Below is the letter that was delivered to management demanding fair treatment and resources.
We, the techs and technologists at St. Charles Bend, respectfully request to be made whole in regard to the recent mental health and wellbeing package promoted by hospital administration. This request is being directed to you, the CEO of St. Charles Health System. As the CEO, you are responsible for guiding this hospital in a positive direction. A decision you recently made excludes important members of your organization, the techs and technologists of OFNHP. We write to you now to urge you to guide us, together in the right direction.
This exclusion of mental health and wellbeing benefits has not been absorbed well. These benefits, which include increased access to mental healthcare, ETO and differentials, were given to all but 175 of 3000 employees of SCHS. Hospital administration rolled out these benefits with the intent to use them as a bargaining chip against organized members of St. Charles. You initially insisted that you could not give these benefits to OFNHP members because you could not unilaterally make adjustments to the union contract. In response, OFNHP waived our right to bargain these benefits in order to accept this unilateral adjustment. The healthcare system’s response was to conditionally deny these mental health and wellbeing benefits. The intent is clear, our mental health and well-being is being used as leverage for bargaining concessions.
You yourself sent out an email to all employees touting the sacrifices that we’ve made and the need for St. Charles to improve our mental health provisions. Leveraging our mental health is incredibly frustrating, especially coming out of the biggest healthcare crisis any living person has experienced. OFNHP techs and technologists are no different than any other employee of St. Charles who endured the mental and physical roller coaster of Covid. Our mental health and wellness were eroded over that last 3 years as we committed ourselves to our patients and our community. Now, to conditionally withhold benefits that heal both self and family is callous and especially disheartening.
As the CEO you have the ability to immediately treat us equitably with those who we work side-by-side with every day. It is our request that you extend to us the new mental health and wellness package that was rolled out to everyone else on July 1st 2023. Please guide us in the right direction. We look forward to your response.