Category Archives: Labor Relations

Nurse sues UPMC over alleged labor abuses

Posted on by • Posted in Antitrust, Class Action Lawsuit, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Labor Abuses, Labor Relations, Labor Spend Management, Lawsuit, Market Consolidation, Market Power, Market Share, Mergers & Acquisitions, Monopoly, Monopoly Behavior, Nurses, Unfair Business Practices, Unfair Labor Practices • Leave a comment
https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/nurse-sues-upmc-monopoly-labor-abuse-pennsylvania/705287/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202024-01-23%20Healthcare%20Dive%20%5Bissue:58423%5D&utm_term=Healthcare%20Dive

The lawsuit filed in federal court seeks to represent thousands of other UPMC employees.

Dive Brief:

  • A nurse is suing the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for allegedly leveraging its monopoly control over the employment market in Pennsylvania to keep wages down and prevent workers from leaving for competitors, all while increasing their workload.
  • The lawsuit, filed late last week in a federal court, seeks class action status to represent other staff at the nonprofit health system. Plaintiff Victoria Ross, who worked as a nurse at UPMC Hamot in Erie, Pennsylvania, seeks damages and is asking the judge to enjoin UPMC from continuing its unfair business practices.
  • If granted class action status, the lawsuit could represent thousands of current and former UPMC workers, including registered nurses, medical assistants and orderlies. UPMC has denied the allegations in statements to other outlets but did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.

Dive Insight:

UPMC has grown steadily over the past few decades into the largest private employer in Pennsylvania, employing 95,000 workers overall.

From 1996 to 2018, the system acquired 28 competing healthcare providers, greatly expanding its market power, according to the lawsuit. The acquisitions also shrunk the availability of healthcare services. Over the same period, UPMC closed four hospitals and downsized operations in three other facilities, eliminating 1,800 full- and part-time jobs, the lawsuit said.

UPMC relied on “draconian” mobility restrictions and labor law violations to lock employees into lower pay and subcompetitive working conditions, according to the 44-page complaint.

Specifically, the system enacted restraints like noncompete clauses and “do-not-rehire blacklists” to stop workers from leaving. Meanwhile, UPMC allegedly suppressed workers’ labor law rights to prevent them from unionizing.

“Each of these restraints alone is anticompetitive, but combined, their effects are magnified. UPMC wielded these restraints together as a systemic strategy to suppress worker bargaining power and wages,” the lawsuit said. “As a result, UPMC’s skilled healthcare workers were required to do more while earning less — while they were also subjected to increasingly unfair and coercive workplace conditions.”

According to the complaint, UPMC has faced 133 unfair labor practice charges since 2012, and 159 separate allegations. Roughly 74% of the violations were related to workers’ efforts to unionize, the lawsuit said.

Meanwhile, UPMC workers’ wages have fallen at a rate of 30 to 57 cents per hour on average compared to other hospital workers for every 10% increase in UPMC’s market share, said the lawsuit, citing a consultant’s economic analysis.

The lawsuit also noted that UPMC’s staffing ratios have been decreasing, even as staffing ratios on average have increased at other Pennsylvania hospitals.

The alleged labor abuses and UPMC’s market power are linked, according to the complaint.

“Had UPMC been subject to competitive market forces, it would have had to raise wages to attract more workers and provide higher staffing levels in order to avoid degrading the care it provided to its patients, and in order to prevent losing patients to competitors who could provide better quality care,” the lawsuit said.

UPMC is facing similar labor allegations. In May, two unions filed a complaint asking the Department of Justice to investigate labor abuses at the nonprofit.

Hospitals were plagued by staffing shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many facilities still bemoan the difficulty of hiring and retaining full-time workers, and point to shortages (of nurses in particular) as the reason for overworked employees and poor staffing ratios.

Yet some studies suggest that’s not the case. One recent analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data found employment in hospitals — including registered nurses — is now slightly higher than it was at the start of the pandemic.

Despite the controversy, UPMC — which now operates 40 hospitals with annual revenue of $26 billion — continues to try and expand its market share. Late last year, the system signed a definitive agreement to acquire Washington Health Care Services, a Pennsylvania system with more than 2,000 employees and two hospitals. The deal faces pushback from local unions.

