Gatherings to Help Move Negotiations Forward

Join us to show your support, get a quick update about what's going on in negotiations and hear (or sing along!) a couple songs with special SHARE contract negotiations lyrics! Come make your voice heard in support of the SHARE Negotiating Team.

We are negotiating about raises and you can read more here.

Thursday, November 3 - 67 Millbrook, outside by the picnic tables
Friday, November 4 - Memorial amphitheater across from the cafeteria
Wednesday, November 9 - University, Old Medical School Lobby, by the book store
Thursday, November 10 - 306 Belmont, location TBA

All gatherings are short: 12:15-12:30. Don't be late or you'll miss it!

Questions? Call the SHARE office at 508-929-4020.

See you there!

SHARE Negotiations Update: Still Negotiating about Raises

SHARE and UMass Memorial have not yet reached a contract agreement. The biggest remaining issue is raises. SHARE will continue negotiating until we can agree on better numbers. 

What a Good Raise Means for SHARE Members

In the last few weeks, the SHARE Negotiating Team has talked with lots of SHARE members about raises, at lunchtime information meetings and in one-to-one conversations. Here’s a summary of what we are hearing:

• SHARE Members are Working Harder than Ever: “Do more with less” – we hear it all the time. Many SHARE members feel we’ve never worked harder in our lives than we are working right now. Slim staffing is the rule, not the exception. Some work systems require you to be a hero every day just to do a good job. Given how hard we are working, SHARE members feel our hard work should be recognized with good, solid raises.
• Equity: When thinking about raises for SHARE folks, management needs to understand the impact of percentage raises for lower paid employees. For example, a 2% raise for the median SHARE member would add $19, before taxes, to each weekly paycheck if they work full time. For SHARE members who make less, that number would be as low as $12 per week, lowering their post-tax raise to single digits. Other unions have robust step raises in addition to their cost-of-living adjustments, moving people through their grade to max. Of course, SHARE members have families to care for, kids who want to go to college, and retirement to save for, just like our higher paid co-workers.
• Raises are Recognition of our Value: In our current workplace culture, raises are a short-hand for the amount of respect a person or group receives. Many SHARE members, though certainly not all, feel their hard work is not appreciated by department leaders.  Our raise is a message from the hospital about whether our work matters.

Management’s Perspective: Financial Challenges in 2017

Our discussions with UMass Memorial management in negotiations about raises have been respectful. Management has made it clear that they are cautious about raises because of their concern about the hospitals’ finances in the coming year, and because they believe that SHARE members are already paid better than market rates.

• Reimbursement rate cuts: UMass Memorial senior management recently announced that the non-union staff are getting a 2% bonus for fiscal year 2017, with no raise to their base salaries for now. The memo that described the bonus talks about the financial challenges of about $20 million in Medicaid cuts announced in August by the Baker administration. FY17 will also see cuts to Medicare reimbursements.
• Epic: UMass Memorial is scheduled to pay $60 million for the Epic software system in FY17. Our hospitals have a huge amount riding on the new Epic system – not just the money. SHARE members often talk about how difficult the current collection of computer systems makes our jobs. We all hope that Epic will make many people’s jobs easier.
• The “market:” UMass Memorial says that SHARE members are paid more than employees who work for other hospitals. We know that SHARE members are not at the bottom of the local healthcare salary market. SHARE has worked hard over the last 19 years to bring these jobs – PCAs, secretaries, techs, billers, etc. – into the middle class. This is honorable work, and increasingly hard work – and work that our hospitals can’t function without. We deserve to be able to achieve middle class aspirations, like buying a modest house, and sending our kids to college.

Value Add: Raises and How SHARE Can Contribute to Improving Quality

SHARE is offering to partner with UMass Memorial on the hospitals’ priorities of quality and employee engagement. This commitment from the SHARE leaders and members cannot be paired with the lowest raises SHARE members have ever gotten. The current raise structure for SHARE members should be retained, so that SHARE members both keep up with inflation and get credit at least equal to new hires for our years of experience.

• Unit-Based Teams: Many SHARE members want to be deeply involved in fixing problems in our departments – both to improve care, and to make our jobs easier and more rewarding. The SHARE Negotiating Team has proposed unit-based teams (UBTs) as a way to make Dr. Dickson’s motto of “Best Place to Give Care, Best Place to Get Care” become a reality. Our model is the Kaiser Permanente Labor Management Partnership and their UBTs. 

Unit-based Teams have improved the day-to-day experience of the union members at Kaiser. Kaiser management has found that the return on investment from the employees’ participation is so great that they are committing more and more resources to the Partnership’s work. 

We believe that UMass Memorial can’t achieve the quality of care to which senior leadership aspires without the full participation of SHARE members. The “value add” is substantial. 

• Lobbying against Medicaid cuts: We understand that reimbursement rates have a big effect on the hospitals’ budget. SHARE has offered to help with lobbying about Medicaid funding cuts. We all want UMass Memorial to get reimbursed as much as possible for the care we provide.

Looking Forward

We are confident that SHARE and UMass Memorial will find a mutually agreeable settlement to the raises question. However, we cannot predict how long that will take. We will negotiate for our raise to be retroactive to October 1^st, unless we can negotiate a different solution that is better for SHARE members.

