Union strikes deal with Seashore Point management Agreement follows prolonged, emotional negotiations By Erik Borg BANNER CORRESPONDENT PROVINCETOWN — Seashore Point employees who have been in a labor dispute with the nursing home management for nearly a year have come to an agreement on a new contract that will include significant pay cuts for some staff. Members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, which represents the facility’s nursing aids, housekeepers and kitchen workers, narrowly approved the new three-year contract last week. The 14-11 vote marks the end to a prolonged and emotional negotiation period between the union and the non-profit organization that manages the nursing home and independent residences, Deaconess Abundant Life Communities. Federal mediators were brought in to help with negotiations in April after the union’s previous contract officially expired and the two sides still found themselves at an impasse. Under the new deal, the most tenured staffers affected will see pay cuts ranging from $3 to $3.75 an hour, said Brian Shea, a Seashore Point nursing aid and the union steward during the negotiations. For a nursing aid making $19 per hour, their salary will be reduced to roughly $16 per hour beginning this month, he said. The average housekeeper wage will be reduced to just over $13 per hour, he said. The Seashore Point union chapter has just short of 40 members, with roughly 13 people in total who will be affected by pay cuts, said Kevin Comick, president of the Seashore Point board of directors. All union members making less than 130 percent of the average wage for their position on the Cape will not be affected, which includes all staffers who have been employed at Seashore Point for four years or less, he said. While union members had fought passionately against pay cuts since negotiations began last October, the Deaconess management insisted that they were a necessary part of turning around the nursing home’s financial misfortunes. The facilities, which encompass 81 housing units along with nursing home facilities, lost more than $600,000 last year, largely due to challenges associated with new healthcare laws, Comick said. “We can’t continue this way, as any business can’t continue to lose money over the years,” said Nancy Marzilli, director of human resources for Deaconess. The losses came despite the elimination of two management positions at the facility and Comick’s own salary being transferred off Seashore Point’s books and onto the parent organization. The cuts led to roughly $250,000 in reduced management- related costs, compared to only $10,000 in reductions being made on the staff side under the new employment contract, he said. “We’ve really been trending in the wrong direction,” Comick said. “This will help us to correct course and avoid layoffs.” The union members had pushed back at the notion that the facility was taking on such a loss, but were confronted with the harsh reality when their own union accountant confirmed Deaconess’s estimates in an independent audit this summer. “The truth is, the union wasn’t in a very good bargaining position at that point. Once we realized that they had taken substantial losses, we had to start facing some hard realities,” Shea said. Despite the revelation, union members still narrowly voted down the management’s contract proposal when it took its first vote two months ago, causing Deaconess to present a slightly sweeter offer to the union last week. The revised offer included several concessions that had been absent from the previous proposal, including an additional vacation day and time-and-a-half overtime pay on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Additionally, Deaconess agreed to share 10 percent of positive revenue margins with union members in the event that the facility does begin to generate positive cash flow. For the union, the final outcome wasn’t about being satisfactory. “I know a lot of people are very upset. However, the reality of the situation is the union did everything they could to get as much money back as we could,” said Shea, who is stepping down as union steward. “When [negotiations] started, there were more people who were going to be affected. We got them to bring the prices up. We did the best we could.” The new contract goes into effect at a time when the nursing home is enjoying a series of excellent ratings and reviews. The nursing home experienced zero care deficiencies last year based on state guidelines, marking several years in a row that the facility has outperformed the statewide average of more than five deficiencies a year per facility, Comick said. The facility also recently completed a state Dept. of Health survey that is expected to return “very good ratings,” he said. Comick attributes the facility’s successes in large part to its staff. “We are very proud of the staff at Seashore Point. They are a huge part of who we are and the biggest contributors to what we are doing well,” he said. Meanwhile, the facility’s financial outlook may also be beginning to shows signs of a turnaround. The nursing home’s rehabilitation and long-term care center has been maxed out at 40-plus residents for the past eight months, and the 38 condominium units completed in the facility’s phase II expansion earlier this year are selling, Shea said. “Those have been very big pluses. I feel they’re on the verge maybe of things getting better,” he said. “If things do get better, the hope is that maybe they’ll be more inclined to start paying it back to us.”
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 09:53:43 +0000
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