. WIH has laid out several principles that it will follow during these negotiations, including Open Communications, Meaningful Engagement & Negotiations, Patient & Team Member Centricity, Conflict Resolution, Continuous Learning & Development, Fairness & Respect, Regulatory Compliance and Best Practice. Our goal is to reach a fair and equitable contract that works for all employees, our patients, the organization and the communities we serve.
All Questions
Benefits
How is an employee supposed to have a healthy work/life balance while working a rotating shift?
Through its recruitment efforts, the hospital has continued to receive feedback about the desire for rotating shifts, and posting shifts of this type will help the hospital maximize scheduling flexibility while effectively meeting the needs of our patients. Not all departments will have an operational need to post rotating shifts, and as with any vacant position, individuals are not required to apply for postings that have schedules that do not meet their lifestyle needs. These are meant to supplement not replace standard schedules
Stopping benefits after 26 wks of LoA? How does that support the employee who likely is carrying benefits for his/her/their whole family….
Our proposal maintains current contractual language, which states that the hospital shall maintain health, dental, and fund benefits for up to twenty six (26) weeks of absence from the job due to physical or mental disability in a year, including workers compensation cases.
Are you going to provide retention incentives for your staff to ensure you have solid staffing at all times?
We have worked with the union over the years to try and implement retention bonuses in certain key areas. We are open to negotiating what retention bonuses in key areas may look like.
How can the hospital propose that TCI be used concurrently with paternal leave when the state law is that TCI be used within the first year of the child’s life?
The hospital’s propsal is not related to parental leave and the use TCI. It is related to using TCI and FMLA concurrently, which is consistent with RI state law.
How would requiring a new parent to exhaust all sick/vacation on leave be supportive of work/life balance? What do we do when infant is sick or childcare emergency?
The hospital is willing to negotiate on this issue and is currently awaiting the union’s counter to our related proposal. Our current proposal allows employees to maintain 2 week of time off after leave.
"Personal time be rolled into sick time for ease of administration." Does this mean that the personal time would be additional sick time hours or would we be losing time?
The hospital’s proposal related to personal time does not represent a reduction in benefits, and based on this change, union members will maintain the same amount of sick time as they currently have as part of their benefits package.
Why are you proposing to cut maternity leave?
The hospital has amended its parental leave proposal and is no longer proposing a reduction in parental leave.
When will you address the union pension proposal?
Proposals of this nature take time to review and respond to. The pension is part of an overall economic package. Pension, benefits and compensation will be reviewed as a whole. The hospital is reviewing all economic/total rewards proposals, and we anticipate that we will have a proposal and response to present on Wednesday, November 20.
Does the new health plan penalize staff for not utilizing Care New England providers? Can Care New England offer all the services and volume that we would need?
The proposed changes to the healthcare plans are intended to give employees more choice and more opportunity to control their healthcare spending with lower copays and lower deductibles while also providing a discount for using CNE services. Care New England is able to provide deep discounts to employees when they close to receive care within the CNE system as a benefit of working for Care New England. Tier 2 represents the national BlueCross BlueShield network. The Tier 2 level of benefits we are proposing for employees is much more generous than other plan offerings in the healthcare market, meaning WIH employees pay less for healthcare benefits and will have lower out of pocket costs than the average healthcare employee (even at Tier 2). We are happy to offer generous health plans with predictable out of pocket costs while still offering choice to our employees in the form of 3 medical plan offerings. The option to seek care outside of CNE and access the Tier 2/BCBSRI network does not change, we have just added a discount for utilizing Care New England for your healthcare needs when and where you choose to. Care New England does not offer all services and can only provide the deep discount for services that we do offer. All other services are available through the Tier 2 BCBS national network. If you have additional benefit questions, email [email protected].
The health plan lowers cost to $0 when getting care at CNE. What if CNE doesn't have a service or someone wants to get care at a different place?
Care New England Medical Group consists of nearly 700 physicians and advanced practice clinicians practicing in more than 30 locations across the region. Our specialties include primary care, cardiology, pulmonology, a full spectrum of surgical specialties (orthopedic surgery, bariatric (weight loss) surgery, plastic surgery, general surgery, vascular surgery, colorectal surgery and thoracic surgery), a full spectrum of general and specialty Obstetrics and Gynecology, behavioral health outpatient and partial hospital programs, hematology/oncology, and many other specialties like endocrinology, rheumatology and neurology. Specific to our cardiac program, we are pleased to receive dozens of referrals placed to Care New England’s cardiology program on a daily basis. This program is affiliated with Brigham and Women’s and is a premier, full-service cardiology program offering the latest advances in medical and procedural care.