We know that this period of waiting and not knowing can be stressful for SHARE members. The SHARE Negotiating Team will continue to inform you about what’s happening at the bargaining table, and to listen carefully to what you think about it. Thanks to everyone for paying attention, reading the SHARE blog, making time to talk face-to-face, and coming to meetings and events. We may need your help to move this forward – we’ll be in touch.

Signed,

The SHARE Negotiating Team

Sandy Alafberg, Billing Nancy Bickford, West 3 Sheldon Brown, Accounts Receivable LeDean Buzzell, Pediatrics Administration Debbie Clark, Admissions Unit Kirk Davis, SHARE Debbie Engvall, SHARE Will Erickson, SHARE Kathy Girouard, Cardiac Cath Lab Jay Hagan, Cat Scan

Carol Hehir, SHARE Jana Hollingsworth, SHARE Deb Largesse, SHARE Bobbi-Jo Lewis, SHARE Larry Madden, Central Scheduling Joel Masley, Respiratory Therapy Sharon Pichierri, Orthopedics Clinic Maddy Popkin, SHARE Elisabeth Szanto, SHARE Janet Wilder, SHARE

SHARE Encourages You to Complete Caregiver Engagement Survey

Please fill out the survey! SHARE wants you to participate in the first system-wide engagement survey at UMass Memorial. This round of surveys builds upon data collected over the past few years, which targeted select areas of the hospital. Your manager will share results for your work area and will work with your team to figure out what aspects of your experience that you’d most like to improve, and how you will do it.

SHARE leaders will also receive the results, and intends to work with hospital leadership to understand what they say about SHARE members' experiences at work. We will compare the results to those of our own recent surveys, involving members to make sense of the data, and use the results to line up improvements that will benefit SHARE members in at work. The more SHARE members fill out the survey, the more useful the results will be.

The survey process is conducted by an outside agency, Press Ganey. You should have gotten get an email from them on October 17, with a link to the survey. You’ll also receive reminder emails that contain the link, in case you deleted the initial email. The survey is confidential, and is designed and administered in ways that ensure participants remain anonymous. In the past, SHARE has heard worries from members about survey confidentiality, but SHARE members have not reported problems with the agency that administered the previous smaller waves of engagement surveys here, Avatar Solutions (which has since been bought by Press Ganey). 

The survey shouldn't take much more than ten minutes, and you are encouraged to do it on work time. Thank you for participating, and helping to create a more complete and accurate overview about the experience of employees at UMass Memorial.

MyHealth Matters . . . It’s Not Too Late to Get $300!

My Health Matters is the UMass Memorial Health Care employee wellness program designed to reward you for taking care of yourself. If you haven’t yet enrolled, it’s not too late. But you have to act quickly.

When you participate in myHealth Matters activities throughout the program year, you earn points. If you earn 1000 points by October 31st, you qualify for a $300 Wellness Reimbursement Account deposit and entry into drawings for prizes.

You can use the program to track your progress--and earn those points--with challenges you select for yourself. Set goals to improve your energy level, nutrition, stress-management, self-knowledge, concern for others, and more.

And, as Jay Hagan, Memorial campus CT Technologist points out, "If you enroll, you can't lose. It's free money. Most of the things you get points for are things you're already doing."

Here's a hot tip to get you started: if you got your flu shot last year, you've already earned 250 points. There are many ways to grow your point-total quickly. You can rack up points if you record that you've gotten your annual physical, or signed up for a walking event, or gotten a dental cleaning, or completed your self-assessment online.

One more tip for everyone participating: the odds are pretty good to win one of the Amazon.com gift cards at the higher levels, so remember to log all of your activities before the drawing.

To login, learn more, sign up for challenges, or download the app for your phone, visit the myHealth Matters website.

Contract Negotiations Update: Getting Close

The good news is that SHARE and UMass Memorial have finished, or mostly finished, the vast majority of issues that we have been discussing. Now we are talking about raises and a couple other tough issues.

As we described here, most of the side tables in our Interest Based Bargaining negotiations have reported out how they propose to resolve their issue to the main negotiating table. Many of the tables were able to come up with proposals that both union and management are satisfied with. In some cases, they were able to propose something that both sides are excited about -- such as the side table talking about unit-based teams.

Raises, plus any other issue that costs money, are usually the last topic that gets resolved in negotiations. Right now, from SHARE's point of view, the numbers that management is thinking about are too low, so we have to keep working on it. From management's point of view, there are big financial challenges coming in 2017:

• Possible Medicaid cuts of $20-25 million

• Medicare cuts of $16 million for UMass Memorial, for taking care of the same number of patients

SHARE and UMass Memorial are meeting to negotiate next week. We are hopeful that we can find agreement about raises soon.

Of course, when we do come to an agreement, you will be the first to know!

2100 Signatures, Poster Power, and Negotiations

Our negotiations updates wouldn’t be complete if they didn’t touch on the fantastic success of the SHARE 2016 Signature Poster. We had a great time celebrating at the “Post Your Poster” events, and it’s exciting to see the large posters hanging in departments throughout the system, and the smaller versions hanging in work spaces all over. (If you’d like to print a small version, click

here

.)

