Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The 6,300 Communications Workers of America (CWA) and 1199SEIU workers of Kaleida Health have officially announced a vote to strike, which will take place September 13th through the 15th.
After months of contract negotiations and two extensions, the 6,300 workers of the Kaleida Healthcare system will now have their chance to vote on whether or not they should strike for a solution regarding critical staffing shortages and worker conditions, which they say is jeopardizing proper patient care. If the vote passes, they will have to provide Kaleida with a ten day notice before their strikes can commence.
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Between CWA and 1199SEIU, we represent about 6300 members in the Kaleida Health System, working in three hospitals to nursing homes and several clinics associated with each of the facilities. The committee deliberated for quite a while and we've actually just completed a complete review of our open issues, where we're apart on issues and made a determination that without further movement, from Kaleida, that we would not have an agreement that would be ratified," said Debora Hayes, Upstate New York Area Director for CWA.
The unions have also been talking with state officials to help the healthcare systems in Western New York.
"It's not that we're asking the state to come in and bail Kaleida out because that's not what we're asking for. A year or so ago, the state passed, with the support of all the unions, not just our two unions, safe staffing legislation, which again, we worked very hard on making the changes that the law put in place for us, we've added close to 500 new positions within the Kaleida system. With that, no money came from the state to pay for those 500 positions, which will probably cost Kaleida an upwards of 100 plus million dollars," said Jim Scordato, 1199SEIU Vice President for WNY Hospitals.
"The last thing we want to do is strike, that's the last thing we want to do and we know that the impact that it'll have, so again, we're hoping that all the right parties, you know, come to the table, and we have, you know, good dialogue, and try to get this in settled," Scordato notes.
"We'll have the polls open from 6am to 9pm. In both CWA and SEIU, only our members can authorize a strike. So the members must vote to authorize a strike in order for them to be able to go on strike. So those three days the polls will be open long hours in convenient locations, it's going to be very important for people to come out and vote and make sure that we, the bargaining committee, clearly understand what direction they want us to go in. Once the votes are counted at the end of the third day, then we'll bring those results back to the bargaining committee and the bargaining committee will talk about our next steps.," said Hayes.
See the players below for the announcement plus what healthcare workers are saying about their working conditions: