Union employees voting on Swedish's benefits offer

After months of contentious negotiations over benefits, nurses and other union employees at Swedish Medical Center are voting this week on what the hospital calls its final offer but union leaders call unacceptable.

Voting for nearly 4,100 members of the Service Employees International Union 1199NW at Swedish began this weekend and runs through Sunday.

The union's bargaining committee is recommending that its members vote against the offer so negotiations with Swedish can continue. The hospital, though, says it won't negotiate further.

Members can also sign a petition that would allow the bargaining committee to schedule a strike vote. The hospital system said it has spent months preparing for the possibility that 40 percent of its work force could walk off the job. The SEIU represents three bargaining units — registered nurses, technicians and support staff.

The union and the hospital decided last year during contract negotiations to delay discussions of health-care and retirement benefits until this year. If the two sides can't reach an agreement, hospital officials said, they could impose changes anyway.

"It's within our realm of possibility," said Ron Sperling, Swedish's chief financial officer.

The two sides have been negotiating for nearly six months. The union, which represents nurses, housekeepers, secretaries, pharmacy technicians and others, voted overwhelmingly against an offer Swedish made in July.

Since then, the hospital has made a few concessions including delaying by a year the date that some of the changes would take effect.

Information

SEIU Web site: www.seiu1199nw.org

Swedish Web site: http://www.swedish.org/body.cfm?id=1543

Swedish, the Northwest's largest hospital system, is known regionally for a "gold standard" in benefits and pay for its employees. Contract changes would narrow some of those benefits starting in 2007, requiring employees to contribute an estimated 7 percent of their health-care premiums. They currently do not contribute toward their premiums.

The hospital would also require that all new employees enroll in a 401(k)-style plan, in which workers manage their own retirement investments; current employees would choose between that plan and the existing guaranteed-pension plan.

Diane Sosne, president of Local 1199NW, said some members would not be able to afford health care under the proposed changes. She also said the switch in pension plans would discourage nurses from working at Swedish.

"We have a severe nursing and health workers shortage," said Sosne, a registered nurse. "We certainly are not interested in bargaining a contract that is going to exacerbate the problem."

Sperling said union members would remain the highest paid in the region. But all hospitals are struggling to keep up with the rising cost of health care and Swedish is no different. Many local hospitals have a similar 401(k)-style plan, he said, and most hospitals have asked employees to share the cost of health-care premiums.

Union officials contend that Swedish does not need the millions of dollars in savings that would eventually come with a change in pension plans. But Sperling replies that the nonprofit hospital system does not even reach the state's average when it comes to profitability among hospitals.

"We can't continue to bear 100 percent of the cost while all of the rest of the hospitals in the area have normal premium-sharing," Sperling said. "We can't afford to continue to be that exception."