Allina Health doctors unionize over health system’s objections

Posted on by • Posted in Doctors Council Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Labor Organizing, Labor Relations, Labor Spend Management, Labor Union, Labor Union Grievance, Patient Safety, Physician Burnout, Physician Employment, Physician's Labor Union • Leave a comment
https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/allina-health-doctors-union/704751/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202024-01-17%20Healthcare%20Dive%20%5Bissue:58245%5D&utm_term=Healthcare%20Dive

Dive Brief:

  • The National Labor Relations Board has certified the union election of more than 130 Allina Health doctors at Mercy and Unity Hospitals, nearly a year after they voted to join the Doctors Council Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
  • The certification follows objections from the Minneapolis-based nonprofit health system, which said that physicians active in the union drive held supervisor or managerial positions and may have unlawfully pressured colleagues into supporting the union. The NLRB rejected that claim.
  • It’s another victory for Doctors Council SEIU at Allina facilities. In October, more than 500 Allina doctors, physician assistants and nurse practitioners at over 60 facilities voted to join the union, according to NLRB documents.

Dive Insight:

Allina doctors and physician assistants said that chronic understaffing, high levels of burnout and compromised patient safety due to the corporatization of care motivated them to seek union representation.

“We have been seeing the shift of healthcare control going to corporations and further and further away from patient voices and patient advocacy. That really fell apart during the pandemic,” said Allina physician Liz Koffel during a press conference on Aug. 15 announcing primary care physicians’ unionization drive.

Koffel detailed workplace grievances that she said occurred due to Allina’s push for profits, including high productivity demands backed by few support staff and the health system’s now-abandoned policy of interrupting non-emergency medical care for patients with high levels of debt. 

In a statement to Healthcare Dive, an Allina spokesperson said the system had “committed to taking steps to make sure the National Labor Relations Board’s process was fair to all involved,” and that it would not take further procedural action against the union.

Across the country, physicians’ feelings of limited autonomy is driving similar interest in unionization, according to John August, director of healthcare labor relations at Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. 

“Frankly, I’ve never seen anything like it in my whole career — where so many people are saying exactly the same thing at the same time, from a profession that heretofore has been essentially not unionized,” he said.

Although doctors have historically shown little interest in unionization — the physician unionization rate was under 6% nationwide in 2021 — the tide is beginning to turn. 

Doctors are increasingly working in consolidated hospitals owned by larger health systems or private equity firms. They report consolidation limits the influence they have on their day-to-day jobs, according to a December study from the Physician Advocacy Institute.

In addition, other options, such as physician-owned practices, are disappearing, with the percentage of owned practices falling 13% between 2012 and 2022, according to an analysis from the American Medical Association.

Elsewhere in the healthcare industry, unionization and strikes have led to gains for workers.

Last year, nurses at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital successfully negotiated nurse-to-patient ratios by holding the picket line for nearly four months in New Jersey, and more than 75,000 healthcare workers secured a 20% raise over four years at Kaiser Permanente by staging the largest healthcare strike in recent history.

Starbucks softens its union stance

Posted on by • Posted in Labor Activism, Labor Agreement, Labor Cost Structure, Labor Organizing, Labor Relations, Labor Shortages, Labor Strike, Labor Union, Labor Union Grievance • Leave a comment
https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-markets-0545b7bd-57c8-4181-aae8-569abdcfc91e.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosmarkets&stream=business

Starbucks is softening its stance toward unionization after years of pushing back.

Why it matters: 

It’s a potentially huge shift for the chain and a signal of the staying power of the labor movement that surged in the wake of the pandemic.

  • “They know this isn’t going away,” said Nick Setyan, an equity analyst at Wedbush who covers Starbucks. He called the company’s new posture “capitulation.”
  • Setyan said recent worker walkouts were a turning point. Also, at least five more stores this month voted to unionize.

Zoom out: 

Union organizing efforts have been a public relations headache for Starbucks since at least 2021 when a store in Buffalo became the first to vote for a union. Meanwhile, pressure from labor regulators isn’t slowing.

Zoom in: 

Starbucks’ strategy shift began in March when Laxman Narasimhan took the CEO reins from founder Howard Schultz, who had repeatedly clashed with workers over unionizing. The new CEO spoke of the need to care for customer-facing staff, per Reuters.