Hiring, Transfers and Promotions
Why does the hospital want to only give employees three days to try out a new position when the hospital gets thirty days to try out the employee? How is that fair?
When an employee transfers into a new position, they have self-selected to move into a new role that they believe will be better suited for them. Extending the transition time also extends the amount of time to backfill a position, which can potentially extend vacancies and have a negative impact on patient care. Delaying the backfill creates staffing issues and we know employees care deeply about having enough staff. We are making suggestions to improve staffing with this proposal. By providing managers with a 30-day evaluation period, we believe it gives both manager and employee a fair assessment period by which to determine if the employee will be successful in their new role.
How long must you wait from being disciplined to be able to transfer to another position? What if a transfer would solve whatever problem the person is being disciplined for?
The hospital is willing to negotiate on this issue and is currently awaiting the union’s counter to our related proposal.
How is an employee who is on vacation for a week (7 days) supposed to find out about new internal postings and apply for them if you're proposing them to be posted for only 5 days?
All vacant jobs are posted online and are available to be viewed by both internal and external candidates immediately upon posting. Whether or not an employee is on vacation, they will have access to search and apply for available positions of interest.
What is the rationale for increasing the new hire probationary period to 90 days? How does that benefit a new hire and encourage them to come work for our hospital?
The goal of the hospital’s proposal is to create consistency in the length of time of probationary periods, which currently varies between the contractual units. By providing a 90-day probationary period for all, both manager and employee receive an increased amount of time to orient to the role, to assess whether their position is the right fit for them, and to ensure the employee has the necessary competencies to be successful in their new role.
How will you retain employees when you want to fill positions by favoritism and not seniority?
Our goal is to have the right person in the right position to provide the best patient care and allow positions to be filled as easily as possible, while also providing opportunities for all members of our workforce.
Labor-Management and Employee Relations
Why aren't the delegates being paid to negotiate? Why should they have to sacrifice their time while the hospital's bargaining committee gets paid?
The WIH negotiation team is bargaining on behalf of the hospital, and the members of the team are paid for this work as part of their regular duties. Hospital negotiators are excempt employees so they do not get hourly wages or overtime; they must still complete their regular assignments in addition to their time at the table. Union delegates bargaining on behalf of the union.. WIH is not contractually required to pay delegates acting in this capacity. Acting as a union delegate is a voluntary choice made by an employee and is not part of the required duties of the WIH role in which they were hired for.
What is the definition of "active discipline"?
Active discipline is any discipline in an employee file that can still be used for the basis of further corrective action. Based on contractual language, some disciplinary actions will be active in perpituity, while others may expire after a year based on the level and type of discipline issued.
Considering the nationwide events of unions winning big, do you really think it’s productive and efficient to come to the table with proposals slashing what we already have?
We have put proposals on the table that aim to improve staffing, make it easier for managers and employees to do their jobs, modernize practices to evolve with the changing industry and ensure financial stability. No proposal on the table is a final proposal. We would like to have discussion and find ways to improve the proposals and reach these goals. We have not yet had any counterproposals from the union.
How can state you want meaningful negotiations when you present things that aren’t even legal? Ie parental leave less than legal, no union meetings on site?
All of the hospital’s proposals are compliant with state and federal law, and have been throughly reviewed by a legal team.
Why is the hospital lawyer the only one talking? Wouldn't it be more productive to have our CNE Management leadership who are in charge communicating with union delegates?
WIH’s negotiating team which includes many WIH leaders works together to draft proposals and to listen to feedback at the table to improve proposals. Having one spokesperson present the proposals provides consistency, efficiency, and ensures an orderly presentation. The union has one main representative present their proposals and that person is not a WIH staff member.
Who is on the Union negotiation team?
For a listing of members of 1199 SEIU’s negotiating team, we encourage you to reach out to your union leadership or delegate for the most up-to-date information.
When does the current contract expire?
The current contracts for all employees who are part of 1199SEIU end on November 30, 2024.
Miscellaneous
What is your plan to improve staff retention?
