Leaflet by California Nurses Association on Effort by SEIU and California Hospital Association to Roll Back Safe-Staffing Ratios June 2012

AN OPEN LETTER TO SEIU/UHW MEMBERSNurses, Hospital Workers, and Patients WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON? OR Hospital Bosses and their Agent, Dave Regan Dave Regan’s Secret Deal to Cut Your Health Benefits, Pensions, and Your Job. All, so the Hospitals Can Make Even More Money – On Top of $4 Billion in Profits Last Year Alone. In May Regan signed a secret partnership deal with the California Hospital Association (CHA), your bosses’ lobbying firm The partnership’s goal—to help hospital corporations “lower costs,” and “promote efficiency.” How? By eliminating pensions and cutting pay, benefits and jobs for SEIU/UHW members, and making you work harder and longer for less By eliminating nurse staffing ratios that save thousands of patient lives, including lives of SEIU/UHW members and your families when you are ill and need hospital care By lobbying in Sacramento to protect hospital profits WHO IS THE CALIFORNIA HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION? Every year CHA fights in Sacramento to: Lower the wages of workers Do away with unions Do away with break and meal periods Do away with laws limiting forced overtime A PARTNERSHIP THAT PUTS A KNIFE IN YOUR BACK Regan says he is fighting to “save” the hospitals from $200 million in budget cuts. But where do you think your bosses will put that money? Will that stop layoffs? Will they stop attacking your health benefits and pensions? Or will they just put the money back in their own pockets? California hospitals made $4 billion in profits in 2010. How much more do they need? Instead of helping the hospitals make more profits, Regan should have joined with nurses to fight hospital attacks on all workers. THE NURSES WILL ALWAYS SUPPORT OTHER HOSPITAL WORKERS — BUT WE WILL NEVER SUPPORT DAVE REGAN. A Voice for Nurses. A Vision for Healthcare. www.calnurses.org 062112 WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2012 Union leaders in flap over nurse-to-patient ratios by Kathy Robertson, Senior Staff Writer The president of a large health care union local made an unprecedented move last week to get support for legislation to temporarily relax nurse-to-patient ratios at California hospitals during meal and rest times. Dave Regan, top exec at Service Employees International Union—United Healthcare Workers West, asked the board of the California Labor Federation in a call Thursday to “go neutral” on a bill if one was proposed. The Labor Fed turned him down 60-2. The two “yes” votes were SEIU members. The flap is over, but rival union leaders at the California Nurses Association are hopping mad over efforts to tinker with a staffing law signed in 1999 after 10 years of intense lobbying by nurses. “I’ve never heard of a labor organization so blatantly campaigning for takeaways from another union,” said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee. There will be no bill this year to relax the ratios because the California Hospital Association had an agreement with legislative leaders who might have carried the legislation that the Labor Fed had to go neutral on the notion first, said Duane Dauner, president and CEO at CHA. “That vote did not occur,” Dauner said. “As a result, we didn’t try to move it.” The idea was a temporary budget fix re- SEIU and CHA are trying to work together on public policy matters that affect both partners, said Dauner. “We felt this was one time — because it involved labor — it was appropriate for SEIU to present the idea to the California Labor Federation,” —Duane Dauner, president and CEO, California Hospital Association lated to Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposal to slash funding to California hospitals by more than $400 million to help close a multibilliondollar state budget deficit. The cut includes rake-off of $150 million in money hospitals would have generated by taxing themselves to pull down more matching funds from the feds. The proposal goes against a fee agreement between hospitals and the state that is expected to generate $5.2 billion in higher Medi-Cal payments to hospitals and save the state general fund $875 million by the end of 2013. CHA and SEIU supported a temporary suspension of the ratios during meal and rest breaks for 18 months, with full ratios going back in place automatically when the latest round of cuts are restored. The change was estimated to save hospitals about $200 million in labor costs, Dauner said. “The state has a problem. We are getting cuts we shouldn’t that are unfair because of our agreement. When there are cuts, low-income people get whacked,” Dauner said. Some of the these low-income people are SEIU members. Although the union represents some nurses, most of its members are lower-wage workers who in service jobs that clean hospitals, prepare meals and perform other duties. Traditionally at odds over policy and tactics, CHA and SEIU agreed last month to work together on some of the health care in- dustry’s most pressing problems. “It’s clear Regan was enlisted by CHA,” DeMoro said. “This guy should be fighting for his workers.” The move made sense to SEIU, union spokesman Steve Trossman said, because the rake-off of the provider fee and other cuts could force layoffs in front line hospital staff. “We are looking at ways to mitigate it,” he said. SEIU and CHA are trying to work together on public policy matters that affect both partners, Dauner said. “We felt this was one time — because it involved labor — it was appropriate for SEIU to present the idea to the California Labor Federation,” he said. “Then it was dead.” Angie Wei, legislative director for the California Labor Federation, sent letters to Gov. Brown, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker John Perez on Friday urging them to oppose any proposal to suspend nurse staffing rations during meal and rest breaks. “Such a proposal would endanger both patient safety and worker health and safety, two core values we support and defend,” Wei writes in the letter. “We ask you not to include this proposal in any budget trailer bill or legislation to come.” “It’s clear Regan was enlisted by CHA. This guy should be fighting for his workers” —RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director, California Nurses Association