SHARE members signed onto the goals of our 2016 contract negotiations: To improve the day-to-day experience of SHARE members at work.

Through individual conversations, and many information meetings, SHARE organizers, Negotiating Team, and Reps worked hard to talk with every member. This gives the SHARE negotiators the experiences, opinions and support of hundreds of members to draw on as we talk with management negotiators. The poster now stands as a beautiful visual representation of that collective knowledge and support.

This isn’t the first time that SHARE has created a signature poster at negotiations-time. It’s always an inspiring moment to unveil the many names of our members alongside one another. The SHARE 2016 Signature Poster is bigger than ever: 2100 SHARE members! That's 80% of the employees currently in SHARE.

The poster is an impressive gift that SHARE members give to one another to show that we are standing together. We also delivered posters to the individuals on the management negotiating team, as a clear indication that SHARE members support the priorities that the SHARE Negotiating Team is bringing to the table.

Management's Response Reflects our Changing Relationship

Perhaps because we’re using a model of Interest-Based Bargaining in Negotiations, we found that members of the management team welcomed the posters, and were happy to have them hanging in their departments. 

In our negotiations, there’s broad agreement around the idea that employees need to be directly involved in improving our hospital, and welcomed into important decision-making processes. Although we’ve still got lots of work to do to make those ideas a reality, we take the enthusiasm around our poster as a meaningful sign of things to come.

Also different this time around: SHARE is now on Facebook! Connect with us there, where the poster serves as the backdrop for smiling SHARE faces, and share your support for your union on your own social media profiles. Check out the SHARE Facebook page

SHARE Hospital 2016 Negotiations

.

EVERYBODY Must Re-Enroll for Benefits

Big news for this fall's open enrollment for benefits: Everybody has to re-enroll or they won't have benefits for 2017. And you have to re-enroll on-line.

Open Enrollment Period: October 31, 2016 - November 18, 2016

UMass Memorial is starting a new on-line system they're calling MyBenefits. The good news is that you can access the system from anywhere you have a computer with internet access. The challenge will be for people who don't have easy access to a computer, so plan ahead.

Here's what UMass Memorial is saying:

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

• Everyone must complete enrollment online during open enrollment: Monday, October 31 through Friday, November 18. Enroll online by November 18 or you will not have benefits coverage in 2017.
  
  
• Your current elections will not carry over automatically into the new system, requiring you to make your plan selections for benefits coverage, and enter your dependents and beneficiaries.
  
  
• Make sure you have your dependent and beneficiary information before you enroll:
  
  • Dependent information – dates of birth and Social Security numbers
    
  • Beneficiary information – full names, addresses, dates of birth and relationships to you; if you have a trust or organization as a beneficiary, you will need the organization’s legal name and address.
    
    
• Prior to open enrollment, you will receive the 2017 Benefits Guide which details important plan information and rates. Please review the guide prior to making your online elections. 
  

Contract Negotiations: Weeks 8-10

Things are moving. As groups continue to present to the main table, we're finding that the side-table structure we developed for this negotiations has moved a lot of ideas forward, relatively quickly.

Most commonly, these joint union-management groups have reached a consensus that the participants feel good about. Often those involved have been surprised to have crafted options that they couldn’t have foreseen. We have uncovered a lot of overlapping interests as we compare perspectives.

Of course, the details get complicated. Some side tables have worked to develop promising options, only to realize that, for one reason or another, they turned out to be unfeasible.

Predictably, not all of the issues have resolved quickly, in spite of long hours and thoughtful work. Some recognize that they are unlikely to reach consensus around a single option, and have instead presented to the main table multiple ideas, some of which better represent the interests of one side, and others which represent the other.

Side-Table and Follow-Up Groups have reconvened with the Main Table to present interests and options around the following subjects:

• Unit-Based Teams and Culture
• Inpatient PCA Staffing Levels
• Career Development
• Process for Job Postings
• Call-Back and Sleep Policies
• Peer-Slotted Scales
• Pension Floor
• Leaves of Absence
• Absenteeism
• Cross-Campus Floating
• Discipline
• Work Security
• Documenting Department Policies
• A new vision for the relationship between managers & front-line members
• Staffing
• Wages

In any negotiations, “money issues” (including raises.) tend to get resolved at the very end, when the larger picture is more clear, and the costs better defined. We continue to work at those issues, and on those issues where our perspectives remain far from one another.

Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, the professor from Brandeis who coached both teams on Interest Based Bargaining methods, recently returned from a commitment in Australia. SHARE and hospital management asked him to resume his role as a neutral facilitator as we work to reach an overarching agreement.

Negotiations Update: Contract Extended Through October 21st

You may have noticed that our current contract agreement with UMass Memorial is set to expire on this day. Both sides are still working to define the complete new agreement, and we're consistently moving things forward.

During today's negotiation session, both sides agreed to extend the current contract to allow for more of that work. Anyone in SHARE who's been around for a negotiations before will remember that we've extended our contract like this more often than not.

