News
Let’s Make CCH a Provider and Employer of Choice
We held negotiations on Thursday for CCH technicians and technologists. On Friday, there were negotiations for CCH service and maintenance workers.
Our proposals and goals are to make Cook County Health both an employer of choice (where healthcare workers want to come to work) and a provider of choice (where patients get quality care and service whether in clinics, hospitals, in the community, or at Cermak).
An ‘Employer of Choice’:
- Provides competitive wages, equal pay for equal work, and rewards longevity;
- Ensures healthcare workers have a balance between work and home lives, and are not treated as ‘rent to own’. This includes fair vacation and holiday scheduling and work schedules that allow workers to be with their families;
- Invests in our continuing education and skills training;
- Respects seniority in transfers, promotions, layoffs, and scheduling; and
- Protects our health, jobs, income, and families in the face of infectious disease like COVID-19.
A ‘Provider of Choice’:
- Ensures appropriate staffing to provide quality patient care and service;
- Offers services meeting the needs of the communities it serves; and
- Does not use an outside agency, mandatory overtime, or floating as routine staffing tools.
While we made some progress at the Service and Maintenance negotiations, the County came to the Technicians and Technologists negotiations ill-prepared with no proposals and no answers to our proposals.
The County, so far, is still more interested in protecting the status quo and management’s right to do what they want, when they want. Change, especially when it demands that a hospital and health system is called on to become an employer and provider of choice, will not be easy or come all at once. The County’s willingness to make the needed changes will equal our willingness to demand changes we and our patients need.
Future negotiating dates are:
- Jan 29 Clerk’s Office
- Feb 1 Offices Under the President
- Feb 3 Sheriff’s Office
- Feb 9 CCH Professionals
- Feb 16 Sheriff’s Office
- Feb 17 CCH Technicians
- Feb 18 CCH Service and Maintenance
- Feb 24 Offices Under the President
You can view the latest information on Cook County Bargaining on our website.