Group Health strike enters second day

By Kyung M. Song and Nick Perry
Seattle Times staff reporters

TOM REESE / THE SEATTLE TIMES A patient leaves Group Health's Capitol Hill clinic yesterday after an appointment as union employees and their supporters carry out the first day of a five-day strike.

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Yesterday, hundreds of strikers fanned out to nearly 20 Group Health locations from Everett to Olympia in a labor dispute triggered by a fight over health-insurance premiums for workers. Despite the circling pickets, operations inside Group Health's busiest clinics appeared normal, if subdued.

Group Health said patients encountered no unusual waiting times or other difficulties. The company also estimated that 30 percent of the 1,700 members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) District 1199NW opted not to strike and reported for work.

Two-thirds of the workers filling in for strikers are other Group Health employees, including staff physicians, nursing supervisors and employees from Eastern Washington, said Lee Tucker Therriault, a Group Health spokeswoman.

Since the union gave its legal strike warning Aug. 12, Group Health had braced for the walkout by recruiting replacement nurses and other workers. At Group Health's Capitol Hill clinic, a janitor wearing a uniform from SBM Maintenance mopped the first floor yesterday morning while about 60 strikers, including custodians, walked the picket line several yards away.

Jane and Jun Ganaban, wife and husband custodians, said they initially considered crossing picket lines instead of forgoing their paychecks for a week. But they concluded the sacrifice is worth it to try to block Group Health's last contract offer, which the Ganabans say would cost them about $900 a year in health premiums.

SEIU members currently pay no monthly health-insurance premiums.

Contract dispute Group Health and a union are at odds over insurance benefits. SEIU members at Group Health who work at least 10 hours a week currently pay no monthly health premiums and receive 100 percent insurance coverage for routine medical care after paying $5 copays for doctor visits and prescription drugs. Group Health's last contract offer called for raising insurance copays to $15 and charging union workers 1 percent of base annual pay for individual coverage, 2 percent for coverage of individual plus spouse or individual and children, and 3 percent for family coverage.

Jane Ganaban guessed that half of the 30 or so custodians on her shift are not honoring the strike. And she admitted to lingering qualms about whether the strike will be worth the lost pay.

"Where are we going to get money? Are we going to eat ramen every day?" Ganaban asked her husband with a laugh. "We've lost $1,000 already."

The union isn't offering strike pay because the walkout is limited to five days, said Carter Wright, a spokesman for SEIU. But the local will provide financial assistance to members facing hardships, he said.

Wright also said the union did not have its own tally of how many workers were out. But he said, "Turnout is better than expected. The strike is being very strongly supported."

Group Health officials say that continuing the "virtually free" benefits for SEIU members is like asking their co-workers and customers to subsidize them. Group Health's nonunion workers and some employees who belong to other unions already contribute to their health-care costs, said Scott Armstrong, the co-op's chief operating officer.

"I think the leadership of this union is out of touch with the reality that this kind of fair contribution to medical benefits is commonplace in the marketplace," he told The Associated Press, adding that the cost to the workers in lost wages for a week is higher than the increased cost in health benefits.

Less than 15 percent of U.S. employers with 500 or more workers offer zero-premium health coverage, as Group Health does, according to a 2003 national survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, a benefits consulting firm.

At the Capitol Hill clinic yesterday morning, Cathy Stuntz of Queen Anne was one of a dozen Group Health members waiting to pick up prescriptions at the pharmacy. Stuntz had come in for an eye checkup. The regular nurses at the clinic were absent, but Stuntz said other employees pitched in to handle the patients.

Stuntz and her husband, who is retired, pay $1,200 a month for family coverage through Group Health, up from $700 five years ago. Still, Stuntz said she sympathized with the striking workers.

"Health care in general is too expensive," Stuntz said. "I think everybody pays too much."

At the Eastside Primary Care clinic in Redmond, about 50 workers picketed at several entrances. The pickets said a handful of their co-workers had crossed the line. They questioned whether temporary workers brought in to help run the clinic would be able to operate computers and provide patients with adequate care — a concern that Group Health managers dismiss.

"I've worked 20 years at this clinic," said Terry Amble, a medical assistant on the picket line. "The benefits Group Health is trying to take away from us are what's at stake."

Security guards blocked off staff parking spots near the entrance with their cars and with tape. One guard said it was to dissuade picketing workers from parking at the clinic.

This is the fifth strike by Group Health nurses in the past three decades. They walked out for 28 days in 1976, for 38 days in 1989 and for one day each in 1995 and 2003.

Barring a contract settlement, this week's strike will continue until midnight Friday. Group Health has closed its maternity unit at Central Hospital on Capitol Hill and transferred pregnant women to Northwest Hospital. The co-op also moved all outpatient surgeries to its Eastside Hospital in Redmond, which the union has chosen not to strike.

The strike doesn't affect clinics in Eastern Washington.

Linda Canny, a critical-care nurse and SEIU board member, said Group Health is jeopardizing the staff loyalty it enjoys.

"They have tremendous staff longevity, and people have stayed here because of the benefits. It costs $50,000 to train a new registered nurse," she said. "I don't understand, in the face of an extreme nursing shortage, why they are acting like this."

Washington Rep. Eileen Cody, D-Seattle, who is a 26-year nurse at Group Health, picketed yesterday on Capitol Hill. Cody contends that Group Health is so determined to adopt monthly health premiums as to appear unwilling to bargain in good faith.

"Their bottom line is, 'We're going to do this no matter what,' " Cody said.

Kyung Song: 206-464-2423 or ksong@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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