This extension runs through October 21st. We'll have a more thorough update about where we're at with negotiations on this blog very soon. More to come . . .

SHARE and UMass Memorial Contract Negotiations: Weeks 6 & 7

A quick update! Our SHARE Negotiating Team is hard at work. We've doubled up the number of days we're meeting with management each week. We hope to see you at one of next week's Post Your Poster events, and are excited to talk with you about what's happening.

Since our last post, we've met around the main negotiating table three days. In addition to those sessions, members of the negotiating teams have done related work in Follow-Up-Groups, Side Tables, and other meetings.

The main table has now begun discussing Work Security and Raises. We are not yet talking about dollar amounts or percentages at this point, but exchanging interests. We're making very clear to the management negotiating team that we're committed to developing new processes for making our hospital run better . . . but that the cost of those projects cannot be at the expense of good raises, that a financial commitment to each SHARE member is an essential show of confidence and sign of respect as we continue to talk about partnership.

Most recently, the main table discussed proposed ideas and options from the "Documenting Department Policies" Follow-Up-Group. And we had an introductory presentation from members of the "Teams and Culture" Side Table, in which they introduced the concept of the Unit Based Team (or UBT) as it exists at the Kaiser Permanente hospitals, and proposed some ideas about how UBT's might function at our hospital. For a look at UBT's in action, here's a three-minute video that we all watched:

Next week we'll be talking more about UBT's, and more. Stay tuned! See you at Post Your Poster!

*Post Your Poster* Events

We’re very excited to unveil the new poster that displays our signatures and statement of priorities. It is a beautiful thing. Thank you for making it happen! Please stop by at one of the following Post Your Poster events with your friends and co-workers and pick up a copy for your department.

SHARE 2016 Post Your Poster Distribution Locations and Times ❤ Sept 19 (Mon) – 11:30-1:30 Memorial Campus, Memorial 1 Conference Room Sept 20 (Tues) –  7:30-9:00 WBC, 5th Floor Sept 20 (Tues) – 11:30-1:30 University Campus,                                                old front entrance hallway by the Prescription Center Sept 22 (Thurs) – 11:30-1:30 Hahnemann Campus, 2nd floor conference room (We are booking a room at 306 Belmont as we speak.)

Before it shipped out for printing, 2,100 SHARE members signed on to this show of support. That’s 80% of the SHARE-eligible employees in our hospital’s largest union.

At each poster event listed above, we’ll have a large 2’ x 3’ poster that you and your co-workers can bring back to your department and hang proudly.

We’d love to see everyone who can make it! Take your picture with your co-workers. And show your support by posting your poster on Facebook, Twitter, and your favorite social media websites.

LEARN MORE

Of course, we’ll talk in more detail at the Post Your Poster events, and answer your questions. Our negotiating team is working hard and fast on a wide range of interweaving issues. There’s still a lot to do, but we’re optimistic about making new, meaningful improvements in our workplace soon, and eager to talk with you about what’s happening around the negotiating table.

We’ll continue posting updates regularly here on the SHARE blog. (Lately, we’ve been negotiating more frequently and posting less. Most recently at the table, we discussed Unit Based Teams, and will post about all of this and more very soon.)

THANK YOU

Thank you for supporting our negotiating team, our hospital, and our ambitious efforts to improve the day-to-day at UMass Memorial, both for employees and for patients.

SHARE and UMass Memorial Contract Negotiations: Week 5, Discipline

In a NUTSHELL

Wednesday, August 31st marked the SHARE Negotiating Team's fifth all-day contract negotiations session UMass Memorial.

We talked about the disciplinary process, and the problem-solving process. (The disciplinary steps are listed in the contract -- most people call it "being written up." They start with counseling, and go up to termination. The problem solving process is the steps that Human Resources and SHARE use to discuss and agree or disagree about the level of discipline that a SHARE member gets if their manager or the hospital thinks they did something wrong.)

In addition, members of the Peer-Slotted Scales side table reported back to the main table about options that could create more equity and clarity among the mostly techs job titles that are peer-slotted.

For more detail about this week's session, please read on.

DISCIPLINE

SHARE and management both wanted to talk about how to improve the disciplinary process. Management wanted to talk about timelines, and making sure the process keeps moving.

SHARE wants to bring some of the ideas from lean organizations to how we use discipline:

• Mistakes should be viewed as an opportunity to improve.

• Moving away from a "culture of shame and blame" and focusing more on fixing the systems that make it easy to make mistakes.

SHARE and UMass Memorial don't always agree about how much discipline a SHARE member should get. However, we find that we do have interests in common:

• Respect for SHARE members -- We talked about how to treat SHARE members whose performance or behavior is the subject of a disciplinary meeting.

• Interest-Based Processes -- We choose to try to resolve the problem and help the SHARE member and manager move forward, rather than to emphasize an adversarial approach.

• Keeping discipline as local and informal as possible, to help supervisors and SHARE employees resolve issues before they grow and get worse.

• Transparency and good communication between Human Resources and SHARE, especially when we disagree.

• Balancing the need for consistency in discipline with the flexibility to recognize the uniqueness of each person and each situation.

