Roughly 15,000 healthcare workers in California ratified a five-year contract on March 16 with Dignity Health, a nonprofit health care corporation that announced plans to merge with another nonprofit, Catholic Health Initiatives, in December 2017.
The agreement, which will apply to 708 workers at Marian Medical and Marian Extended Care centers in Santa Maria, will help protect jobs during the merge, according to Sean Wherley, a media relations specialist with Services Employees International Union (SEIU) United Healthcare Workers West. The workers union represents nearly 93,000 health care workers in California, Wherley said.
Dignity Health, once merged with Catholic Health Initiatives, is expected to become the second largest nonprofit hospital system in the United States, with operations in 28 states and an estimated $28 billion in annual operations, according to an SEIU press release.
Workers represented by the SEIU will receive annual raises of 2 to 3 percent for five years, a 1 percent bonus in the second year, and will keep their benefit pensions. Union members will also receive fully paid, employer provided family health care, which, according to an SEIU press release, was a “main point of contention” during negotiations.
Dignity Health also agreed to contribute an additional $500,000 a year to the Joint Employer Education Fund, a training program that helps workers stay up-to-date on the changing health care environment, the release states.
Negotiations were led by Dignity Health and a union bargaining committee, which Wherley said is made up of health care workers from all the various facilities represented by SEIU. After an agreement was reached between Dignity Health and the bargaining committee about three weeks ago, Wherley said union members voted on the contract at various Dignity Health facilities across California.
The recently ratified contract will expire in April or 2023.
“Workers appreciate Dignity’s commitment to the health care workers who have devoted so much time and energy to patient health,” Wherley said in a phone interview with the Sun.
Dignity Health’s Executive Vice President Darryl Robinson said in a written statement on March 19 that the agreement honors Dignity’s commitment to its employees while acknowledging the significant challenges employers everywhere in the U.S. face with increasing costs of health care.
Sara San Juan, external communication manager for Dignity Health Central Coast, said in an email to the Sun that local Dignity Health officials would not comment further on the contract.
