The nurses at St. Mary came out swinging to alert the community to Trinity’s intent on reducing staff--and risking patient outcomes— in the middle of a pandemic with an info picket on July 30.
CRITICAL UPDATE Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses & Allied Professionals
September 2020
Inside the COVID-19 Crisis in Pennsylvania On the front lines of the pandemic, pushing for PPE in the early months and fighting for safe staffing now. On March 7th, with Gov. Tom Wolf’s announcement of two presumptive positive cases of COVID-19 in the commonwealth, the pandemic officially hit Pennsylvania. Six months and more than 128,000 cases later, the virus is still very much with us. Approximately 6 percent of positive cases in Pennsylvania have been in healthcare workers, some of whom died in the very hospitals where they contracted the virus. In the early months of the pandemic as case numbers rose exponentially, hospitals in crisis mode severely rationed PPE and abandoned long held policies to protect both healthcare professionals and patients. Now, as hospitals plead
post-COVID poverty, many facilities are either threatening to lay off staff or have done so already, further burdening staff ahead of what is sure to be a second wave and highlighting the urgent need for safe staffing grids in our hospitals. Our story of the COVID-19 pandemic mirrors the story of the labor movement itself—they’re both, at their hearts, about people coming together under great adversity to make their lives better. On June 10, after repeated urging from us during the initial wave of the pandemic and the very real threat of a picket at his home (see the “Speaking Truth to Power” timeline, beginning on page 2), Gov. Wolf finally forced hospitals in the
“Our story of the COVID-19 pandemic mirrors the story of the labor movement itself— they’re both, at their hearts, about people coming together under great adversity to make their lives better.”
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continued from page 1 Inside the COVID-19 Crisis in Pennsylvania
commonwealth to be accountable for the safety of their employees and therefore their patients with a Department of Health order that required them to: • Notify workers within 24 hours that they had been exposed to a person with COVID-19. • Test workers who have received notice of exposure for COVID-19, whether they’re showing symptoms or not.
• Give all workers nationally certified N95 respirators upon request if the mask the healthcare worker is using is deemed by the worker to be damaged, soiled or not working properly. • Require anyone over age 2 within a hospital to wear a mask unless it inhibits their health. This order was a great leap forward—a transformational victory for healthcare
professionals and for patient care across the state. It made our lives better. Now, as hospitals fully reopen and turn their attention to profits and to contracts (see “Raising Our Voices, Together” on page 4), the battlefront has shifted to enforceable safe staffing grids, which are central to every contract campaign this fall. Safe staffing is a win for nurses, a win for patient care and a win for the community. It makes many lives better.
“Healthcare professionals have had a really hard time during the last four months. We have often felt that hospitals “in crisis mode” put into place dangerous policies that justified their lack of supplies at the expense of the health and safety of our patients, our co-workers, our families and ourselves.” —MAUREEN MAY, RN, President, PASNAP
Speaking Truth to Power Highlights from our efforts to get help from Harrisburg during the COVID crisis. During the early months of 2020, Philadelphia and its ring counties were the tip of the COVID-19 spear in Pennsylvania. Protective policy and gear were both in short supply, and those on the front lines were in danger. We started calling for more of both—and we haven’t stopped yet. Here’s a daily, abbreviated timeline of our ultimately successful efforts to get Harrisburg’s attention:
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20 With SEIU Healthcare PA, pressured electeds to compel OSHA to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard to healthcare facilities and find more PPE.
PASNAP CRITICAL UPDATE
Message from PASNAP President Maureen May, RN Welcome to our first digital-only state newsletter! We haven’t abandoned print entirely--you will be receiving a big, glossy print newsletter every January. But from here on out, three of the four newsletters we produce every year will be digital. This new format allows us to include video, link to our website and others and, in the newsletter’s very nature, reflect our connectedness, our solidarity and our vitality. In the midst of a pandemic that has laid bare the shortcomings of our public health system and exposed all of us to great risk, we, as a union, have had many successes since our last newsletter!
WIN: Our union is growing—we have two new locals in Chester County!
WIN: We succeeded in getting Gov. Wolf to make hospitals in the commonwealth accountable for the safety of their employees and therefore their patients (see “Inside the COVID-19 Crisis in Pennsylvania” on page 1)! WIN: Arbitration to reduce a discipline at Temple. When dealing with a tough, combative patient, a 30-year employee in the Temple Radiology Department mistakenly imaged the wrong site. She self-reported her mistake to the lead tech on site before retaking the image correctly, yet she still received a discipline for her
initial mistake. We fought the discipline on the grounds that a written warning was too harsh for a member who has dedicated 30 years of service to Temple and has not once made this mistake and that the Radiology Department’s zero-tolerance environment contradicts the principles of just culture at Temple. We won!
