Rhode Island Hospital employs almost 6,000 people, but all jobs are not equal. For every doctor making six figures, and every nurse making, on average, $56,000 a year, there are numerous laundry workers, cafeteria workers and janitors earning $10.30 an hour.
About one in five Lifespan employees has an “entry-level” position, according to Brandon Melton, senior vice president for human resources, and 24 percent of those workers are people of color – compared with 7 percent of the professional staff and 5 percent of management.
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And when the United Nurses and Allied Health Professionals (UNAP), which represents about one-quarter of Rhode Island Hospital employees, was first organized 11 years ago, director Rick Brooks noticed something else: “Out of the 1,900 members, fewer than 100 lived in Providence.”
That, Poverty Institute economist Ellen Frank would tell you, is not uncommon. In fact, it’s typical of the health care industry and many other sectors of the Rhode Island economy. Without intervention, she says, it polarizes the work force into haves and have-nots, with no way for the latter to advance into a better position.
A new collaboration between Lifespan and UNAP, however, is aiming to change that. Last year, as part of union contract negotiations, the two created a new UNAP/Rhode Island Hospital Education Fund, a nonprofit trust dedicated to helping workers at all levels to advance their careers through job training and continuing education.
The trust, which began operating this spring with $75,000 from Lifespan and some private-sector grant commitments (Lifespan has also pledged to match up to $100,000 in grants for each of the next two years), has just hired a director, but it’s not starting in a vacuum.
Lifespan already has an in-house Learning Institute and has set up a Foundation Skills Center to teach employees basic skills, from math, to computer use, to English as a second language. With the Teamsters, the company also sponsors a GED completion program. And Lifespan pays up to $2,500 per year for workers’ continuing education.
Now, through the trust, the hospital is offering educational programs for nurses and other professionals who need to earn credits to keep their licenses. Next on the agenda are efforts to develop “career ladders” for low-level workers to advance. You can become a nurse with as little as two years’ college education, Brooks and Melton noted, and the jump in pay is considered huge. The same applies to radiology technicians, who start at $40,000 a year, Melton said.
“And that’s where our labor shortages are, in technical and professional jobs,” Melton said. “We have plenty of applicants for service positions.”
Both Brooks and Melton described the effort as a “win, win, win.”
“Typically job training programs train people for jobs that are close to the entry level.
They don’t train people to get out of the entry level,” Brooks said. “That’s what we’re trying to do, because these are the kinds of jobs that can really make an impact on people’s lives and on their communities.”
Melton said Lifespan is committed to the program “because it’s the right thing to do,” but also because “it’s in our best interest. If we help someone go from $22,000 to $45,000 a year, how committed, how loyal will they be to us? There’s no way they will leave.”
