This week, your elected bargaining team met for our 20th and 21st bargaining session with the Employer. On Tuesday, the Employer offered no counter proposals to your team. However, PECSH-MNA presented counter non-economic proposals to the Employer, as well as a counter economic proposal that focused on making health insurance more affordable and insisting on wage increases over the life of the agreement that would be more consistent with the cost-of-living adjustments. After the last twenty months and all that our members have been through, it’s important that our members have the ability to pay our bills and take care of ourselves and our families. We remain in the middle of a pandemic and our health is a priority so that we can continue to care for our community. On Thursday, the Employer offered non-economic proposals that continue to focus on increasing discipline for being ill and leaving us little option but to work sick. They still refuse to contractually guarantee that caregivers will be provided with an N-95 respirator or equivalent when we're looking after a COVID-19 positive patient.
Here’s a recap of how negotiations stand:
· Sparrow wants to dramatically increase our healthcare,
· Sparrow refuses to give us raises that keep up with the cost of living, effectively asking us to take a pay cut,
· Sparrow wants to have an attendance policy that basically tries to force us to work sick,
· Sparrow wants to have unilateral control over open and closed units eliminating our democratic say on our units,
· Sparrow wants to increase the required number of hours per diems work.
While we continue the back-and-forth with the Employer, we must prepare to take the next step if needed. Earlier this week we announced our intention to hold a Strike Authorization Vote next week. It’s time we stand up and speak out for the safety of ourselves and our patients. All members will be emailed a ballot at 12:01 AM on 11/16.
We know you have questions. We have actual, FACTUAL answers. Click here to go to our FAQ.
Please join us for one of the Informational sessions as well to dive deeper into those questions and your concerns. RSVP by clicking here!
P.S. We are aware that today that the Employer’s update says that MNA has not negotiated any agreements with similar requests to those we are asking for here. That was untrue. We have not cited or relied on any such agreements to Sparrow, but in recent weeks at least two MNA local unions elsewhere in the state have negotiated higher first year raises than what Sparrow executives have offered and multiple MNA facilities have received retention bonuses over the last year.