WIN: The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) agrees with W-B General RNs. In the past year, the administration at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital has been forcing every grievance to arbitration, failing to provide necessary information and refusing to meet with our union. The NLRB district office in Philadelphia recently agreed with our unfair labor practice charge related to the grievance process—a significant victory, especially since the Board has been unfriendly to unions under President Trump. First, the board agreed that in three separate grievances, hospital management unfairly refused to provide the info we needed to pursue the grievance. Second, the board agreed that hospital management unfairly refused our union the right to assign our choice of representation in a grievance meeting. The National Labor Relations Act stipulates that both sides—union and employer—must use the grievance process in good faith. We just proved that Wilkes-Barre General Hospital management did not.
WIN: We got $424,283.40 in back pay and vacation pay for Prospect RNs. After fighting and winning our cases in arbitration, Prospect still tried to deny our members their back pay by using stall tactics and appealing through the court system. Thanks to the hard work and determination of the CCNA leadership team, Prospect finally threw In the towel in July and agreed to pay our members back for the wages and benefits that were taken from them. In other news, in late July I had the opportunity to testify, via Zoom, before a joint committee of Democratic state senators and representatives on workplace protections—or the lack thereof—during the COVID-19 crisis. I wanted to share with you my testimony, which was informed by your experiences as well as my own, and assure you that the fight to ensure your safety and that of your patients isn’t over. You can catch me at the 1:16:52 mark.
WATCH VIDEO I’m so excited to share this issue and this news with you. and I look forward to, together, winning new battles, too! In solidarity, Maureen May, RN President, PASNAP
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Sent a memo to 102 Philadelphia-area electeds slamming the COVID-19 SelfQuarantine/Isolation Policy for Healthcare Workers at Temple.
PASNAP CRITICAL UPDATE
Created a Hospital Response to COVID-19 Report Card.
President May pleads with Gov. Wolf for more PPE, funding and to encourage implementation of the DPA and PPE from the strategic national stockpile.
Board members discuss the COVID response and the lack of PPE with Gov. Wolf’s staff.
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If our power comes from our labor and our solidarity, it stands to reason that more labor plus more solidarity equals much more power. We have 16 open contracts this fall, and we are coordinating on bargaining not just within facilities but across hospitals as well, in order to increase our power within these healthcare systems.
Raising Our Voices, TOGETHER Einstein, St. Chris and Jeanes, UNITED! With similar issues (safe staffing, fair wage scale and successor language), a shared geographic region and the same guy sitting on the other side of the bargaining table, Einstein and St. Chris are coordinating on an escalation plan culminating in a shared strike date, which, coincidentally, would send the cost of scabs through the roof! The Jeanes contract is up the first week of November, and with successorship language critically important, Jeanes may join Einstein and St. Chris to really raise the ante with management.
Members of the Einstein Bargaining Committee in February with nearly 1000 signatures from the nurses pledging to stand behind their bargaining committee for a fair contract.
Locked as we have been in a 4-year battle with Prospect Health, we’ve been waiting to line up all our local contracts so that all 1,400 of us can take the fight to Prospect simultaneously. Each of the eight Crozer Keystone Health System locals—the Crozer-Chester Nurses Association, the Delaware County Nurses Association, the Crozer-Chester Paramedics Association, the Delaware County Technical Employee Association, the Crozer-Chester Society of Pharmacists, Springfield Nurses United and the newly organized Rejuvenations and Crozer Pros (see “New Organizing” on page 6)—are bargaining now. We’re looking to improve our contracts with a new weekend program and staffing grids.
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Went over our Hospital Response Report Card with electeds and asked them to contact hospital CEOs about specific issues in each facility. 264 members and electeds reached over six Zoom meetings.
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Taking the Fight to Prospect Health
Demonstrating to highlight the need for more PPE.
PASNAP CRITICAL UPDATE
Prime Time for a Prime Contract for Lower Bucks and Suburban! Both Lower Bucks Hospital and Suburban Community Hospital are owned by Prime, which is attempting to push through a new company-wide healthcare plan that forces its employees to seek healthcare services within the Prime system or pay 100 percent of the cost of the care. Lower Bucks and Suburban are coordinating on an escalation plan and a shared strike date.