  • It’s accelerated over the past week — last Friday, Starbucks vice president Sara Kelly sent a letter to Workers United (the union that reps workers), saying the company wanted to restart bargaining.
  • The union has yet to bargain a contract. Starbucks now says it wants an agreement by next year.
  • On Wednesday, the company released an audit on its labor relations practices that was commissioned by Starbucks — after a shareholder vote forced its hand — and conducted by a former management-side lawyer.
  • Though the report asserted Starbucks didn’t have an “anti-union playbook,” it did find the company was unprepared to deal with its unionizing workforce and acknowledged that store managers made mistakes in how they handled the situation.
  • The report offers recommendations for improvement — including better training. Change starts with “tone from the top,” the audit says, suggesting that the company should reach agreements with the union “expeditiously.”

What happened: 

Starbucks initially believed it could fend off unionization by messaging about best-in-class wages and benefits, Setyan said, noting that it’s true the chain offers better compensation than competitors.

  • “Internally, they felt kind of aggrieved,” he said, that workers who management perceived as well-compensated would want to organize.
  • For a while it seemed like the messaging campaign was working, but the Red Cup Rebellion walkout last month and a flurry of new union votes changed minds.
  • Starbucks has historically been very sensitive to public relations — and it became clear pushing back isn’t great for its image, Setyan said.

The other side: 

Union representatives are skeptical of Starbucks’ new position.

  • “We are hopeful your letter is indeed the beginning of a sincere effort, and not a publicity move in the face of pressure from partners, Wall Street, shareholders, and others,” Workers United president Lynne Fox, said in a letter to Kelly last week.

What to watch: 

If Starbucks’ change in tone is a sign that the company will finally come to terms with these workers, and agree to a contract, or just a shift in its public stance while it continues efforts to avoid a deal.

The UAW Strike: What Healthcare Provider Organizations Should Watch

Posted on by • Posted in Consumerism, Financial Stewardship, Financial Strength, Financial Viability, Financially Distressed, Future, Future State, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Job Security, Labor Relations, Labor Shortages, Labor Spend Management, Labor Strike, Market Trends, Market Uncertainty, Scrutiny, Systemness, Uncertainty, Vulnerable • Leave a comment
The Keckley Report

Politicians, economists, auto industry analysts and main street business owners are closely watching the UAW strike that began at midnight last Thursday. Healthcare should also pay attention, especially hospitals. medical groups and facility operators where workforce issues are mounting.

Auto manufacturing accounts for 3% of America’s GDP and employs 2.2 million including 923,000 in frontline production. It’s high-profile sector industry in the U.S. with its most prominent operators aka “the Big Three” operating globally. Some stats:

  • The US automakers sold an estimated 13.75 million new and 36.2 million used vehicles in 2022.
  • The total value of the US car and automobile manufacturing market is $104.1 billion in 2023:
  • 9.2 million US vehicles were produced in 2021–a 4.5% increase from 2020 and 11.8% of the global total ranking only behind China in total vehicle production.
  • As of 2020, 91.5% of households report having access to at least one vehicle.
  • There were 290.8 million registered vehicles in the United States in 2022—21% of the global market.
  • Americans spend $698 billion annually on the combination of automobile loans and insurance.

By comparison, the healthcare services industry in the U.S.—those that operate facilities and services serving patients—employs 9 times more workers, is 29 times bigger ($104 Billion vs. $2.99 trillion/65% of total spend) and 6 times more integral in the overall economy (3% vs. 18.3% of GDP).  

Surprisingly, average hourly wages are similar ($31.07 in auto manufacturing vs. $33.12 in healthcare per BLS) though the range is wider in healthcare since it encompasses licensed professionals to unskilled support roles. There are other similarities:

  • Each industry enjoys ubiquitous presence in American household’ discretionary. spending.
  • Each faces workforce issues focused on pay parity and job security.
  • Each is threatened by unwelcome competitors, disruptive technologies and shifting demand complicating growth strategies.
  • Each is dependent on capital to remain competitive.
  • And each faces heightened media scrutiny and vulnerability to misinformation/disinformation as special interests seek redress or non-traditional competitors seek advantage.

Ironically, the genesis of the UAW dispute is not about wages; it is about job security as electric-powered vehicles that require fewer parts and fewer laborers become the mainstay of the sector. CEO compensation and the corporate profits of the Big Three are talking points used by union leaders to galvanize sympathizer antipathy of “corporate greed” and unfair treatment of frontline workers.

But the real issue is uncertainty about the future: will auto workers have jobs and health benefits in their new normal?

