PEF worked to help members, strikers, hospital Hospital calling laid-off Lockport members back By SHERRY HALBROOK Lockport Memorial Hospital began calling laid-off PEF members back to work in August after settling a nurses’ strike and reopening inpatient services at the acute-care facility near Buffalo. PEF worked successfully on three fronts — helping its members, supporting the striking nurses and making sure the hospital didn’t close permanently. The members were laid off after nurses represented by the United Professional Nurses Association (UPNA) went on strike July 6 and the inpatient services closed. The nurses’ union settled its strike and on August 9 ratified a new contract with the hospital which provides raises and restricts the use of mandatory overtime — a major reason for the strike. Although the PEF members had recently settled their own contract with Lockport and were not on strike, they were among 110 non-striking employees laid-off as the financially troubled hospital closed many services during the strike. Union stipends big help “About 35 of our 114 members at the hospital were laid off during the strike. We anticipate that they all will be called back,” says PEF Region 1 Coordinator Joyce Degenhardt. PEF sent each of its laid-off members a weekly stipend until they were called back. The stipends of $85 for full-time employees and $42.50 for part-time were from the Service Employees International Union’s “Strike Fund.” PEF President Roger Benson immediately requested payments for the laid-off workers from SEIU, which is one of PEF’s two international affiliates. The request was quickly approved and checks were issued through PEF. “Our members were so grateful to get those checks,” Degenhardt says. “We were the only union affected by the Lockport layoffs to give members any financial help.” Keeping hospital afloat Meanwhile, Benson and Degenhardt worked with state Sen. George Maziarz, whose district includes Lockport, and other public officials to press for a settlement to the strike and a plan to keep the debt-ridden hospital financially viable in an area plagued with unrest. Nurses in SEIU Local 1199 Upstate narrowly averted a strike at Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, ratifying a new contract the same day the Lockport nurses approved theirs. And the entire radiology staff at Buffalo’s Children’s Hospital quit in August, claiming overwork and underpay. “We’ve got a big health-care problem in this area,” says PEF field representative Art Munson, the chief negotiator on PEF’s recent contract agreement with Lockport. “It has the lowest health-insurance premiums in the country, and the reimbursement rate for physicians is about 30 percent to 40 percent below the national average. The hospitals aren’t getting reimbursed right either,” Munson adds. PEF was the only union at Lockport to ward off management’s efforts to shift health-insurance costs to its employees. Solidarity with strikers Although PEF members suffered as a result of the strike, they supported the nurses’ struggle. PEF voiced vigorous support for the striking Lockport nurses at their rallies and on the strike line. “I attended every UPNA rally,” Munson says, “but more importantly, John Villela — the council leader of PEF Division 505 at Lockport Memorial — walked their picket line for several hours every day of the five-week strike.” Villela, a pharmacy technologist at Lockport, was laid off in the first week of the strike. “John has kept in touch with every one of our members who was laid off and has coordinated all of our efforts to help them and keep them informed,” Munson says. “John has been unbelievably great through this whole thing.” The Communicator Home Page

Albany County Probation members ratify new contract Members of PEF Division 502 at the Albany County Probation Department have ratified a new three-year contract which includes across-the-board annual raises of 3 percent, 3 percent and 4 percent, respectively. The pact also increases the number of salary steps for probation officers and assistants and increases pay for them. And it adds $2,000 to all salary steps for probation supervisors. Another $1,000 in annual pay is provided for employees assigned to “on-call” duty. The new contract, which was also approved by the Albany County Legislature, will also allow the members to request flex time and cash in up to 80 hours of unused compensatory time each year. The agreement, which affects the bargaining unit of approximately 85 employees, is retroactive to January 1, 2001. Negotiations began late last year. Better pay was a primary contract goal for the group, according to Division 502 Council Leader Dave Galdun. The members attended an April meeting of the Albany County Legislature, distributing fact sheets to the lawmakers that showed the county was paying its probation staff substantially less than neighboring counties. PEF field representative Tom Capone was the union’s chief negotiator at the bargaining table. — Sherry Halbrook