All Cuts, No Consensus at St. Mary and Fitzgerald Mercy St. Mary Medical Center and Fitzgerald Mercy Hospital are both owned by Trinity. Last year, St. Mary was the most profitable hospital in Bucks, Montgomery and Delaware Counties combined; it was second only to HUP in southeastern PA. Yet by midsummer, despite a full hospital, a community in need and the COVID crisis continuing, Trinity executives were once again focused on reducing staff and overburdening nurses, threatening patient care. At Fitzgerald Mercy, Trinity also proposed massive cuts and changes to the nurses’ contract, including requiring all nurses to have a BSN by 2022, limiting the ability to work overtime, eliminating the ability to call out on weekends and receive weekend pay, and redefining and expanding “prime time vacation.” St. Mary and Fitzgerald Mercy are coordinating on leafleting and an escalation plan with a shared strike date.
Wills Eye Nurses & Techs Key issues are wages, including experience pay, and health insurance. Negotiations are going well, which may preclude the need to coordinate. Particularly maddening for many of us, however, is the fact that Will’s Eye did not apply for hazard pay funds from the state and refused to do so even when informed in negotiations that members of the union would qualify.
Top: Info Picket at Lower Bucks in February, just before COVID-19 shut down negotiations. Middle: Nurses from St. Mary Medical Center picketing on July 30. Bottom: Fitzgerald Mercy Hospital Nurses Association’s first negotiation on August 5.
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May Day Action outside of Temple University Hospital.
PASNAP CRITICAL UPDATE
Same-day conference calls with Attorney General Josh Shapiro and his senior staff, and Secretary of Health Rachel Levine, M.D., regarding COVID-19 issues.
President May pens an op-ed that heavily criticizes the response to the COVID-19 crisis by the Wolf Administration and particularly the Department of Health.
Organized a march on Gov. Wolf’s home to get his attention.
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New Organizing
Crozer Rejuvenations
WE HAVE TWO NEW LOCALS IN DELAWARE COUNTY!
The Crozer healthcare workers at Rejuvenations at the Fair Acres Campus provide valuable inpatient evaluation and treatment of geriatric patients suffering from acute mental health disorders. Yet they haven’t received the raises and benefits that their organized Crozer colleagues did. So this spring, they voted to form a union and join us in order to have a voice at work, to advocate for safe conditions for staff and patients, and to ensure the highest standard of care.
Crozer Pros
Workers at Rejuvenations at Fair Acres won their election 27-0, the highest margin in our history.
The professional staff at Crozer-Keystone Hospital—a.k.a., the Crozer Pros—organized during the pandemic, with mail-in ballots.
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We got his attention! The Wolf Administration agrees to act—and the march is postponed.
The Department of Health issues an order to establish safe hospital standards to protect healthcare professionals during the COVID pandemic.
The professional staff at Crozer-Keystone Hospital—a.k.a., the Crozer Pros—voted to organize on June 15th. Roz Mayo, MA, CCC-SLP, a speech therapist, initiated the process: “I reached out to a leader in the nurses’ union, and then I started reaching out to everyone in the halls. The frustration among the staff was palpable. The hospital had frozen our pensions. They froze 401(k) contributions. They increased demands on us without increasing our pay. We worked weekends to bolster our salaries, and then they took that away. For years, they nibbled away at the benefits of working here, and we started to lose people. We needed a voice. We needed more control over the terms of our employment. And we needed to keep young talent. That was a big part of it for me. At our meetings, I’d look around the room at the young faces, and I knew I had to do something for them.”
