The Georgetown University Hospital is currently engaged in contract negotiations with the Service Employees International Union Local 1199 E-D.C., which represents 450 of the hospital’s service and maintenance staff. The Georgetown Solidarity Committee is working closely with the workers and the SEIU and has circulated a petition on campus to further the workers’ cause.

While union members are negotiating directly with hospital administration, their grievances lie with MedStar Health, the public non-profit healthcare organization that purchased the hospital from the university two years ago.

The old contract, which had been in effect when MedStar took over the hospital and was then extended for a year, expired in late June. Approximately eight bargaining sessions have been held since then, SEIU union representative Eliyahu Rabin said, with the original contract being upheld by both parties in the interim.

“Workers are not fighting management, but are asking for quality health care and a fair wage increase,” he said. “Many of the workers feel they’re invisible and want to be treated seriously – all they’re asking for is a fair contract.”

GU Hospital’s Director of Media Relations Marianne Worley said the negotiations are proceeding as normal and that “both sides are still talking.”

“These workers keep the hospital running, a very valuable service to our community and MedStar, and it is ridiculous that they should have to struggle to afford health care or need to worry about their job security when they should be able to focus on important work,” GSC President Nick Laskowski (COL ’03) said. “Campus workers deserve to be treated responsibly and ethically as demanded by the Jesuit Catholic tradition of this university.”

The hospital employees represented by SEIU, composing the core support staff to doctors and nurses, voted by a 95-percent margin a few weeks ago to empower the workers’ bargaining committee to give notice for a strike if necessary. Concordant with national law, the bargaining committee, consisting of fellow workers, union staffers and an attorney, must give a 10-day notice before calling a strike in a hospital.

“In the last three to four months, MedStar still has not seriously negotiated an acceptable contract with the workers,” Laskowski said. “The workers’ concerns are understandable – affordable health care, a moderate wage increase and job security. This last is particularly important, as edStar has been known in the past for attempting to circumvent union standards and benefits by outsourcing many jobs, subcontracting them to lower-paying employers.”

Rabin also emphasized the importance of the service and maintenance workers in helping the hospital to offer the most ideal form of health care.

“If you’re bringing in [subcontracting] the lowest bidder, what kind of health care are you endorsing?” he said. “Cleaning and sterilizing a patient’s room, for instance, is not like cleaning a Holiday Inn. Cooking a meal in the hospital is not like cooking at McDonald’s.”

The latest negotiations, scheduled for this past Wednesday, were postponed at the request of hospital administration to allow for a reassessment of the situation, Rabin said.

Rabin emphasized that since this was the first set of negotiations between the SEIU and the hospital administration, it would hopefully pave the way for a healthy relationship in the future.

“We’re hoping to end up with a fair contract and strong partnership down the road,” he said. “Through these difficult times, the workers have never compromised the image of Georgetown University Hospital, which is still nationally renowned. We hope this is a springboard for a brighter future.”

MedStar is the third largest employer in the Baltimore-Washington area, with 22,000 employees, and owns seven major hospitals.