September Negotiations

SHARE and UMass Memorial both want to finish by the expiration of our contract, September 30th. (Of course, making sure the right things are in the contract is more important to SHARE than finishing on time!) We've agreed to add several more days of negotiations in September to try to meet our timeline.

Interviewer in the Spotlight: Laurie Lynch

by Kirk Davis, SHARE Staff Organizer

Laurie Lynch is relentlessly curious. She is best known to SHARE blog readers as the architect and interviewer behind the “Member in the Spotlight” series on the SHARE-UMMS blog. We consistently seek ways to make work feel like a more fun and respectful place, and Laurie Lynch had one particularly focused vision for making that happen.

Each month for six months, Laurie gave us a portrait of a SHARE member at UMMS. You could call it fifteen minutes of local fame. But Laurie’s aim was something bigger, something more meaningful.

When she conducted an interview, Laurie’s questions went here to there and back again. They were icebreakers. They were mundane. They were lofty. They were weird. The questions stabbed from odd angles into a person’s personality. The results were always surprising. And in the end, the interviews weren’t exactly about employees of UMass Medical School, they were beautiful glimpses into the complex lives of people with whom we cross paths every day.

Turning the Spotlight on the Interviewer

We intend to continue in the tradition, using Laurie’s example as a way to further develop our community. Along those lines, now that Laurie has moved on to a “new” career (one which she adored for over a decade, before the facility shut down), we’ll shine the spotlight up through the dust trail she’s left behind her (she’s always on the move) as a way of saying thank you to her for her excellent work on the SHARE organizing staff.

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree

Laurie’s from Earth. But, if you push her further on that question, she’ll tell you she’s grew up in North Attleboro, Massachusetts. With three siblings, a wonderful father, and a mother who was and still is an absolute animal lover. There, when she was ten, she met her future husband; they began dating when she was twelve. They eventually married. By the time she was nineteen, they owned their first home in Douglas, where they still live together to this day with their polite and amazing thirteen and fourteen year-old sons.  

Along the way, Laurie picked up a degree in Animal Science from Becker College, and one in Psychology from Bay Path University. Laurie Lynch is constantly fostering dogs, cats, and, from what I can tell, helping entire populations of displaced pets to find new homes. She has traveled around the US, attending all sorts of animal-trainings and conferences, learning how to help continue to aid and improve the lives of animals in research.

Laurie the Shoeless Organizer

Laurie worked as a SHARE staff organizer, brilliantly if briefly, over the past year, mostly with the UMass Medical School side of our union. Early in her work with SHARE, she went “organizing” with another member of the SHARE staff, Andrea Caceres. They went to stop in on a number of SHARE members that day, providing updates about SHARE events, answering questions, and generally keeping in touch with members.

At that point, Laurie didn’t know many members. But she’s a good listener, good-humored and a good sport. Although she was determined to be a dutiful work partner to Andrea, *snap!*, Laurie’s sandals gave up before she did.

And then, somehow, Laurie found herself being convinced by Andrea that they needed to continue through the halls until they had reached everyone they were looking for. So, they made a quick stop in the University Bookstore. When they emerged, Laurie’s feet were shod in a new pair of fluorescent socks. Of course, Laurie wondered if that might not seem a little weird, but when Andrea told her to just keep looking up, nobody would notice, Laurie didn’t flinch, and bravely padded along in her new job.

Laurie Now

Laurie has since returned to a career in Animal Behavioral Research, a track she began with a series of positions at Harvard University. While Laurie was working at SHARE, a Principal Investigator from Brown University approached her and offered her a job she couldn’t refuse, managing his animal lab. She’s back to playing with monkeys all day, trying to figure out how to make them happiest, and learning along the way about animal and human behavior, neuroengineering, optogenetics, and groundbreaking scientific discovery. We miss her here, but we’re very excited that she’s back to doing what she loves; research and caring for primates and all the other wonderful animals in her lab.

20 Fun Facts about Laurie Lynch

• Favorite color – Blue
• Favorite season – Fall
• Beach or woods – Woods
• The first thing you think of when you hear the word “chocolate?” - Nay
• What was your worst kitchen disaster? Hmmmmm, well it might not be the kind of kitchen disaster you were looking for, but it happened in my childhood kitchen. My older brother convinced me it would be a good idea to play with matches when I was about 6 or 7. Long story short… the trash light on fire in the kitchen, which caught the curtains on fires, which lead to the wall, etc. It was very early in the morning, my dad was at work and my mom was sleeping. Once my brother finally realized it was out of control, he let me go wake my mother who was able to put most out before the fire department arrived and finished the job for her.
• Do you have any pets (ha ha!) – 2 adopted dogs and 2 adopted ferrets and most of the time a foster dog in search of their forever home.
• If you could keep any kind of pet (ethically and responsibly, of course), what would it be? A horse. I’ve always wanted a horse, just don’t have the time, space and money a horse requires.
• Dream vacation – Anywhere, as long as my husband and kids are there and we are all safe and happy
• Favorite style of music – Depends on my mood
• Do you untie your shoes when you take them off –  No
• Gift you have given others most often – Probably framed photographs
• Favorite day of the week – Saturday… day most often spent with family and friends
• T.V. shows you secretly enjoy – Teen Mom
• What's your biggest pet peeve – Mean people
• Do you have dream car – Nope
• If you got stranded on a deserted island with no power source, what 5 items would you bring – Solar or crank-chargeable radio, lighter, tent, fishing gear and water purifier
• How’d you get your name? – My mother was named after her mother and my oldest sister after the two of them. My brother was named after my father. My 2nd oldest sister’s name is Sherie Jean, so they wanted our names to be as similar as possible so they named me Laurie Jean (our names kinda rhyme, and end in “rie,” and we have the same middle name.)
• What languages do you speak – English only
• Favorite hobbies –  Spending time with my boys!
• Fun fact that not everyone knows about you – I foster dogs and occasionally cats. Oh and a more interesting one is that I LOVE going ghost hunting at “haunted” locations, like inns and old abandoned prisons.   
• Do you have a favorite life motto – Live, Laugh, Love