In healthcare services sectors—hospitals, medical groups, post-acute care facilities, home-care et al—the scenario is similar: workers face an uncertain future but significantly more complicated. Corporate greed, CEO compensation and workforce discontent are popular targets in healthcare services media coverage but the prominence of not-for-profit organizations in healthcare services obfuscates direct comparisons to for-profit organizations which represents less than a third of the services economy. For example, CEO compensation in NFPs—a prominent target of worker attention—is accounted differently for CEOs in investor-owned operations in which stock ownership is not treated as income until in options are exercised or shares sold. Annual 990 filings by NFPs tell an incomplete story nonetheless fodder for misinformation.

The competitive landscape and regulatory scrutiny for healthcare services are also more complicated for healthcare services. Unlike auto manufacturing where electric vehicles are forcing incumbents to change, there’s no consensus about what the new normal in U.S. healthcare services will be nor a meaningful industry-wide effort to define it. Each sector is defining its own “future state” based on questionable assumptions about competitors, demand, affordability, workforce requirements and more. Imagine an environmental scan in automakers strategy that’s mute on Tesla, or mass transit, Zoom, pandemic lock-downs or energy costs?

While the outlook for U.S. automakers is guardedly favorable, per Moody’s and Fitch, for not-for-profit health services operators it’s “unsustainable” and “deteriorating.”

Nonetheless, the parallels between the current state of worker sentiment in the U.S. auto manufacturing and healthcare services sectors are instructive. Auto and healthcare workers want job security and higher pay, believing their company executives and boards but corporate profit above their interests and all else. And polls suggest the public’s increasingly sympathetic to worker issues and strikes like the UAW more frequent.

Ultimately, the UAW dispute with the Big Three will be settled. Ultimately, both sides will make concessions. Ultimately, the automakers will pass on their concession costs to their customers while continuing their transitions to electric vehicles.

In health services, operators are unable to pass thru concession costs due to reimbursement constraints that, along with supply chain cost inflation, wipe out earnings and heighten labor tension.  

So, the immediate imperatives for healthcare services organizations seem clear as labor issues mount and economics erode:

  • Educate workers—all workers—is a priority. That includes industry trends and issues in sectors outside the organization’s current focus.
  • Define the future. In healthcare services, innovators will leverage technology and data to re-define including how health is defined, where it’s delivered and by whom. Investments in future-state scenario planning is urgently needed.
  • Address issues head-on: Forthrightness about issues like access, prices, executive compensation, affordability and more is essential to trustworthiness.  

Stay tuned to the UAW strike and consider fresh approaches to labor issues. It’s not a matter of if, but when.

PS: I drive an electric car—my step into the auto industry future state. It took me 9 hours last Thursday to drive 275 miles to my son’s wedding because the infrastructure to support timely battery charges in route was non-existent. Ironically, after one of three self-charges for which I paid more than equivalent gas, I was prompted to “add a tip”. So, the transition to electric vehicles seems certain, but it will be bumpy and workers will be impacted.

The future state for healthcare is equally frought with inadequate charging stations aka “systemness” but it’s inevitable those issues will be settled. And worker job security and labor costs will be significantly impacted in the process.

Lawmakers stress urgency of healthcare worker shortage

Posted on by • Posted in American Hospital Association (AHA), Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Labor Relations, Medicare Funding, Nurse Agency Staffing, Nurse Education, Nurse Staffing, Nurse Training, Nurse Travelers, Nurses Compensation, Nurses Shortage, Physician, Physician Residents, Physician Shortage, Physician Staffing, Physician Workforce • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/lawmakers-fixes-healthcare-workforce-shortages/642994/

Addressing the education pipeline is one thing that legislators could focus on to improve nurse and physician shortages, medical school and health system leaders said.

As the healthcare industry continues to face pandemic-driven workforce challenges, lawmakers are exploring ways to boost the number of clinicians practicing in the U.S.

“A shortage of healthcare personnel was a problem before the pandemic and now it has gotten worse,” Chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders I-Vt., said during a Thursday Senate HELP committee hearing. “Health care jobs have gotten more challenging and, in some cases, more dangerous,” he said.

The country faces a shortage of up to 124,000 physicians by 2034, including 48,000 primary care physicians, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Hospitals are currently facing shortages of registered nurses as burnout and other factors drive them to other roles. 

For example, 47-hospital system Ochsner Health in New Orleans has about 1,200 open nursing positions, Chief Academic Officer Leonardo Seoane said at Thursday’s hearing.

