PROVIDENCE – Lifespan Corp. and United Nurses and Allied Professionals Local 5098 ended talks Tuesday afternoon without a resolution to their contract dispute, committing the hospital system to pay $11 million to bring in replacement workers at Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro Children’s Hospital for four days in response to the union’s three-day strike starting July 23.
Ray Sullivan, spokesman for the union, said the dispute, in part, is about nurses who have not had a cost of living increase in eight years.
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“Meanwhile, executives, some of whom are paid more than $2 million, are getting raises,” he said.
But it’s not just about wages, he said. Nurses are also not given the equipment and support they need to do their jobs.
“I’ve got nurses that are literally hiding IV machines on their floor because they don’t have enough to do their jobs,” Sullivan said, adding such problems are having an impact on patient care.
Christina O’Reilly, senior public relations officer with Lifepsan, said nurses are receiving annual increases. As for the question of available resources, “None of those sorts of resource questions have even arose at the negotiating table,” she said.
Lifespan’s contract with Michigan staffing firm Huffmaster is for a minimum of four days, O’Reilly said. Because of that, she said, the company will have to pay the replacement workers a fourth day, even though the strike will only last three days. She said Lifespan cannot pay both the striking workers and the replacement workers on the fourth day, meaning the striking workers will be barred from returning to work on the fourth day even though the strike will have ended.
Sullivan said the decision to lock UNAP workers out for a fourth day is a product of Lifespan’s decision to do business with Huffmaster, and amounts to a waste of $2.5 million.
“The relationship that Lifespan got into with Huffmaster is one of their own doing,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan also called the deadline to commit to paying Huffmaster $11 million to cover the strike arbitrary.
“It’s unconscionable,” Sullivan said. “The union won’t be bullied, and as of now, the strike is still on.”
O’Reilly said the company’s contract with Huffmaster required a commitment of $10 million by Tuesday to guarantee staff to replace striking workers by July 23. She said that guarantee is something the leadership at Lifespan takes seriously, given Rhode Island Hospital’s status as the state’s sole certified trauma center.
The financial commitment, which is required to move 1,000 medical professionals into the area to run the hospital and pay for their travel and lodging, is not negotiable.
“That is now set in stone and there is no turning back at this point,” O’Reilly said.
O’Reilly said she could not make a comparison between what is paid to the regular staff of Rhode Island Hospital and what Lifespan will pay to Huffmaster. She said although there are potentially more than 2,400 nurses, therapists, technologists and other allied health professionals at Rhode Island and Hasbro Children’s hospitals affected by the strike notice, not all of those people are full time or necessarily scheduled to work during the strike.
O’Reilly said that while Lifespan’s contract with Huffmaster is a common one among hospital systems in preparing for strikes, there has not been a strike at Rhode Island Hospital since 2000.
“This is a bullying and intimidation tactic being launched by wealthy Lifespan executives to force the union into accepting an unfair contract,” Sullivan said. “It’s important to remember that our union issued a notice to strike for three days, but Lifespan made an arrangement with scab provider Huffmaster, who won’t do the work for anything less than four days. So, as a result, Lifespan is proactively choosing to lock out hardworking nurses and caregivers for a fourth day in order to put $2.5 million in Huffmaster’s deep pockets.”
Rob Borkowski is PBN staff writer. Email him at Borkowski@PBN.com.
