'Patients Will Be The Ultimate Winners In Innovative CCHC-Union Partnership'

By Stephen L. Abbott,
President/CEO Cape Cod Healthcare

In the musical Oklahoma, there's a rollicking number asking why the cowboy and the farmer can't be friends. But unions and management? Now that's going too far, one might think.

Which is why it's such a ground-breaking achievement that Cape Cod Healthcare (CCHC), the largest employer on the Cape, and 1199SEIU United Health Care Workers East, the largest health care union on the east coast, have announced a new alliance that marks the first labor/management healthcare partnership in Massachusetts.

This agreement was engineered to focus strategically on the growing challenges facing health care, improving overall quality of care for patients, increasing state and federal funding sources and securing CCHC's position as the Cape's health care provider and employer of choice. The negotiation was based on the need for both sides to work together as partners rather than adversaries to confront the numerous challenges facing health care today—increased competitive forces, a tighter regulatory environment and a growing demand for services from an aging baby-boomer population.

This landmark alliance with 1199 will help us continue to meet the highest standards in health care delivery and service quality, thus in the long run providing our patients with the ultimate benefit. CCHC and 1199SEIU in March announced a new contract that was unprecedented, both for its "interest-based" bargaining approach and for the actual terms of the agreement contract. According to Michael Foley, CCHC's Chief Negotiator, "This precedent-setting labor/management partnership was specifically created to develop an environment and establish a relationship built on principles of collaboration, inclusion and a mutual trust to achieve common goals of organizational success."

Jerry Fishbein, Chief Negotiator for 1199 agreed: "We are proud of the fact that together we designed a non-traditional approach to our most recent collective bargaining process that allowed us to address and resolve the difficult issues that oftentimes create contentious relationships at other bargaining tables."

"We came to the bargaining table in difficult times for the health care industry, engaged in an open and frank dialogue, worked collaboratively to design creative and well-balanced solutions to the most challenging issues including wages, insurance cost containment and staffing," added Carol Spear, LPN at Falmouth Hospital and 1199 Chairperson. Here are some examples of the terms and goals of the alliance:

• A new Training Program that will supplement the already extensive Corporate Education Program and "allow us to strengthen our most valuable resource - our workforce," in the words of Enid Eckstein, 1199 Health System Director. This Management/Labor Training Program enhances continuity of care and should take patient satisfaction to a higher level;
• Mobility within our health care system that will bring expertise and experience to new sites and allow employees to explore new fields of endeavor;
• A restructured and redefined leave of absence policy designed to lessen disruptions in services while balancing the interests of the workers;
• A redesigned insurance program that creates more of a system-wide benefit structure to produce significant cost containment while providing comprehensive (and in some cases, expanded) coverage;
• Wage rate increases that will aid in retention and recruitment of talented workers while producing the smallest budget impact compared to the last several settlements;
• And, finally, a four-year contract, the longest contract duration within our 25-year relationship. This will allow the new alliance to take root, provide time to monitor its effectiveness, grant workers predictability in pay and benefits and provide CCHC with budget stability in the face of the Cape's shifting health care landscape.

A joint Labor/Management Committee has been convened to establish specific goals, objectives and priorities for the new Alliance. For example, 1199 has committed to address issues created by external and internal challenges such as increasing competition. The new Alliance will include statements and commitments from 1199 describing ways the Union can add value throughout the CCHC system. And it will provide a process under which orderly and peaceful Union organization efforts can occur if certain prerequisites are satisfied. "We have created even more opportunities to improve the lives of patients as well as the lives of health care workers throughout the Cape. The possibilities are limitless to be more creative and effective in solving the tremendous challenges facing hospitals today," said Mike Fadel, Executive Vice President of 1199SEIU. As Tom Kochan, a professor in the Business School at MIT, sums up, "What they've done on the Cape is very rare, but it's a very promising formula for improving patient care. It's been done in other states with success, but this is a first for a Massachusetts hospital."