The workforce shortaged led Ochsner to close about 100 beds across its system during the past six months, leading to it use already-constrained emergency departments as holding bays for patients, he said.

Like other systems, labor costs have also been a concern due to a continued reliance on temporary staff to fill gaps. Ochsner’s non-agency labor costs grew just under 60% since 2019, while its costs for contract staff grew nearly 900%, he said.

“Our country is perilously short of nurses, and those we do have are often not working in the settings that could provide the most value,” Sarah Szanton, dean of Johns Hopkins School of Nursing said.

“This was true before the pandemic and has become more acute,” she said.

While many nurses left permanent roles for higher-paying contract positions during the pandemic, others have turned to jobs at outpatient clinics, coinciding with a shift toward non-hospital based care.

Registered nurse employment is nearly 5% above where it was in 2019, with nearly all that growth occurring outside of hospitals, Douglas Staiger, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College, found in his research and said at the hearing.

One major concern: Driving current and projected shortages in hospitals that lawmakers can address is the educational pipeline, medical school and health system leaders said.

Educational programs for nurses and physicians face site shortages and educators who are often allured by other higher-paying jobs in the industry.

Nursing educators in Vermont earn about $65,000 a year — about half of what nurses with similar degrees working in hospitals earn, Sanders said during the hearing. He asked members to consider expanding the Nurse Corps and nurse faculty loan repayments, among other programs.

Supporting partnerships between universities and hospitals to create more training opportunities is another way Congress can help, along with addressing high costs of tuition, James Herbert, president of University of New England, said during the hearing.

“Scholarship and loan repayment programs are critical to make healthcare education more accessible for those who would otherwise find it out of reach,” Herbert said.

That includes expanding and improving Medicare-funded physician residencies, he said.

Creating a more diverse workforce that looks more like the population it serves is another important task, and one lawmakers can address by supporting historically black colleges and universities.

Federal funding could help improve classrooms and other infrastructure at HBCUs “that have been egregiously are underfunded for decades,” in addition to expanding Medicare-funded residencies for hospitals that train a large number of graduates for HBCU medical schools, said James Hildreth Sr., president and CEO at Meharry Medical College in Nashville.

The American Hospital Association submitted a statement to the HELP subcommittee and said it also supports increasing the number of residency slots eligible for Medicare funds and rejecting cuts to curb long-term physician shortages.

Other AHA supported policies to address current and long-term workforce shortages include better funding for nursing schools and supporting expedited visas for foreign-trained nurses.

AHA also asked lawmakers to look into travel nurse staffing agencies, reviving requests it made last year alleging that staffing companies engaged in price gouging during the pandemic.

Last year some state lawmakers considered capping the rate hospitals can pay agencies for temporary nursing staff, though none ended up passing legislation to do so.

Kaiser’s 22.5% raises avert nurse strike

Posted on by • Posted in Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Kaiser Permanente, Labor Relations, Labor Shortages, Labor Spend Management, Labor Strike, Labor Union, Nurses Compensation, Nurses Union • Leave a comment
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hr/kaiser-s-22-5-raises-avert-nurse-strike.html?utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter

Members of the California Nurses Association have reached a tentative agreement with Kaiser Permanente, averting a planned two-day strike by more than 21,000 registered nurses and nurse practitioners in Northern California.

Both sides announced the tentative agreement Nov. 17.

Union members at Kaiser Northern California facilities have been in negotiations since June, according to a CNA news release. Registered nurses and nurse practitioners in Northern California were set to strike Nov. 21 and Nov. 22.

The four-year tentative deal boosts wages for Northern California nurses by 22.5 percent over the life of the contract, according to a statement Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser shared with Becker’s. Kaiser had previously proposed 21.25 percent in wage increases over four years.

“The tentative agreement is driven by the changing economy, including inflation, significant changes in the marketplace and our commitment to providing our employees with excellent pay and benefits to attract and retain the best nurses,” Kaiser’s statement says.

According to both sides, the tentative agreement also includes:       

  • An agreement to add more than 2,000 new registered nurse and nurse practitioner positions.   
  • Increased tuition reimbursement for nurses’ education.       
  • The creation of a new regional equity, diversity and inclusion committee.       
  • Language including agreement that healthcare is a human right.