Family Fun! Labor Day Event

This Labor Day, Lawrence Massachusetts will host its 32nd Annual Bread & Roses Heritage Festival. The family-friendly event will feature fun activities, including historic walking and trolley tours, performances by the renowned Bread & Puppet Theater, pony rides, juggling, exhibits, social justice sign painting, a kids-zone, and more, all free of charge.

The event commemorates the historic Lawrence Textile Strike, which involved over 20,000 diverse men and women who worked in the local mills. They spent the brutally cold winter of 1912 opposing, specifically, pay-cuts resulting from a shortened workweek, and, more generally, the deplorable working conditions of the mills.  

We know and appreciate that many SHARE members will be doing important work to keep our hospital and medical school running on the holiday. The Festival will run from 11:30am-5:30pm. Several from SHARE plan to converge at Campagnone Common for the event. We hope you can join us! The drive is under an hour from the main UMass Medical School campus.

Contract Negotiations 2016, Session 4: Staffing & Leaves of Absence

THIS WEEK, in a NUTSHELL

SHARE and UMass Memorial had their fourth contract negotiations session on Wednesday, August 24. This week, we focused on:

• Staffing. This is an issue that SHARE brought to the table. Front-line employees on our negotiating team explained the trend toward working with fewer hands in each department, and the frustrations and hazards of working with a thin crew. We discussed with management a range of possibilities for addressing that problem, as described in more detail below.
• Leaves of Absence (LOAs). This is an issue that management brought to the table. Managers described how many SHARE members take LOAs, and how difficult it is to staff a department when people are out. Of particular interest to management is that our hospital provides job protections beyond those mandated by the law, including protections for SHARE members who work less than 1250 hours each year. SHARE expressed a number of interests, including that we have always believed that part-time members--many of whom have family obligations or can't get full-time work in the hospital--should have full access to medical leaves and other benefits.

Read on for more detail . . .

WHAT DOES SHARE SAY about STAFFING?

If you’re reading this, you probably already know the answer. You’re working on the front lines yourself, and you know what your co-workers are saying. We presented to management facts from the most recent anonymous SHARE surveys, including:

• 41% of SHARE members disagree that staffing levels are adequate in their departments. That's 660 SHARE members.
• In all, SHARE members wrote nearly 500 comments in the survey expressing concern about their workload or staffing levels in their department. The SHARE Negotiating Team read aloud a couple dozen of these comments so that the management negotiating team could hear what SHARE members have to say. (We made sure all comments were anonymous, leaving out department details.)

Of course, SHARE recognizes that more staff cost money. We want our hospitals to be financially stable, and we don't want to go back to the days of substantial layoffs nearly every year. We also know that sometimes the problem isn't just the number of staff -- if you spend a bunch of your shift looking for linen, that's a system problem that needs to be fixed.

That said, many SHARE members who have been here for any length of time are now operating in departments that have seen significant decreases in staffing levels, and are now feeling the effects as the resulting stresses build up. Many people leave their shifts exhausted, and worried about what they might have missed because they were running so fast all day. 

SHARE members don't know how the decisions are made about how many staff a department has, and we aren't part of those decisions. When decisions are made without us, they're made without all the information, which isn't good for us or the hospital.

WHY IS MANAGEMENT CONCERNED about LEAVES of ABSENCE?

The management side listed the kinds of LOAs that a SHARE member might potentially take. They say that intermittent leaves create particular problems for department staffing, particularly when those leaves are taken unexpectedly. SHARE has made a number of data requests to better understand how often these leaves are being taken, and how changing any policies would actually affect staffing. The kinds of LOAs break down into two broad categories:

• Leaves regulated by State and Federal laws
• Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
• Massachusetts Parental Leave
• Massachusetts Personal Protected Leave (for reasons related to domestic violence)
• USERRA (for military leave)
• Massachusetts Small Necessities  (for family care)
• Massachusetts Earned Sick Time
• Leaves granted by hospital policy or contractual bargaining agreement
• Company FMLA (or CFMLA)
• Personal Emergency Days
• Extended Medical Leave
• Educational Leave
• Personal Leave

Members of the management team highlighted they’re focused on the systematic problems that result from these leaves. They recognize their legal obligations to protect jobs. They said that this discussion isn’t about calling into question the legitimacy of leave requests, but about addressing the staffing issues that result from leaves of absence.

