On Monday, more than 2,000 St Vincent Mercy Health workers will go on strike if an agreement is not reached.
After months of negotiations, St. Vincent Mercy Health workers issued a strike notice for Monday at 4:30 p.m.
Ultimately St. Vincent workers are upset with their proposed healthcare coverage, a changing hospital environment and feel they are overworked.
"We have to have decent health care, we provide health care we should get health care in return,” said Denise Duffus, Technical Unit Chair representative.
Workers claim often times they are working too many hours and are on-call more often than they should be. Complaints also include, feeling uncomfortable work environment since it's change in global ownership. Additionally UAW leaders said the workers’ healthcare coverage is not what they consider to be an acceptable package.
“We can't get a decent healthcare plan for the people who administer health care all day long,” said Bruce Baumhower, President of UAW Local 12.
Mercy Health officials tell me they believe they have put a competitive proposal on the table. In the 56-negotiating sessions they have had, they still feel as if the UAW's message is unclear and constantly changing.
“We believe it was competitive for a number of reasons, one because we were assured by the UAW leadership that it was competitive. And two because we spent a lot of resources going out and surveying our community and our region,” said Vice President of Operations for Mercy Health Matt Sapara.
Since the strike was issued, Mercy Health officials say they have set up meetings with the UAW to try and seek solutions. They claim the UAW has cancelled those meetings, leaving them frustrated.
However, UAW leaders say they never walked away from any negotiations.
“We absolutely would continue the discussion If they have a solution by all means send to our negotiator. Let's figure this out before Monday at 4:30 p.m. We'd love to do that! We don't want a strike! That's not something anyone is interested in doing. However they dropped a 10-day strike notice on us and that forces us to start preparing for the reality that at Monday at 4:30 p.m.," said Sapara.
If the strike does happen, Mercy has a plan in place. Mercy Health has workers ready to come in to fill the gaps here at St. Vincent. Some of those workers will come from other Mercy facilities and some will be hired on. Mercy Health officials would not provide a specific number as to how many people they would hire.
If workers do strike, Mercy Health said they will not be punish those workers. They are welcome and encouraged to take their jobs back at any point.
“We have a plan for that, we are not closing our doors we are going to honor our commitment to this community. All of our team members are welcome to come back and take their job. We are optimistic that the vast majority will. But there will be no retribution from management if they choose to go on strike, but we welcome all of our team members bac,k” said Sapara.