“We are very pleased with this new contract, which will help us recruit new nurses and retain experienced RNs and nurse practitioners,” CNA President Cathy Kennedy, RN, said in a news release. “We not only won the biggest annual raises in 20 years, but we have also added more than 2,000 positions across our Northern California facilities. This will ensure safe staffing and better patient care.”

Ms. Kennedy also praised Kaiser’s commitment “to a workplace that is free from racism and discrimination” and the health system’s agreement “that we must fight racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare outcomes.”

“The tentative agreement honors our Northern California nurses with a market-based economic package that accounts for inflation, accelerates our investments in staffing, and addresses workplace safety, diversity and equity, remote work, and other key matters in a way that is sustainable and benefits our members and patients as well,” Kaiser’s statement reads.

Union members in Northern California will vote on approving the new four-year contract over the next few weeks. Registered nurses at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center also reached a tentative agreement and will vote on the deal Nov. 22.

Sutter Health: Nurses who staged 1-day strike must wait 5 days to return to work

Posted on by • Posted in Contract Negotiation, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Labor Relations, Labor Shortages, Labor Spend Management, Labor Strike, Labor Union, Labor Union Grievance, Nurse Morale, Nurse Staffing, Nurse Training, Nurses, Nurses Union, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Transparency • Leave a comment
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hr/sutter-health-nurses-who-staged-1-day-strike-must-wait-5-days-to-return-to-work.html?utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter

Sacramento-based Sutter Health said nurses who went on strike April 18 will not be allowed to return to work until the morning of April 23, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The strike affected nurses and healthcare workers at Sutter Health facilities in Northern California. The nurses are members of the California Nurses Association, and the other workers are members of the Caregivers and Healthcare Employees Union, an affiliate of the California Nurses Association.

More than 8,000 registered nurses and healthcare workers were expected to participate in the strike, according to an April 18 news release from the unions.

In a statement shared with Becker’s, Sutter Health said the organization conducted strike contingency planning, which included “securing staff to replace nurses who have chosen to strike, and those replacement contracts provide the assurance of five days of guaranteed staffing amid the uncertainty of a widespread work stoppage.” 

“As always, our top priority remains safe, high-quality patient care and nurses may be reinstated sooner based on operational and patient care needs,” the statement said.

The California Nurses Association described Sutter Health’s decision as retaliatory, as well as “completely unnecessary and vindictive.”

“Nurses who are regularly scheduled to work during this lockout period will lose those days of pay,” the union said in a statement shared with Becker’s. “We urge Sutter to respect the nurses’ strike and let all nurses return to work.”

Sutter Health workers authorized a strike in March, and union officials announced an official strike notice April 8. Union members cited lack of transparency about the stockpile of personal protective equipment supplies and contact tracing as a reason for the strike. They also said they seek a contract that will help retain experienced nurses and provide sufficient staffing and training.

Nurses have been in contract negotiations since June. 

More than 4K Stanford nurses vote to strike in California

Posted on by • Posted in Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Labor Organizing, Labor Relations, Labor Shortages, Labor Spend Management, Labor Strike, Labor Union, Labor Union Grievance, Nurse Agency Staffing, Nurse Morale, Nurse Overtime, Nurse Staffing, Nurse Travelers, Nurses, Nurses Compensation, Nurses Shortage, Nurses Union, Recruiting, Retention, Strike, Talent Acquisition Strategy, Talent Competition, Talent Imperative, Talent Management • Leave a comment
https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/stanford-packard-nurses-authorize-strike-pandemic-staffing/621896/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%20Weekly%20Roundup:%20Healthcare%20Dive:%20Daily%20Dive%2004-16-2022&utm_term=Healthcare%20Dive%20Weekender

UPDATE: April 14, 2022: Nurses will begin striking April 25 if they are unable to reach a deal with the system by then, according to a Wednesday statement from the union. The two sides have met with a federal mediator three times, and the strike would be open-ended.

Dive Brief:

  • Unionized nurses at Stanford hospitals in California voted in favor of authorizing a strike Thursday, meaning more than 4,500 nurses could walk off the job in a bid for better staffing, wages and mental health measures in new contracts.
  • Some 93% of nurses represented by the Committee for Recognition of Nursing Achievement voted in favor of the work stoppage, though the union did not set a date, according to a union release. It must give the hospitals 10 days notice before going on strike.
  • Nurses’ contracts expired March 31 and the union and hospital have engaged in more than 30 bargaining sessions over the past three months, including with a federal mediator, according to the union.