SHARE pointed out that the issues of LOAs and staffing are linked. When departments are staffing with just enough staff, it's tough to run the department when people are out sick.

We’ll continue working on these issues through joint working groups, and be back at the table for negotiations next week. Stay tuned for more . . .

Documenting Department Policies -- Getting Rid of the Gray

SHARE members sometimes become frustrated by what they see as "gray areas" in the contract. In an attempt to fix some of these issues, SHARE has made a proposal in contract negotiations to systematize several department-level decisions in black-and-white.

Why the Gray?

SHARE represents almost two hundred job titles, in departments ranging from the tiny variety with two secretaries who work day shift, to enormous departments such as the Emergency Room, which has seventy-four SHARE members, in a variety of jobs, working shifts 24/7. That range leads to some complex challenges. For example, how do you write a vacation policy that would serve all those departments well, especially since they all start off with different ways of handling vacations?

SHARE's answer to that question is to emphasize the input of SHARE members in the department. The SHARE contract has always said that the way vacations are scheduled should be decided in the department, in discussions between the local SHARE members and the local managers. Our position has been that department policies will be different, and differences between departments are ok, as long as the SHARE members in each department have a say.

Most often, where SHARE encounters problems, it's not because of differences between departments, it's because of confusion. In some departments, the vacation policy is very clear because it's written down clearly. If a new manager or a group of SHARE members wants to change the policy because things have changed, they can involve everyone in that discussion. All good.

In other departments, however, the vacation policy isn't written down, and SHARE members get surprised by how it happens each year, or because changes get made without involving staff.

Developing a System for Clarifying and Including SHARE Member Input

SHARE is proposing that every department make sure they have a written policy for the parts of the contract that are left up to SHARE members and their managers to work out in the department. We'd avoid a lot of confusion and problems. SHARE and HR would provide help for any department having a tough time reaching a consensus agreement. We are working toward an agreement that would create deadlines and accountability in order to make sure these policies get documented.

(We also discussed absenteeism and the Massachusetts Earned Sick law at negotiations this week.)

Partnership Day at FMCS Chicago

While some SHARE staff organizers were in for the long-haul at the FMCS Conference this week, other SHARE leaders made a quick hop out to Chicago and back for the kickoff event: Partnership Day. (It made for a long day . . . but some SHARE folks had to be back for contract negotiations early the next morning.)

A strong union is necessary for a strong partnership, says Tom Kochan of MIT

Partnership Day showcased six union-management partnerships that have survived and even thrived for more than a decade. Two groups talked about partnerships in healthcare: Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of KP Unions, and LA County Health Agency and the Service Employees International Union. (Click here for the full list and agenda.)  

The keynote speaker for the event was former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich.

"Over and over, each group talked about how hard it is work in partnership. It's easier to go the traditional way, and be adversarial. But they also said the results are better in partnership: better for the employees, the patients, and for management," said SHARE Organizer, Janet Wilder.

SHARE Organizer Will Erickson's take-away idea was that any Labor-Management partnership--however well-developed, strategically planned, and strong it may seem--is always fragile.

Both SHARE and UMass Memorial management learned about union-management partnerships in Chicago: Kati Korenda, Senior Director, Heart and Vascular Center of Excellence, and Bobbi-Jo Lewis, SHARE Co-President

Kati Korenda of the Heart and Vascular Center told us that she was struck by the story of International Paper, which, in its long history, had its share of labor-management strife, including strikes and lockouts; at a critical moment, however, they turned around the direction of their relationship, and their partnership has led the company to new vibrancy and success.


Each time SHARE talks with union folks from Kaiser Permanente, we learn more about how we might work in partnership at UMass Memorial, and what we might get out of it. Denise Duncan, President of UNAC/AFSCME, which represents RNs in Southern California told us over dinner, 

"I was against this at first. But now I'm convinced that partnership is the way to go. We have UNAC members who work at Kaiser Permanente and at other more traditional employers, so I see the difference every day. Our members at Kaiser have better contracts, and a better experience day-to-day at work."

Partnership Day panel, with the Kaiser group on the left, Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, and the LA County group on the far right.

Future @ Work: SHARE at the FMCS Conference 2016

SHARE leaders have travelled to Chicago this week to attend the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services Conference. The event brings together an all-star cast of labor and industry leaders, as well as academics and facilitators.

SHARE/UMass Memorial Interest-Based Bargaining Facilitator,  Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, moderating the Partnership Day discussion

In past years, SHARE has presented at the conference, describing our unique kind of union, as well as our successes with UMass Memorial to engage our members in improving patient experiences.

