The California Hospital Association and the state's largest hospital worker union, SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, have formed a strategic relationship and aim to create a new model of hospital-labor relations.
The agreement will establish a $100 million joint advocacy committee to drive healthcare system improvements, specifically to stabilize the state's healthcare safety net through increasing Medicaid payments, according to the news release.
Also as a result of the agreement, SEIU-UHW will no longer pursue its two ballot initiatives. One initiative, the Fair Healthcare Pricing Act of 2014, would have prohibited hospitals from setting prices more than 25 percent higher than the actual cost of care. The other, the Charitable Hospital Executive Compensation Act of 2014, would have capped the pay of nonprofit hospital executives at $450,000. Now, through the collaboration, both sides will work to establish legislation, regulations or voluntary compliance that would address the issues from both ballot measures.
"CHA has been involved for several years in national efforts to address the complexities in hospital pricing and to reform the payment structure of the Medicaid program," said C. Duane Dauner, president and CEO of CHA, in the release. "We are pleased that SEIU-UHW will join us in finding workable solutions."
The agreement also creates a "code of conduct that will govern conversations between union representatives and hospital employees," the release states.
At least one other union is not pleased with the CHA-SEIU collaboration. "The type of 'strategic collaboration' announced…between SEIU and the California Hospital Association is an act of treason to California's healthcare workers and patients," said Sal Rosselli, president of the National Union of Healthcare Workers, in a statement. "This agreement will undermine the rights of workers and will eliminate the union's watchdog role on behalf of patients…Moving forward, SEIU will quietly collect dues, but will do little to raise questions."
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