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.

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.