Health District workers say management unfair

Molly Ball

Friday, July 29, 2005 | 8:42 a.m.

The union representing workers for the Clark County Health District says its contract negotiations are being conducted in bad faith and its members are treated disrespectfully.

About 50 union supporters attended the county Health Board meeting on Thursday, filling the room in their purple Service Employees International Union T-shirts.

A nurse's husband, an account worker's daughter, a local pastor and a private hospital nurse were among those who told the board they believed the negotiations were unfair.

The union claims the district's chief negotiator, Human Resources Director Angus MacEachern, has walked out of meetings and ignored the union's proposals.

"We really have barely had negotiations," SEIU Local 1107 Executive Director Jane McAlevey, the union's negotiator, told the board. "I have never experienced a human resources department quite like I have here."

McAlevey told the board that management's negotiator should be replaced. Board members did not discuss the issue openly; the board went into closed session and then adjourned.

Dr. Donald Kwalick, who heads the Health District as the county's chief health officer, said the district stands behind its negotiator. MacEachern refused to comment.

The union's contract demands are unreasonable and its complaints about MacEachern have no merit, Kwalick said.

"We've been to every meeting that has been scheduled," he said.

In response to the union's claims that its proposals were ignored, Kwalick said, "A rejection is a response."

Negotiations began in mid-May. The five-year-old existing contract that covers the approximately 450 nurses, environmental workers and other Health District employees expired at the end of June.

The union says it represents about 80 percent of the district's workers. Nearly all of the union members signed a petition presented to the board last month, McAlevey said.

The trouble seems to have started when the union tried to bring more than 100 of its members into the negotiating room. McAlevey said MacEachern refused to negotiate in such circumstances. She said that it's legal and a part of the national union's new policy to help workers understand the negotiating process.

McAlevey said MacEachern then refused to come to several negotiating sessions.

The union has filed 13 complaints with Nevada's Local Government Employee-Management Relations Board, "all variations on bad-faith bargaining," McAlevey said.

McAlevey told the board the union's proposals were "modest and uncomplicated" and geared more toward expanding workers' rights than increasing their pay.

"These folks are on the front lines, trying to ensure that the whole region's economy is safe as well as the health of everyone who lives here," she said.

The union proposed keeping the current pay structure, with modest increases, and adding incentive pay for bilingual workers and workers with advanced degrees, McAlevey said. Management proffered a "confusing" overhaul that would replace sick time and vacation time with "paid time off" and eliminate longevity pay, she said.

The union's noneconomic proposals included the creation of committees to give employees a voice in their work and procedures for grievances and arbitration, McAlevey said. These ideas were ignored by MacEachern's team, which returned to the table with counterproposals barely distinguishable from its original offer, she said.

Kwalick said he wouldn't "go into detail" about proposed contract provisions but said the union was exaggerating the effect the proposed changes would have on its workers. Sixty percent of the district's employees have been there for less than five years and 80 percent less than 10 years, he said, so an issue like longevity pay affects relatively few.

The supporters who testified at Thursday's meeting argued emotionally on behalf of their relatives and friends, who they said would have appeared if the meeting had been held outside of work hours.

Gary Clark, a retired Marine who testified at Thursday's meeting, said his wife, Noreen, a field nurse, could make more money in the private sector but is committed to helping at-risk pregnant women.

"My wife does the Lord's work. She chose public health as a commitment more than a career," he said. "She doesn't deserve to be treated the way she's been treated."