Follow PASNAP on Social Media fb.com/pennanurses @pennanurses pennanurses
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PASNAP CRITICAL UPDATE
WE ENDORSE
JOE BIDEN FOR
PRESIDENT After surveying our membership in late July, the PASNAP Executive Board voted unanimously to act in accordance with a clear majority of our members and endorse a man for president whose core values align with PASNAP’s mission, the priorities of our members and the very heart and focus of our caring profession— Vice President Joe Biden. In a year marked by the worst pandemic of our lifetime and the grave risk to the healthcare workers on its front lines, the majority of PASNAP members rated the federal government’s response to the crisis “poor” and said that access to healthcare without being penalized for pre-existing conditions is “very important.” Vice President Biden believes that public health decisions should be made by public health professionals, not politicians. He has sworn to invoke the Defense Production Act to ensure that healthcare professionals have the life-saving PPE we need and deserve. And he has vowed to defend healthcare protections for all, regardless of pre-existing conditions. These protections are always vitally important, but they are especially so now, as the world battles a novel virus whose long-term effects are still unknown. In our survey, a clear majority of PASNAP members also rated passage of the Right to Organize Act (or PRO Act) bill “very important,” since it would make it easier in multiple ways for all workers, including healthcare professionals, to join a union. Vice President Biden strongly supports the union-organizing and collective bargaining rights of all workers, and he has pledged to push for passage of the PRO Act bill, which the U.S. House of Representatives has passed but the Senate has failed to even consider. We work hard as union members to win good contracts that set high standards for nurses and health care
“Unions did in fact build the middle class. And here’s what that did. That built the United States of America as we know it.” professionals and help us in our goal of delivering the highest quality care to our patients. But we don’t operate in a vacuum: Unions are under attack. We need a leader we can count on to protect our rights to bargain, not strip them away. These issues—PASNAP’s top priorities statewide— are Vice President Biden’s priorities, too. We join with millions of healthcare professionals and working people across the country to endorse the former vice president for president and in so doing, call for a return to science and to solidarity. But no matter who is elected on November 3, 2020, we will continue to fight for these issues—central not only to our membership but also to our communities—and for candidates who support them.
Yet Another Reason to Love John Lewis— His Stance on Labor In the days since Rep. John Lewis passed away, he has been justly praised as a hero of the civil rights movement, a brave soldier for voting rights and the conscience of the Congress. He was all those things, but underappreciated is Lewis’s role as a champion of organized labor. In particular, he fought to make labor rights be thought of as civil rights. Lewis came to national prominence as the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington. The full name of the march was “The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom”—a shining moment that linked economic and civil rights as one. Like the featured speaker that day, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Lewis knew that great things were mostly likely to happen in the United States only when the labor and civil rights movements were united for change.
“Real courage comes not from turning on each other but from turning toward each other.” —President Barack Obama eulogizing U.S. Congressman John Lewis on July 30 On a hot day in July 2014, more than 50 years later, Lewis spoke outside of the U.S. Capitol, and recalled his involvement in the March on Washington. “It was not just civil rights, it was also organized labor,” he emphasized. Lewis was speaking in 2014 on behalf of the Employee Empowerment Act, legislation he introduced with Congressman Keith Ellison to give labor organizing the same legal protections against discrimination as those afforded subjects of racial or sex bias. 8
Ellison and Lewis knew that workers were routinely being fired for organizing. While technically illegal under the National Labor Relations Act, the penalties levied against employers who received a negative finding by the National Labor Relations Board— back pay and restoration of one’s job—were impotent. Employers thus could fire workers seeking to unionize and then simply pay the fines as an acceptable cost of doing business. Employers intimidated their workers, as Ellison explained, because “most people want a union, but they need a job.” In part because of the lack of legal protections with teeth, the labor movement has declined much faster in the United States than in other wealthy nations. To fix this problem, Lewis and Ellison argued, workers trying to organize needed the same rights as Black people who are discriminated against: the right to a day in court, and the possibility of compensatory and punitive damages when discriminated against. Lewis’s message at the July 2014 press conference was simple and powerful. “In every corner of our country, there is a constant effort to roll back protection and freedom for workers, who have a right to organize and protect themselves from any unjust and inhumane action of employers,” he said. “In the 21st century,…workers should not be afraid to demand a living wage. Workers should not face intimidation for organizing and bargaining collectively.” He continued: “This bill…provides stronger protection from workplace retaliation,” he
said. “It is the right thing to do. It is a just thing to do. It is a fair thing to do.” Lewis concluded, “Let’s protect all of the workers.” As we think about ways to honor Lewis’s legacy, restoring the Voting Rights Act should be item number one. But not far behind should come efforts to make labor organizing a civil right—a concept built into U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott’s Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which passed the House but has been mired in the Senate for months. Strengthening voting rights and strengthening organized labor, Lewis knew, could help change the world.
This piece by Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and author, with Moshe Mavit, of Why Union Organizing Should Be a Civil Right, is excerpted with permission from The Century Foundation. You can read the full piece here.
In our political membership survey distributed this summer, 89.25 percent of the respondents statewide thought passage of the PRO Act was either “very important” or “somewhat important” to them.