This year, the theme is “Future @ Work.” SHARE has focused its attention on the various models of union-management partnership to better understand how we can better cultivate our own union for the future. Participants at this year’s conference have been invited to:

• Learn from distinguished labor, management, and new economy thought leaders
• Problem Solve at workshops focused on actual situations and practical solutions
• Network with labor relations and workplace professionals from around the country and the world
• Prepare your organization for the future with advice from experts who are forging paths to partnership and organizational success

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, delivering the keynote address at FMCS 2016 Partnership Day

The FMCS is an independent agency within the Federal Government whose mission is “to preserve and promote labor-management peace and cooperation.” Their staff provides mediation and conflict and resolution services to business, government, and community groups around the country. Speakers at this year’s conference  include national labor-management and economy leaders, such as Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO; Bill Ford, Jr., Executive Chairman of the Ford Motor Company; and Thomas Perez, U.S. Secretary of Labor.

We’re looking forward to hearing reports from the various panels, presentations, and workshops that our friends are attending. More to come . . .

Contract Negotiations 2016: Session #2

THIS WEEK, in a NUTSHELL

SHARE and UMass Memorial had our second contract negotiations session on Wednesday, August 10. As we reported last week, these negotiations continue to feel different from past negotiations. One key difference is the use of “co-facilitation,” a new process involving one union and one management leader to steer each discussion. This week we continued our focus on issues from the previous session:

• Interactions between SHARE members and supervisors and managers, which SHARE brought to the table. This week, Tod Wiesman (AVP, Performance, Learning, and Education) addressed the negotiators; he described the ideas that the hospital’s executive leadership is developing to train and cultivate hospital leaders.

• Increasing flexibility for cross-campus floating, which management brought to the table. This week, five front-line managers were brought in to describe their interests in floating SHARE employees. We also established an additional side table to drill down further on the issue of floating.

We started with 2 difficult issues, where managers and union leaders start from very different places. We are working to understand each other, and to try to find common ground.

For more info, read on...


WHY ARE THESE NEGOTIATIONS DIFFERENT?

Of course, every round of negotiations will feel different. In the three or so years between contracts, things change. Each negotiations, SHARE welcomes a few new members to its team, and misses a few from before. That said, our team remains relatively constant: a majority of our team members have negotiated before. On the flip side, UMass Memorial has an entirely new Executive Leadership team since our previous negotiations, and the leadership of the hospital’s Labor Relations department has completely turned over since our last negotiations. This results in a new management negotiating team. While many of the members of their team bring significant experience to the table, the leaders of their team are experiencing Interest Based Bargaining for the first time.

The teams at the main table are also bigger than we’ve had in the past. This has the advantage of people bringing experiences from a wide range of departments to the discussion. Management's team is a combination of Human Resources people, and front-line and middle managers.

Though we are trying to use Interest Based Bargaining, we can't leave history behind entirely, and it’s easy to fall into old habits of traditional bargaining. We’re all working to establish good foundations for ongoing relationships, as we tackle some of the most ambitious subjects SHARE has addressed in negotiations.

A New Experiment: Co-Facilitation

One part of these negotiations that is new to everyone involved is “co-facilitation.” Our early training sessions and initial bargaining session were led by a facilitator, Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld. He trained two individuals from each side to act as neutrals, guiding the discussions about particular topics. The facilitators are:

• Myra Shah, UMMMC Human Resources

• Jeff Mogan, UMMMC Labor Relations

• Will Erickson, SHARE

• Elisabeth Szanto, SHARE

Although the facilitators each come from within the teams of negotiators, when they’re in the role of co-facilitator, they put on a different hat. Their job is to make sure that the conversation is flowing, and that we’re driving toward conclusions efficiently. They also help to make sure that notes are being captured accurately. (One other unique aspect of this negotiations is that notes are being taken and displayed, in real time, on an overhead projector.)

KEEP INVOLVED

We’ll keep the updates coming on the blog. To learn more, and weigh in about either of the topics we’ve discussed, and about what topics are coming up, please join us at an upcoming SHARE Information Meeting about Contract Negotiations.

SHARE Information meetings about Contract Negotiations

Contract negotiations have started. We are trying to finish by October 1^st. Join us to discuss what's happening in negotiations!

SHARE’s priorities come from the SHARE members who filled out the SHARE survey last fall, and from SHARE info meetings and conversations since then. The survey results are summarized here.  The SHARE priorities are here as well as on the statement that many SHARE members signed onto in the last couple of months.

Info Meetings for SHARE Members’ Input about Proposals

The specific proposals of how to make progress on those priorities are being discussed at negotiations during August and September. SHARE Info Meetings are a chance for you to hear what we are talking about and give your opinions. Please join us at a meeting near you.

University: Thurs, August 11      11:30-1:30     Room S2-309B (2^nd floor of the Medical School)

Memorial: Fri, August 12            11:30-1:30     Nursing conference room (toward the ED from the cafeteria)

Hahnemann: Mon, August 22    11:30-1:30     2nd floor conference room

67 Millbrook: Thurs, August 25  11:30-1:30     Thom McAn conference room

306 Belmont: Fri, September 9    11:30-1:30     Conference room D

Tri-River: Fri, September 23       11:30-1:30      Community Room

These meetings are “rolling” meetings – come for whatever part of the meeting is your lunch break. Feel free to bring your lunch, your thoughts and questions, and a friend!

If you’d like to set up a meeting at a time and place that works for you and your co-workers, call the SHARE office (508-929-4020, extension 10) and leave a message.