Kaleida’s Need for (Extreme) Flexibility = No COVID MOU
On February 8th, the unions submitted a counterproposal to the Kaleida Health management team, which is attached to this memo. The unions’ counterproposal limited hazard pay to COVID-designated units similar to the March 2020 MOU. However, we included language to ensure that adequate staffing ratios were maintained on these units, and that the COVID-designated units could not be staffed at the expense of other areas of the hospital.
Management waited a week before requesting a meeting just to ask questions about our proposal. Following this session, management waited another two days to offer their response: Virtually the same proposal they made the first time!
- Management still wants the ability to float you anywhere they see fit (including other sites) regardless of your seniority.
- Management still wants the ability to limit your personal leave days.
- Management still wants to indefinitely maintain this language until they choose to end it.
- Management still wants to float employees outside of the floating grid or home site regardless of years of service.
- Management still wants downsizing to occur with PTO will only be utilized if staff cannot be utilized elsewhere.
- Management still employees to be required to work between Kaleida Health sites.
- Management still wants to suspend the effective date for an internal transfers.
They call this “flexibility.” We call it insulting.
Management approached the unions requesting that we work together on a new MOU. The unions have done so in good faith to obtain relief for a healthcare workforce that has been stretched thin and worked to the bone. Management responded by dragging their feet and repeatedly trying to extract language allowing them to continue robbing Peter to pay Paul to cover woefully inadequate staffing. If management has demanded this “flexibility” in both of their MOU counterproposals, what are they going to demand during master contract negotiations?
The unions met today with Kaleida management to tell them that short-term solutions to long-term problems are a non-starter. It was evident and clear that management will not move off their position of seeking extreme flexibility and we withdrew our proposal.
YOU CAN VIEW THE PROPOSALS BELOW
