(Update: Adding video, comments from workers)
Union claims big advances; hospital claims they missed out on raises, are getting same salaries as others
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) Medical techs, technologists and therapists at St. Charles Bend voted Wednesday to ratify their first union contract, a 3-year pact that the union says raises pay an average 25% and marks a new stage of labor peace and partnership with the hospital.
But St. Charles issued a statement of its own that painted a very different picture of the contract, saying the workers missed out on raises they would have gotten since unionizing in late 2019 and are not getting larger raises or higher salaries than the non-union workers in similar positions at their other three hospitals are getting.
St. Charles Workers Agree On Contract
Union workers at St. Charles Medical Center ratified their first contract Wednesday. The medical techs, technologists, and therapists first voted to unionize in 2019 and voted to strike for nine days in March.
“We have won a groundbreaking new contract, which raises our wages an average of 25% and ensures that we have a strong voice at work.” says Frank Dewolf, a technologist in the Cardiac Cath Lab.
“This contract proves, once again, that when you come together as a union you can accomplish what isn’t possible alone,” says Randi Weingarten, the president of the 1.7 million member American Federation of Teachers, of which OFNHP is an affiliate. “I am so proud of the newest members of the OFNHP and AFT family who organized for years and fought fiercely at the bargaining table and on the picket line to win a fair first contract. This historic agreement delivers on their faith with immediate boosts to pay and conditions and a perman
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Workers Struggles: The Americas
Latin America
Puerto Rican electrical workers union calls one-day strike over government energy contract
On March 3, the Electrical and Irrigation Workers Union (Utier) of Puerto Rico announced a 24-hour strike to begin at 10 PM, March 8. The purpose of the stoppage will be two-fold: to hold a protest at the Capitol and to publicly attend a presentation outside the Chamber of Representatives as part of the investigation of the contract between the administration of Governor Pedro Pierluisi and the Electrical Energy Authority (AEE) with LUMA Energy.
Union president Ángel Figueroa Jaramillo stated that the strike was called so that “all the AEE workers, represented by Utier, can see the presentation that the Alliance of Active and Retired Employees will put on this coming Tuesday where we will expose the truth of the contract with LUMA Energy and the government of Pedro Pierluisi that has already cost us more than $80 million, raises rates, elimin