PASNAP CRITICAL UPDATE
GOOD TROUBLE! Civil rights icon and former U.S. Congressman John Lewis, who died just before we went to press, famously urged, “Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.” Here we are, doing exactly that.
After repeatedly ducking our attempts to set a date for negotiation, Wills Eye Bargaining Committee members marched to CEO Joe Bilson’s office and got one—for July 30th.
JULY 2020
The CEO List And they say they can’t pay us competitive salaries? Take a look at what they receive—annually. UHS CEO Alan Miller (Brooke Glen, for-profit):
$23.58 million CHS CEO Wayne Smith (Wilkes-Barre General, for-profit):
$7 million
JULY 2020
Highmark CEO David Holmberg (Warren co-owner):
TAP President Carlos Aviles advocated for hazard pay for all hospital workers at a press conference sponsored by District 1199C. “We service anybody in need, and every day, we are being done a disservice by being forced to work in hazardous conditions,” he said. “Most of us are suffering not just from physical exhaustion but from mental exhaustion as well during this pandemic. PPE, hazard pay—these are issues of safety and respect, they’re about taking care of the heroes who risk their lives every day to take care of the community.”
$5,546,282 Tower Health CEO Clint Matthews (Pottstown, St. Chris):
$2,439,568 Einstein CEO Barry Freedman (retiring):
$2,039,095 Temple University Health System CEO Larry Kaiser (retired):
$1.9 million Geisinger CEO Jaewon Ryu:
$1,814,825 JULY 30, 2020 Nurses from St. Mary Medical Center held an informational picket to let the community in on what’s going on inside the hospital, including staff reductions that threaten patient care. When the nurses are outside, there’s something wrong inside! PASNAP CRITICAL UPDATE
Drexel President John Fry (St. Chris, also on the Board of CHS):
$1,623,636 Butler CEO Ken DeFurio:
$1,207,043 Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic CEO James Woodward (Saint Mary, Mercy Fitz):
$1,022,040 Wills Eye CEO Joseph Bilson:
$680,191
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Tools You Can Use Check out these webinars on our website. This summer, we hosted two webinars created especially for us. Take a look: Recognizing & Managing Stress for Healthcare Workers in a Public Health Emergency: With a COVID-19 vaccine still many months away, the stressors frontline healthcare professionals have bravely faced for months are not going away anytime soon. This webinar, presented by Drs. James Halpern and Amy Nitza, nationally recognized experts in disaster mental health, will help you to unpack your concerns, build resilience and make productive decisions about what you can and cannot control in the midst of a pandemic. View here. COVID-19 and Workers’ Comp: Does workers’ comp apply to nurses who contract COVID at work? Are healthcare professionals required by law to take paid time off if they contract the virus? What exactly are our rights during a pandemic? Jerry Lehocky and Thomas Giordano, Jr., partners at Pond Lehockey, the largest workers’ compensation and Social Security disability law firm in our region, created this webinar to answer these questions and a multitude of others, and to inform us of our rights in this unprecedented time. View here.
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Apply for a Mail-In Ballot TODAY Thanks to Act 77, which passed last year, any registered Pennsylvania voter can apply for a mail-in or absentee ballot to vote by mail. You can apply for either type of ballot online or on paper by filling out a mail-in or absentee ballot request form and mailing it to your county election office. Whether you apply online or through the mail, you will be sent a paper ballot in the mail, which you will need to fill out and return by mail to your county election office by the deadline.
Check your registration status here. Then apply to vote by mail here. Apply for an absentee ballot if you will be away from home on election day (this includes college students, members of the military and anyone whose work or vacation takes them away from home on election day) or if you have a physical disability or illness that will prevent you from going to your polling place. Anyone else wishing to vote by mail should apply for a mail-in ballot. You must provide a valid PA driver’s license or nondriver’s ID card number to apply for either online.
PA Vote By Mail Deadlines For the general election, which is Tuesday, November 3, 2020:
• Applications to vote by mail MUST be received by your county election office by 5 p.m. October 27.
• Mailed in ballots MUST be received by your county election office by 8 p.m. November 3. Ballots only postmarked by November 3 may not be counted.
I VOTED
NOTE: All active, registered voters in New Jersey will automatically receive a ballot with prepaid postage in the mail (NJ county clerks are required to mail ballots to all active voters by October 5). Delaware voters, print out Request for Vote by Mail Ballot, fill it in and mail it to your county election office.
PASNAP CRITICAL UPDATE