HUNTINGTON — Dozens of faces poked from the windows on nearly every floor as a chanting river of purple-clad union supporters marched along 1st Avenue past St. Mary’s Medical Center.
As Service Employees International Union 1199 continues the push toward union recognition for St. Mary’s employees — waged until recently within the hospital walls — Monday’s demonstration signified the ongoing labor dispute had publicly arrived in Huntington.
SEIU, a Columbus, Ohio-based union that represents thousands of healthcare employees in West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky, has accused St. Mary’s leadership of coercing and intimidating employees against forming a union. A hospital spokesman countered after the rally that most of those involved in it were not hospital employees, and that the hospital already provides competitive wages and benefits to its workers.
SEIU President Becky Williams told supporters Monday the regional body stands behind local employee efforts to unionize and is not afraid of hospital officials.
Union reps contend the hospital spreads anti-union literature — including those promoting “Right to Work” measures, and personally holding one-on-one meetings with employees to sway them against unionizing.
“These workers are being harassed, they’re being intimidated,” said Joyce Gibson, SEUI division director for West Virginia, southern Ohio, and Kentucky. “They’re pulling workers off the floor for sometimes up to five times a day to tell them all the reasons why they don’t need a union.”
St. Mary’s issued a statement following the rally questioning how many of the roughly 200 purple shirts at the rally were filled by actual St. Mary’s workers.
“We think most of the people at today’s rally were not St. Mary’s Medical Center employees,” wrote Doug Korstanje, St. Mary’s vice president for marketing and community relations. “The event was an attempt by the [SEIU] to get employee attention and support for an election after four months of failed efforts.”
That election would be a yes-no vote among employees deciding whether or not to support a union.
“All we’re asking is that St. Mary’s management, [St. Mary’s president and CEO] Michael Sellards, or the new parent organization [between Cabell Huntington Hospital and St. Mary’s] recognize these workers and what they demand, which is to have good, union jobs and the ability to organize,” said Anthony Caldwell, SEIU spokesman.
Much of the recent energy surrounding unionizing efforts at St. Mary’s was sparked by the hospital’s recent acquisition by nearby Cabell Huntington Hospital, whose employees have had SEIU representation for 44 years. Though the two are now under one health system, their personnel matters are directed separately, and SEIU’s current contract only allows them to negotiate on behalf of Cabell Huntington employees. Cabell Huntington did not issue a statement Monday.
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Union supporters said a pay disparity exists between employees at Cabell Huntington and St. Mary’s that can be as much as $4 to $7 per hour lower at St. Mary’s employees in the same job as their Cabell Huntington counterparts, Gibson said.
Korstanje stated that St. Mary’s “provides market competitive wages and is among only 3 percent of employers in the nation that offer free health insurance to employee families.”
But it’s often expensive to ever use that free insurance, said Kevin Wilkes, who said he has been a St. Mary’s respiratory therapist of nearly 31 years, as he joined the march through Highlawn. Employee wages were actually higher than Cabell Huntington’s when he started long ago, he added, but that their benefits have declined over the past 15 years, and their pay didn’t keep up.
“We all work for the same company now, and yet they [St. Mary’s administration] are holding us to a lower standard for some reason,” Wilkes said.
The rally was a first for Dwayne Garner, who said he was a 28-year maintenance mechanic at St. Mary’s and had twice previously opposed unionizing with fellow St. Mary’s employees. But after seven years of frozen wages without any compensation packages, and a little soul-searching, Garner said he was ready for a change.
“Cabell [Huntington], they get really good representation by [SEIU] 1199 over there, and I think we could use that and could benefit from that,” Garner said.
Both Garner and Wilkes pointed to the last spring’s statewide teachers strike as inspiration, as well as the ongoing labor dispute at Special Metals, which was settled on Monday.
“It’s good to see that type of grass-roots activism take root again where we’ve been complacent for so long,” Wilkes said.
“We’ve lost thousands of union jobs, and that mirrors Huntington’s decline,” Garner added. “This is my hometown, and I believe the only way we’re ever going to bring this town back is to organize.”
No vote on unionization has been scheduled. The SEIU stated more demonstrations are likely in the coming months.
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