CIR Contracts Stay Strong in Tough Times
The economic downturn dominates the headlines and is a source of concern across the country. But for safety-net hospitals, including most hospitals staffed by CIR resident physicians, the bad economy brings twice the trouble. More people are losing their health insurance when they lose their jobs and relying on public programs like Medicaid or joining the ranks of the uninsured. This means more people depending on our hospitals. At the same time, tax revenue is down at the state, county, and city level, causing governments to cut their budgets for health care precisely at the time when more people are using these services.
Throughout the year, CIR negotiating teams have struggled to keep hospital management from rolling introducing back our hard-earned contracts.With smart organizing and hard work, residents have delivered strong contracts in these tough economic times.
St. Vincent’s, New York
On August 23, 2009, housestaff at St. Vincent’s Catholic Medical Center in New York City voted unanimously to ratify their new contract. Highlights include 3% wage increases, an increased “living out” stipend, new medical education benefits, a patient care fund, and CIR supplementary health benefits.
St. Vincent’s is located in Greenwich Village in Manhattan and trains 345 house staff in 27 specialties and fellowships. The hospital recently emerged from bankruptcy and is planning an ambitious new facility that would be the largest new development in the historic district. But the hospital has been slowly selling off resident housing to move the project forward. “Hospital housing is one of the biggest attractors of residents to this program,” said Dr.Xavier Jimenez, a PGY 2 in Psychiatry. “Going into negotiations, we knew housing was going to be one of our top issues.”
CIR members won a variety of increases, including an improved housing stipend. The stipend, provided for residents in non-hospital housing, increased from $2,000 to $3,000 and will go up to $3,500 if the hospital closes another housing building.
Dr. Jay Mathur, a PGY 2 in Internal Medicine, said success was the result of the committee’s efforts to develop a better relationship with the hospital management. “We were firm on the issues that mattered most, but worked with the management and faculty to make the teaching program more competitive.” He also noted that negotiating committee members were relieved to make strong gains this year. “Given the economy, it’s pretty amazing.”
LAC+USC and Harbor-UCLA, California
California has been a state in crisis, with an astounding $20billion-plus deficit leading to painful cuts in MediCal, CHIP and other services. Nevertheless, around midnight on September 29, 2009, the bargaining team for LAC + USC Medical Center and Harbor-UCLA came to a tentative agreement with the County of Los Angeles on their 2009-2011 union contract. CIR leaders had bargained for seven sessions over key issues like health insurance, maternity leave, and preserving the salaries and bonuses in the 2006-2009 contract.On October 8, resident physicians at both hospitals voted unanimously to ratify the contract.
Resident leaders skillfully retained all the benefits from the previous contract despite a county-wide and state wide budget deficit, and other workers facing furlough days, paycuts, and layoffs. “We see this two-year contract as a major victory.
We fought hard to keep the salaries and all the benefits that we had from 2006-2009, including the intern bonus, primary care bonus, and patient care fund,” said Michael Core, a Harbor UCLA Family Medicine resident and CIR bargaining team member.
Although the economy is beginning to show some signs of improvement, the financial picture for hospitals will remain bleak for some time. However, as resident leaders in New York and Los Angeles have shown, hard work and a unified voice can make all the difference during tough negotiations.