Dive Insight:

As the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened working conditions for nurses, some unions have made negotiating contracts a priority. Better staffing is key, along with higher wages and other benefits to help attract and retain employees amid ongoing shortages.

The California nurses’ demands in new contracts focus heavily on recruitment and retention of nursing staff “amid an industry-wide shortage and nurses being exhausted after working through the pandemic, many in short-staffed units,” the union said in the release.

They’re also asking for improved access to time off and more mental health support.

Nurses say their working conditions are becoming untenable and relying on travel staff and overtime shifts is not sustainable, according to the release.

The hospitals are taking precautionary steps to prepare for a potential strike and will resume negotiations with the union and a federal mediator Tuesday, according to a statement from Stanford.

But according to CRONA, nurses have filed significantly more assignment despite objections documents from 2020 to 2021 — forms that notify hospital supervisors of assignments nurses take despite personal objections around lacking resources, training or staff.

And a survey of CRONA nurses conducted in November 2021 founds that as many as 45% were considering quitting their jobs, according to the union.

That’s in line with other national surveys, including one from staffing firm Incredible Health released in March that found more than a third of nurses said they plan to leave their current jobs by the end of this year.

The CRONA nurses “readiness to strike demonstrates the urgency of the great professional and personal crisis they are facing and the solutions they are demanding from hospital executives,” the union said in the release.

No major strikes among healthcare workers have occurred so far this year, though several happened in 2021 and in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.

Companies ignoring employee demands will falter

Posted on by • Posted in Employee Appreciation, Employee Benefits, Employee Flexibility, Employee Raise, Employee Satisfaction, Employee Staffing Shortage, Labor Relations, Labor Shortages, Labor Spend Management, Recruiting, Retention, Talent Acquisition Strategy, Talent Competition, Talent Identification, Talent Imperative, Talent Management • Leave a comment
https://www.cfodive.com/news/companies-ignoring-employee-demands-will-falter-fink/617321/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202022-01-19%20CFO%20Dive%20%5Bissue:39201%5D&utm_term=CFO%20Dive

Dive Brief:

  • Companies that fail to adjust to labor shortages and satisfy the growing demands of workers will likely falter as they lose the battle for talent, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said in a letter to CEOs.
  • “No relationship has been changed more by the pandemic than the one between employers and employees,” Fink said, noting that “employees across the globe are looking for more from their employer — including more flexibility and more meaningful work.” Fink, while leading the world’s largest asset manager, has sought for a decade to influence corporate behavior through an annual CEO letter.
  • “As companies rebuild themselves coming out of the pandemic, CEOs face a profoundly different paradigm than we used to,” Fink said. Companies can no longer overlook employee mental health, insist that staff work in the office five days per week and provide modest wage increases for low- and middle-income workers.

Dive Insight:

CFOs considering an increase in prices and employee wages need to balance the imperative to sustain profits with pressures from the worst inflation and labor shortages in decades.

The persistence of COVID-19 has slowed the labor market’s post-lockdown recovery and churned up company payrolls. Fink noted that in November the quits rate, or the number of workers who left their jobs as a percent of total employment, rose to 3%, a record high first breached in September.

CFOs aiming to attract and retain employees with wage increases must take into account a 7% jump in the consumer price index (CPI) during the 12 months through December — the biggest surge since 1982.

“Workers demanding more from their employers is an essential feature of effective capitalism,” Fink said. Describing “a new world of work,” he said, “companies not adjusting to this new reality and responding to workers do so at their own peril.

“Turnover drives up expenses, drives down productivity and erodes culture and corporate memory,” Fink said. BlackRock manages more than $10 trillion in assets for institutional and retail investors.

In order to satisfy workers, CEOs must look beyond pay and workplace flexibility, Fink said. The coronavirus “shone a light on issues like racial equality, childcare and mental health — and revealed the gap between generational expectations at work.”

Fink also reiterated his support for “stakeholder capitalism,” saying that “a company must create value for and be valued by its full range of stakeholders in order to deliver long-term value for its shareholders.”

“Stakeholder capitalism is not about politics. It is not a social or ideological agenda. It is not ‘woke,’” he said. “It is capitalism driven by mutually beneficial relationships between you and the employees, customers, suppliers and communities your company relies on to prosper.”