A number of the hospital’s proposals are aimed at improving staff retention. These include, but aren’t limited to, qualification based hiring, ensuring availability of preceptors, and an updated health insurance proposal. Proposal detail is available on this website.
If you truly care about making sure our questions are answered, why are you cherry picking our questions and not answering all of them?
This site is dedicated to questions related to union negotiations. This ensures contract answers are easy to find. If a question contains inappropriate language or is just a comment, we are not posting those. We get some questions that ask the same thing so we combine those and answer that question. Please note it may take longer to answer some questions than others so an answer to a previous question still may be forthcoming.
When can we expect answers to the questions submitted?
We’re posting answers as quickly as possible. Thank you for submitting a question. We apologize for the delay; however, it is very important to us that we are providing the most accurate responses, and so therefore there may be some lag time between when questions are being asked and when they are answered/appear on the website.
Who will be required to have drug testing in the hospital?
The Hospital has not proposed implementing drug testing and does not have any plan to do so. The Hospital has proposed an update to the existing Management Rights language that provides more specificity around the Hospital’s ability to manage the Hospital.
Negotiations
Are there weekly updates? The last update I see is from October 16
We are posting all the proposals and counter proposals that go across the table each week as well as additional support information. For example on November 6 the hospital made a proposal about health benefits. A special page was added to the site to provide information about this proposal and the benefits to employees. We will provide some type of update every week to summarize the most recent activities.
Why are Some delegates in Negotiations given the option to attend these meetings with no pay and not having to use PTO while others aren’t given the same option and have to use PTO
Vacation is different than unpaid release time. Employees are entitled to vacation per the CBAs. They are not entitled to unpaid release time under the CBAs. So the hospital has to honor vacation requests within contractual parameters, even if they don’t have the resources to ensure coverage. That isn’t the case with unpaid release time. The best way for employees to guarantee release time remains finding a switch (at straight time) that does not create additional holes or by using PTO.
When are negotiations happening?
Our first contract negotiation session was held on Wednesday, October 1. We will meet on Wednesdays throughout October and November to reach agreement on a new contract.
Is WIH interested in having productive conversations at the bargaining table?
Yes. WIH very much wants to have collaborative and productive conversations for a new contract that supports a rewarding, safe and stimulating environment for all team members. WIH has laid out several principles that it will follow during these negotiations, including Open Communications, Meaningful Engagement & Negotiations, Patient & Team Member Centricity, Conflict Resolution, Continuous Learning & Development, Fairness & Respect, Regulatory Compliance and Best Practice. Our goal is to reach a fair and equitable contract that works for all employees, our patients, the organization and the communities we serve.
In an email Shannon states she wishes the Union dedicate time to a fair contract. How can time be dedicated if the Hospital will not release the Union negotiating comittee?
The hospital is releasing delegates in a manner that ensures sufficient staff necessary to meet patient needs. The hospital has instructed managers to post needs, permit employees to swap shifts without incurring overtime and take PTO in accordance with the CBA.
When are you going to provide the necessary financial information to the union they have asked for?
The Hospital is committed to providing the Union with all of the information it is entitled to under applicable law.
Schedules and Work Assignments
Shift differential/charge pay has been the same since the early 90s. Do you think this is reasonable? Do you think the $3/hr is equitable today?
This is in line with our market. RIH currently pays $3.00 for charge pay.
Just because an employee has the option to use TCI and FMLA concurrently does not mean that by law they are required to. Why require it concurrently?
The Hospital currently offers more leave time than required by law. The Hospital’s proposal does not change that.
Total Compensation
What is the rationale for deleting the preceptor differential pay? Why aren't you willing to pay a preceptor for having to do more work on their shift by precepting?
The hospital recognizes the additional work that is assumed by a preceptor when they take on this type of educational assignment; we feel the current differential is in line with the market and reflects the additional work.
Will you offer fair livable wages for your staff, that is competitive with similar specialty hospitals ?
We have not yet discussed wages at the negotiation table but we will. It is important for us to have competitive wages to retain and recruit the best professionals. We are committed to being competitive in the market with wages.
Could you please provide us with more detailed information for your health insurance proposals. Copays, specialist visits, ED visits, urgent care visits, medication tiers, etc?
Specifics about the plan are available at WIHFacts.org/healthsavings You can reach out to HR with additional questions.