Concessions? No Way!
New Contract at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital
When contract negotiations at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital started in August, 2005, it was in a concessionary environment: the stated goal of the hospital’s administration was to reduce or eliminate the last nine years of gains that CIR had achieved, starting with a two-year wage freeze, reductions in professional allowance, meal card allowance, chief resident differential and elimination of the housestaff pull pool coverage and Patient Care Fund.
Yet when the ink was dry, residents ratified a new contract that included gains in all areas. How the 1,000 residents at Jackson got off the concessionary path, and won gains that range from salary increases to improved work hours and other conditions had everything to do with a strategy that included coalition building, community support, and political outreach.
“After recovering from our initial shock at management’s first proposal, we quickly met as a negotiating team and outlined a strategy to bring our issues, and not management’s issues, to the forefront. Along with our sister union, Local 1991, SEIU, (which represents nurses, attending physicians, and other professional staff at Jackson), we continued pushing the issues of quality patient care and employee safety,” said Dr. Seema Chandra, a PGY 3 in Internal Medicine/Pediatrics, and CIR co-chair and delegate. “Throughout the process, we refused to adopt an attitude of conciliatory bargaining. When we met with resistance, we broadened our horizons, appealing to the County Commissioners and the Public Health Trust directly, with a walk-through at the hospital, a luncheon, and testifying at meetings,” she said.
Active members, delegates, and alternates were all very involved, with an email system which kept everyone informed of progress in negotiations. The new contract includes pay raises of 3%, 3% and 4% over the life of the agreement; maintains the Patient Care Fund, and brings increases in pull pool, professional allowance, meal card allowances, and chief resident differential. It also includes first-ever “Evidence-Based Scheduling” language in a CIR contract, in which a committee of the Public Health Trust and CIR will identify shifts greater than 16-hours and implement strategies to eliminate these extended shifts six months after ratification of the new contract.
Residents ratified the new contract on May 4, 2006, and on May 22 the Public Health Trust ratified it; next the contract goes to the Board of County Commissioners and Mayor for ratification at the end of June. “Throughout the process, our CIR staffer was absolutely essential, helping to coordinate our efforts with SEIU and reaching out to our political allies throughout Miami-Dade County,” said Dr. Chandra. “One of the most important gains of the entire process was that management was forced to recognize residents as vitally important employees. I think they finally understood that they need our input to make our hospital run better.”