1199 To Strike Stamford Health Systems

Stamford Health System employees are threatening a three-day strike but will stay on the job if the new chairman of the board meets them at the bargaining table.



Members of New England Health Care Employees Union, District 1199, are prepared to walk off the job May 26.



Sixty-five of the union members are on Stamford Hospital's dietary staff and 120 are certified nursing assistants, licensed practical nurses, physical therapy aides, dietary workers and housekeeping employees at the Tandet Center nursing home.



The workers, who have been involved in the labor dispute for nearly two years, picketed outside Stamford Health System Chairman Michael Herling's Landmark Square office yesterday afternoon. They chanted, "One, two, three, four, no one should be working poor," and waved union flags.

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The workers say salaries are not the sticking point: They don't want to lose health, retirement and vacation benefits.



"It's more our benefits than anything," said Richard Romano, 48, who has worked in the hospital's kitchen for 11 years. "They want to take away the sick days and vacation days we've earned."



Romano, who gets four weeks of vacation, 12 sick days and 10 paid holidays a year under the old contract, said he stands to lose seven paid days off under the administration's proposal to combine sick days, personal days and vacation days into one category called "paid time off."



Union members also are worried about rising costs of health insurance. Hospital dietary employees are on a union-sponsored plan that requires no weekly contribution, although there is a deductible of up to $1,000 a year and co-payments for office visits.



Stamford Health System is proposing a choice of plans under which the costs vary depending on the type of coverage, Orstad said.



Union officials say the hospital wants members to pay about $60 a week for health insurance, which they can't afford.



On average, members earn $12.81 an hour.



Sandy Williams of Stamford says she makes just more than $14 an hour after 35 years as a diet technician, collecting meal orders from patients and delivering their food.



"My job is considered one of the highest paying jobs (in the union), can you believe that?" she said.



Workers said they don't want to strike but are prepared to to hold onto their benefits.



"They are trying to take all of our benefits away and we've worked too hard," said Mae Anderson of Stamford, a hospital employee of 34 years. "We've been in this union since 1974. Everything we've gained they are trying to take back and it's not right."