By Jeanette Wolfberg
Capital Region Independent Media
HUDSON—Columbia Memorial Hospital (CMH) employees explained their demands for higher wages and affordable health insurance, while depicting people leaving for higher paying jobs, and temporary contractors replacing permanent employees, at a crowded public hearing in Hudson recently.
Their union, 1199SEIU, has been negotiating for a contract for months. So many people attended that some had to stand. Hudson Mayor Kamal Johnson moderated the event and told the employees he supports them. The next step is expected to be an informational picket outside CMH on Sept. 18.
In front of the audience sat a panel with four CMH employees, 1199SEIU Executive Vice President Greg Speller of Kingston, and an empty space for CMH President and CEO Dorothy Urschel. Also in front sat Greenport Town Supervisor Kathy Eldridge, an aide to Assemblywoman Didi Barrett, D-106, and an aide to state Sen. Michelle Hinchey, D-41.
The audience contained additional CMH employees, Hudson Common Council President Tom DePietro, other officials, and members of the general public.
The four CMH employee panelists were: Brianna O’Leary, X-ray and CAT Scan Technician, born in CMH; Robert Anderson, Certified X-ray Technician; Robin Johnson, Operating Room RN, (no relation to the mayor); and Gold Waters, Sterile Processing Technician.
The hearing took place in Hudson’s central firehouse, where the union and management hold negotiations. Panelists explained that they always leave a chair for Urschel, in the hope she will come.
Employees said they had problems with inadequate wages, expensive health insurance, colleagues leaving for more remunerative jobs elsewhere, doing more than one person’s work, difficulty maintaining patient care quality, CMH filling positions with temporary traveling staff, inadequate communication with management, and uncertainty as to who their immediate bosses were.
Things got worse, they said, after Albany Med affiliated with CMH in 2016.
When Johnson asked what could be done to alleviate the situation, the employees said higher wages, better health insurance, and open and transparent communication with management.
“What can we do as a community?” asked Jennifer Belton, a member of Hudson’s Common Council.
“Phone calls,” answered Robin Johnson.
Study what happens in other parts of the country, recommended Sarah Dibben, owner of Supernatural Coffee in Hudson, from the audience.
Wages must increase to attract nurses, X-ray technicians, and secretaries, said Robin Johnson.
“We want to be competitive with the hospitals that are taking our staff away,” said Anderson. “I could make 30% more at Northern Dutchess.”
“They say we have good benefits, but for whom?” asked Robin Johnson.
She said her family insurance is going up from $8,000 to $10,000 a year, not counting co-pays. “I don’t know how people with children do it.”
Meanwhile, CMH advertises 13-week stints for traveling health care workers at much higher pay than its permanent employees. It flies them in and puts them up in hotels, said Speller.
The “travelers” make in a week what “my base pay” is in a month, said O’Leary. Already overnight Medical Imaging is staffed “entirely by travelers.”
“We train great nurses,” and then they leave for other places, reported Kelly Transure, a surgical services nurse who has worked for CMH for 35 years, from the audience.
Columbia-Greene Community College graduates 50 nurses a year, and maybe two come to CMH, where they stay only a few years, Robin Johnson said.
Medical Imaging has hired seven technologists in the past two years, and only four have stayed, O’Leary added.
“They’ll never retain new staff with the morale we have.”
“Do you want a constant turnover of staff?” asked Transure.
At the latest count, CMH has 182 vacancies, and some bigger hospitals farther south have fewer vacancies, Speller reported.
However, some speakers from the audience reported similar situations at other hospitals. An employee of Albany Med reported having the same problem there.
“We’re battling the same company. Our negotiations have mostly broken down. We have 500-600 open positions. The ICU has empty beds,” the employee said.
CMH has gotten money to expand its Psychiatric and Wound Care facilities, speakers reported. But, Robin Johnson pointed out, it does not have enough staff to cover the psychiatric beds it does have. And it ended up staffing the Wound Care center with non-union people, Transure reported.
With staffing shortages at CMH, “We’re doing more with fewer people,” Transure said.
Everybody has to take on other people’s tasks, Johnson said. “We” have to clean rooms and stack shelves.
Another problem is communication between employees and management.
“They don’t hear us. Everything we ask for falls on deaf ears,” Johnson said. “They say contact your manager, but we don’t know who our manager is.” Middle management has left.
“It’s not an issue of money,” said a nurse in the audience. “Last year they got money from the federal government.”
Hudson Police Chief Mishanda Franklin said, “If they say they don’t have money, it means they want to spend their money on other things.”
From the audience, officials for other labor unions, including those not related to health care, announced they stand by 1199SEIU.
Mayor Kamal Johnson reminded the audience that “we’re trying to get Hudson more affordable.” Affordable Housing is coming to Mill and State Streets. Another possibility is housing solely for health care workers.
“When I started, CMH was a family hospital, everybody knew everybody’s name,” Mayor Johnson said. Now “the hospital has forgotten the community.”
“I love having a small hospital nearby. It’s part of the community,” said Dibben.
CMH’s catchment area grew when hospitals in Columbia and Greene counties “merged” between 1985 and 1990, and CMH alone survived.
“We serve nursing homes, ski areas, elderly Bengalis, summer people, people retiring into their summer homes,” said Anderson.
Speller said 1199SEIU represents 10,000 workers from Yonkers to Gore Mountain. “Together you can’t lose.”
“We represent 715 workers in CMH. Many were born there, and their children born there,” said Speller. “With the demographic changes in our community, there’s so much potential.”
When asked for comment about the meeting, CMH emailed the statement “We’ve been negotiating in good faith with 1199 SEIU since January and have made numerous proposals that would increase wages considerably and maintain affordable health insurance. We are confident we will come to a final agreement that is competitive, equitable and sustainable.”
