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CWA Puts Out Welcome Mat For Home Care Therapists
Imagine you’re a housebound senior disabled by a fall, but eager to walk again. Your chances of recovery are good because you’ve got an experienced physical therapist visiting your home three times a week.
Now imagine that the hospital that employs your therapist and more than 100 others abruptly decides to cut their wages by 20 percent — no discussion, no concern about the likelihood of losing veteran workers who make a world of difference to their patients.
That’s what happened at Inova Health Systems and the northern Virginia company got what it deserved: A unionized work force.
About 110 physical, occupational and speech therapists who make home care visits for Inova have affiliated with CWA, a year after voting to form an independent union in response to the hospital’s wage cuts, increased work loads and other issues.
Their unit, the Organization of Home Care Professionals, voted to merge with CWA Local 2252 this summer and held a formal signing ceremony in October. Unit President Bill Barrie said, “We’re thrilled to be part of CWA.”
When members decided to join a larger union, their lawyer gave them a list of options. Barrie said they talked with a number of organizers and were pleased with everyone’s spirit of solidarity, but CWA made the strongest impression.
“We decided that CWA was the best fit for us,” Barrie said. “CWA allowed us to maintain our unique identity (as OHCP) and it was the most enthusiastic and aggressive of all the unions we talked to. Everything just clicked.”
The therapists’ announcement in August 2000 that they intended to form a union, and the landslide vote that followed that fall stunned Inova, Barrie said.
“Over a period of months and years, management had progressively treated our profession with disrespect,” he said. For instance, the hospital replaced managers who had worked as therapists with nursing supervisors who didn’t fully understand or appreciate the therapists’ jobs. Paperwork demands increased and so did work loads.
Then in July 2000, the therapists got a letter saying their pay was being cut 20 percent. “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Barrie said.
It was a decision that not only hurt therapists but also threatened patient care. “This is a job that requires a great deal of professional skill and competence, as well as maturity and experience,” Barrie said. “You have no supervisor there to help you out, no back up. You’re the one in the home with the patient and you have to make all the decisions.”
“By disrespecting the therapists and cutting their salaries, you’re going to lose good therapists and that’s going to have a huge impact on the quality of care being provided and ultimately on the patients’ safety and health,” he said.
When the workers notified the hospital that they were forming a bargaining unit, managers immediately called the new group’s executive committee in for a meeting. Barrie said managers pleaded with them, asking, “What would we have to do to make this not happen?”
Rather than tell them to restore pay, “We told them, ‘Recognize us as a collective bargaining unit and there won’t be any problem,’” he said.
“At that point, we’d formed a union and we felt they should deal with the union,” Barrie said. “We knew if we said, ‘Give us back our 20 percent and we won’t form a union,’ they would have fired all the union leaders and they would have taken the money back six months later.”
Inova hired a union-busting law firm from Atlanta and held mandatory meetings for all therapists every week between Labor Day and the union vote in late October. “It was all sorts of anti-union jargon and ‘We care about you. Give us another chance. We know we handled this poorly but we can fix it,’” he said.
The hospital’s tactics worked to the union’s advantage. “They were very ineffective,” Barrie said with a note of humor. “After every single one of those meetings three or four more therapists would come up to us and say ‘We’re with you.’ The meetings were our most effective force for organizing.”
After the vote, the hospital hired another anti-union law firm and delayed negotiations. The stalling tactics led OHCP to seek out CWA. Barrie thanked a long list of members active on the executive board and organizing campaign, as well as Local 2252 President Sean Linehan and Brooks Sunkett, vice president of CWA’s Public, Health Care and Education Workers sector.
“As long as we’ve been quiet and compliant, Inova has been happy,” Barrie said. “With the expertise and the backing we have with CWA, we’re going to ramp up the pressure to get the negotiations going.”
Now imagine that the hospital that employs your therapist and more than 100 others abruptly decides to cut their wages by 20 percent — no discussion, no concern about the likelihood of losing veteran workers who make a world of difference to their patients.
That’s what happened at Inova Health Systems and the northern Virginia company got what it deserved: A unionized work force.
About 110 physical, occupational and speech therapists who make home care visits for Inova have affiliated with CWA, a year after voting to form an independent union in response to the hospital’s wage cuts, increased work loads and other issues.
Their unit, the Organization of Home Care Professionals, voted to merge with CWA Local 2252 this summer and held a formal signing ceremony in October. Unit President Bill Barrie said, “We’re thrilled to be part of CWA.”
When members decided to join a larger union, their lawyer gave them a list of options. Barrie said they talked with a number of organizers and were pleased with everyone’s spirit of solidarity, but CWA made the strongest impression.
“We decided that CWA was the best fit for us,” Barrie said. “CWA allowed us to maintain our unique identity (as OHCP) and it was the most enthusiastic and aggressive of all the unions we talked to. Everything just clicked.”
The therapists’ announcement in August 2000 that they intended to form a union, and the landslide vote that followed that fall stunned Inova, Barrie said.
“Over a period of months and years, management had progressively treated our profession with disrespect,” he said. For instance, the hospital replaced managers who had worked as therapists with nursing supervisors who didn’t fully understand or appreciate the therapists’ jobs. Paperwork demands increased and so did work loads.
Then in July 2000, the therapists got a letter saying their pay was being cut 20 percent. “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Barrie said.
It was a decision that not only hurt therapists but also threatened patient care. “This is a job that requires a great deal of professional skill and competence, as well as maturity and experience,” Barrie said. “You have no supervisor there to help you out, no back up. You’re the one in the home with the patient and you have to make all the decisions.”
“By disrespecting the therapists and cutting their salaries, you’re going to lose good therapists and that’s going to have a huge impact on the quality of care being provided and ultimately on the patients’ safety and health,” he said.
When the workers notified the hospital that they were forming a bargaining unit, managers immediately called the new group’s executive committee in for a meeting. Barrie said managers pleaded with them, asking, “What would we have to do to make this not happen?”
Rather than tell them to restore pay, “We told them, ‘Recognize us as a collective bargaining unit and there won’t be any problem,’” he said.
“At that point, we’d formed a union and we felt they should deal with the union,” Barrie said. “We knew if we said, ‘Give us back our 20 percent and we won’t form a union,’ they would have fired all the union leaders and they would have taken the money back six months later.”
Inova hired a union-busting law firm from Atlanta and held mandatory meetings for all therapists every week between Labor Day and the union vote in late October. “It was all sorts of anti-union jargon and ‘We care about you. Give us another chance. We know we handled this poorly but we can fix it,’” he said.
The hospital’s tactics worked to the union’s advantage. “They were very ineffective,” Barrie said with a note of humor. “After every single one of those meetings three or four more therapists would come up to us and say ‘We’re with you.’ The meetings were our most effective force for organizing.”
After the vote, the hospital hired another anti-union law firm and delayed negotiations. The stalling tactics led OHCP to seek out CWA. Barrie thanked a long list of members active on the executive board and organizing campaign, as well as Local 2252 President Sean Linehan and Brooks Sunkett, vice president of CWA’s Public, Health Care and Education Workers sector.
“As long as we’ve been quiet and compliant, Inova has been happy,” Barrie said. “With the expertise and the backing we have with CWA, we’re going to ramp up the pressure to get the negotiations going.”