John Steinbeck would be proud. Rather than sitting down with their bosses to negotiate deeper cuts, nurses, technicians and other hospital workers in the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare system have taken on their employers, telling them, “No, you’re not broke, and we can prove it.”
John Steinbeck would be proud. Rather than sitting down with their bosses to negotiate deeper cuts, nurses, technicians and other hospital workers in the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare system have taken on their employers, telling them, “No, you’re not broke, and we can prove it.”
It’s a break with unions across the country, which have generally agreed to deep concessions in order to keep their jobs. “All these other unions have just been accepting these takeaways and bargaining over the extent of the concessions they’ve already conceded,” said Leighton Woodhouse, of the National Union of Healthcare Workers.
Yet while these workers are bearing the brunt of cuts, upper management is walking away with millions: Sam Downing, the outgoing CEO of Salinas Valley Memorial, is receiving a payout in excess of $4 million, most of it in “supplemental” pension, while the hospital is planning to lay off 100 employees. The hospital is now being audited by the state. Read more at Huffington Post and LA Times.
