Union, Hospital in Tentative Agreement

Local union-member hospital caregivers and hospital officials reached a tentative agreement after the union canceled a one-day strike last week to re-enter negotiations, the union announced. Local members of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, or SEIU-UHW, had planned to hold a strike on Friday at all five Hospital Corporation of America, or HCA, hospitals in California. However, the hospital instead chose to continue talks with the hospitals’ officials using a federal mediator. Included in the five HCA hospitals are West Hills Hospital & Medical Center and Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks. The union’s bargaining committee is recommending its members vote in favor of the tentative agreement, which was reached on Saturday. The tentative agreement guarantees raises of 2 percent each year for four years, protects employer-paid health care and allows for career advancement and reimbursement, the union said. Additional raises to bring employees up to current wage scale would vary by hospital and would range between 6 percent and 22 percent per year over four years. Beverly Gilmore, President and CEO of West Hills Hospital & Medical Center, said she thinks having a federal mediator helped move the process forward. “The mediator was very helpful in getting both parties back to the table,” Gilmore said. “We hope that the employees will vote for ratification and we’ll have a contract that we’re all pleased about that covers our employees over the four years of the life of the contract.”