Recent and Current Matters Involving Your Union at RMHC

Local 73 took over representation of RMHC (then “Tri City” [“TC”]) in the Fall of 2008 from another SEIU local. Soon after, we were confronted with TC being bought by South Lake, a non-Union company, and becoming RMHC. The danger was that we would have no contract and that South Lake would refuse to recognize the Union. We successfully recruited a very representative bargaining committee of your colleagues and negotiated a new CBA with Southlake that preserved almost all the rights in the TC CBA, that guaranteed the jobs and wages of every former TC Union member, and that provided a 3% wage increase per year for three years, effective 7/1/09. The purchase agreement between TC and South Lake would have allowed South Lake (RMHC) to terminate any TC Union member without cause. Without your Union’s successful bargaining, any employee could have been terminated following the acquisition.

After the acquisition by South Lake, the Union members of the Emergency Department found that their carefully worked out consecutive days off were threatened by a change in the definition of a work week. Your Union went into action and promptly won a grievance because the CBA which we had successfully negotiated included the definition of a work week that existed under TC.

Your Union has appealed to arbitration the cases of three women who were terminated for being pregnant and needing leave before their first year of employment had ended, and in one case for having undergone breast cancer treatment and needing a leave. All three women were absolutely exemplary employees. Above and beyond the call, your Union saw to it that all three obtained representation in EEOC claims which the EEOC is supporting. We need our Union!

Your Union’s legal actions, and the initiative of a principled member, persuaded your employer to abandon a “working committee” on the incentives that they suspended. Your employer wanted to decide who would represent Union employees. We are now forming a real Union working committee so as to arrive at a proposal on incentives and demand bargaining on it.

Your Union is in the process of taking to arbitration a grievance involving unfair and inequitable treatment of employees disciplined over billing quotas. We are committed to much more than that. We must all understand the need to assure survival of the agency, our jobs, and needs of our clients. We will work with the members and with management to come up with realistic problem solving in relation to the stress and overwork created by billing pressures.