Most stakeholders expect companies to help “decarbonize” the global economy, Fink said, predicting that so-called sustainable investment will surge well beyond the $4 trillion total.

BlackRock has asked companies to set short-, medium- and long-term targets for greenhouse gas reductions which “are critical to the long-term economic interests of your shareholders,” he said.

At the same time, “divesting from entire sectors — or simply passing carbon-intensive assets from public markets to private markets — will not get the world to net zero,” Fink said, adding that “BlackRock does not pursue divestment from oil and gas companies as a policy.”

Fink’s annual letter drew fire from environmentalists.

The letter “is just another rehashing of the same vague rhetoric, without any meaningful new commitment to actually help lead the necessary transition to a climate-safe future,” Ben Cushing, the Sierra Club’s fossil-free finance campaign manager, said in a statement.

Hospitals paying $24 billion more for labor during the COVID-19 pandemic

Posted on by • Posted in Employee Burnout, Employee Compensation, Employee Overtime, Employee Retention, Employee Satisfaction, Employee Staffing, Employee Staffing Shortage, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Labor Relations, Labor Shortages, Labor Spend Management, Labor Strike, Labor Temporary, Nurse Agency Staffing, Nurses Shortage, Pandemic • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/hospitals-paying-24-billion-more-labor-during-covid-19-pandemic

Clinical labor costs are up by an average of 8% per patient day, translating to $17 million in additional annual labor expenses.

As the delta variant pushes COVID-19 caseloads to all-time highs, hospitals and health systems across the country are paying $24 billion more per year for qualified clinical labor than they did pre-pandemic, according to a new PINC AI analysis from Premier.

Clinical labor costs are up by an average of 8% per patient day when compared to a pre-pandemic baseline period in 2019. For the average 500-bed facility, this translates to $17 million in additional annual labor expenses since the beginning of the public health emergency.

The data also shows that overtime hours are up 52% as of September. At the same time, the use of agency and temporary labor is up 132% for full-time and 131% for part-time workers. The use of contingency labor – positions created to complete a temporary project or work function – is up nearly 126%.

Overtime and the use of agency staff are the most expensive labor choices for hospitals – usually adding 50% or more to a typical employee’s hourly rate, Premier found.

And hospital workers aren’t just putting in more hours – they’re also working harder. The analysis shows that productivity, measured in worked hours per unit of departmental volume, increased by an average of 7% to 14% year-over-year across the intensive care, nursing and emergency department units, highlighting the significance of the increases in cost-per-hour.

Another complicating factor is that hospital employees are more exposed to COVID-19 than many other workers, with quarantines and recoveries requiring the use of sick time. The data shows that use of sick time, particularly among full-time employees (FTEs) in the intensive care unit, is up 50% for full-time clinical staff and more than 60% for part-time employees when compared with the pre-pandemic baseline.

WHAT’S THE IMPACT

The combined stressors of working more hours while under the constant threat of coronavirus exposure are pushing many hospital workers to the breaking point. In fact, the data shows clinical staff turnover is reaching record highs in key departments like emergency, ICU and nursing. 

Since the start of the pandemic, the annual rate of turnover across these departments has increased from 18% to 30%. This means nearly one-third of all employees in these departments are now turning over each year, which is almost double the rate from two years ago.

This is a number that could increase as new vaccination mandates take effect. Already, one Midwestern system reported a loss of 125 employees who chose not to be vaccinated, while a New York facility reported another 90 resignations. Overall, staffing agencies are predicting up to a 5% resignation rate once vaccine mandates kick in. 

While a minority of the overall workforce, losses of even a few employees during times of extreme stress can have a ripple effect on hospital operations and costs.

THE LARGER TREND

According to the American Hospital Association, hospitals nationwide will lose an estimated $54 billion in net income over the course of the year, even taking into account the $176 billion in federal CARES Act funding from last year. Added staffing costs were not addressed as part of CARES and are further eating into hospital finances. 

As a result, some are now predicting that more than half of all hospitals will have negative margins by the end of 2021 – a trend that could be dire for some community hospitals. 

Prior to the pandemic, about one quarter of hospitals had negative margins, the Kaufman Hall data showed. At the beginning of 2021, after almost a year of COVID-19, half of hospitals had negative margins.

Meanwhile, the most potentially disruptive forces facing hospitals and health systems in the next three years are provider burnout, disengagement and the resulting shortages among healthcare professionals, according to a March survey of 551 healthcare executives.