SVMH Layoffs Begin As Union Fights Reductions

Profit margin high, management say layoffs needed to keep it that way.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Nearly 50 Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital workers, including 20 registered nurses and 27 housekeepers and clerical workers, lost their jobs this week in the hospital’s latest round of cost-cutting.

The National Union of Healthcare Workers, which represents all but the RNs, deems the layoffs unnecessary and illegal, and has taken its fight to the streets and to state labor officials. But this week, the union’s biggest push is in the court of public opinion, where it aims to show that the hospital’s bottom line is healthier than hospital management says.

Union researcher Fred Seavey points to financial statements that show Salinas Valley Memorial’s operating profit margin of 4.8 percent is more than double the average for all California hospitals.

“The hospital presents this sky-is-falling crisis,” Seavey says. “Those claims are contradicted by its own financial reports.”

But SVMH VP Bev Ranzenberger notes the hospital must maintain a healthy margin “so we can have the newest technology, great service, maintain the facility and recruit the finest physicians, technicians and nurses.”

SVMH initially was to layoff more than 100, but reduced the number after the NUHW fought back.

“We’ve reduced what we’re going to do by the end of the calendar year,” Ranzenberger says, adding that more job cuts could come later.

The union says it’s continuing with picket lines this week. It has already filed unfair labor practice charges against the hospital with the state public employee relations board. “This is not the end of it by any stretch,” says union VP John Borsos.