UE Convention Resolutions
Rights of the Healthcare Worker
Healthcare in the U.S. is in a state of crisis, harming workers and patients. The cost of healthcare is skyrocketing. Insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and employers, are reducing their costs by shifting them onto the backs of workers, patients, and government.
Healthcare facilities have responded to this pressure in a variety of ways. To win increased reimbursement rates from stingy insurers, hospital systems have gone on merger-and-acquisition binges. On the misguided theory the “discipline of the market” will help them to achieve financial stability, many have converted to for-profit status. While a few hospital systems have become profitable, many others have gone bankrupt, leaving small communities with no, or inadequate, healthcare facilities.
The recent economic meltdown, the brainchild of Wall Street criminals and corporate swindlers, has hurt the bottom line and stock price of many healthcare companies. Aggressive cost cutting has become the norm for healthcare facilities. Many deny care to patients who have no or inadequate medical insurance. Because trauma centers must provide emergency care regardless of insurance status, many have closed their emergency rooms.
Cost-cutting schemes also affect staff, which profoundly impacts the quality of care. Patients are put into dangerous and often life-threatening situations. Failure to invest in properly maintained and up-to-date equipment leaves the healthcare worker with inadequate resources.
Breakdowns in patient care are wrongly blamed on workers rather than management. Staff are often forced into mandatory overtime, working through "breaks," or without a meal. Decision making and reaction time both lag when too few workers care for too many people. Federal and state legislation is needed to mandate staffing ratios, rest times, and meal breaks.
With low pay, substandard benefits, and a heavy workload, turnover is high. Educational leaves and continuing education programs that permit staff to learn up-to-date techniques and keep licenses current need to be taken seriously. Although federal action is needed, the most recently passed legislation only puts more pressure on healthcare workers. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act provides billions of dollars in incentives to providers to implement Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and other Health Information Technologies (HIT). Without involvement by unions in the implementation of this new law in the workplace, it is likely many provisions will be used to apply the same "lean production" models widespread in manufacturing to provision of healthcare – with negative results for patients and caregivers.
People who dedicated their lives to caring for others deserve respect and recognition. The health of the nation depends upon it.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 71st UE CONVENTION:
- Encourages all healthcare workers to organize to gain rights as workers and to fight effectively for patients;
- Calls on the national union to join with other unions and community groups in a fight to halt the the erosion of access to healthcare;
- Calls on federal and state legislators to:
- Mandate, with effective enforcement, safe staffing levels, breaks, and meal periods in all healthcare facilities;
- Block mandatory overtime in the healthcare field;
- Require employers to allow healthcare workers paid leave for job-related education;
- Initiate free or affordable educational programs for training and recruiting of individuals into ancillary medical professions, including use of HITECH Act funds for worker education;
- Prohibit institutions that receive Medicare and Medicaid dollars from interfering with the rights of employees to organize;
- Require union participation and negotiating rights in the design of all HITECH Act policy committees, standards committees, and any other such governmental bodies;
- Require all corporations and healthcare institutions receiving HITECH Act funding or benefits recognize union representation and negotiating rights related to design, development and implementation of health information technologies in the workplace.