Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Fun at work

You may recall our recently getting through our Joint Commission survey intact. Well, since we recently filed for Chapter 11 protection, the Joint Commission decided to do a one-day re-survey. Today was the day, and we did fine. My department came through yet again without a mark against us. So that's a relief!

Late today, I had another lovely moment, this one with some of our union reps. We've laid off a handful of employees in recent weeks, but the collective bargaining agreement, among other options, lets them fill vacant slots in their title. So today we were discussing a "Secretary I" who was being laid off. A department suddenly had an opening for a secretary, but the budgeted title was "Secretary II". I told them it made sense to place the secretary there, and we'd change the budget line to Secretary I for her.

The union feels that we should promote this employee, since we have the slot anyhow. This, of course, would mean paying the employee more. Their position is that it's already budgeted for the department (as if the money is already spent). As I reminded them, "it still costs the hospital money, and that's not a great idea when we're in bankruptcy and having to do layoffs," but they insisted that that's how it's always been done here.

By the way, the union people are supposed to be "partnering" with us for the good of the hospital. Is it me? In these circumstances, isn't it good enough that the employee will still have a job in the same title, at the same salary and benefits?

So they argued and argued, insisting that it's right to give the employee the promotion. The hospital is fighting for its survival and other employees are losing their jobs, but they want us to promote someone because there happens to be a budgeted line at a higher level? Yes, this is what unions mean to me. These are not the old days when it was a fight against sweatshops. Today, they defend bad behavior and take stands like this one.

This may get messy, but I really get aggravated when they do things like this. Fight the smart fights, folks, but this is just wrong.

1 comment:

Greg said...

My brother's a union worker at a major grocery store, and during their battle of a few years ago, the workers suffered, walked picket lines, lost benefits, etc., while the reps kept their nice, cushy salaries.