New Contract Wins Hefty Raises for Low-Paid Johns Hopkins Workers
Sunday, July 13, 2014(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
Some 2,000 low-paid
workers –
janitors, maintenance workers and technical workers – at one of the nation's
leading university hospital systems, Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, will be in
line for hefty raises under a new contract reached July 8. Workers
overwhelmingly approved the pact on July 10-11. The workers, represented by
Service Employees 1199 United Healthcare
Workers East, achieved wages of $15 an hour – the nationwide demand of
low-wage
workers for a living wage – for 20-year veteran workers next year, and $14.50
an hour for 15-year veterans. Hopkins workers now make so little that 70
percent qualify for food stamps, SEIU said. “This is an important victory for
patients and workers all across Baltimore,” said John Reid, executive vice
president of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East for Maryland/
DC. “Johns
Hopkins Hospital sets the standard for healthcare in our city and that standard
has just been raised.” The union and university officials achieved the pact
after marathon bargaining sessions in the first week of July. Those
sessions were prompted when Gov. Martin O'Malley, D-Md., stepped in and stopped
a planned 4-day strike in late June. The workers previously struck for
three days, with advance notice, earlier in April. Law requires
advance notice of planned strikes by health care workers, and permits
government intervention. And a huge downtown rally in May
taught area residents about the Hopkins' workers poverty wages and need for
food stamps. “For almost four months, we've been in talks with Hopkins
management for a contract that would end poverty pay at our world-renowned
hospital,” worker Yvonne Brown explained in a recent op-ed in the city's
dominant daily, the Baltimore Sun. "But the hospital's
latest offer would still leave many of Hopkins' service, maintenance and
technical workers relying on food stamps, Medicaid and other government aid to
get by.” “I've worked at Hopkins for 19 years, and I make just $12.97 an
hour,”
just above the poverty and food stamp line, Brown noted. She also
pointed out that hospital President Ronald Peterson earned $14.5 million in
total compensation last year, while heading what is supposedly a non-profit
hospital system. Petersen's pay alone would have been enough – if
it
was split up – to give each of the 2,000 workers the raise they sought, Brown
said. Highlights of the agreement include: Total raises as high as 38
percent for long-time, low-paid Hopkins workers, a boost of as much as $4.30 an
hour over the life of the contract. Base pay for all current workers,
regardless of service, of $13 hourly by 2018: Across-the-board
raises of at least 2% every year, plus an 0.5% bonus in the contract's first
year, and a 2.75% raise in 2017. The two sides agreed
to establish
a committee to review market rates for surgical techs, pharmacy techs and other
workers whose pay is under market.
- PAI News Service