Union members at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital Nov. 30 ratified a new three-year contract covering some 1,700 service, technical, and maintenance workers.

The union views the new contract as a model for another 1,500 Maryland hospital employees with contracts to be negotiated in the coming weeks, an 1199SEIU United Health Care Workers East official told BNA Dec. 14.

“This [the new contract] is important because we are shifting the paradigm to one of cooperation” with employers, said Quincy Gamble, communications director of the Maryland/District of Columbia Division of 1199SEIU, a unit of the Service Employees International Union. The contract was popular with union members, he added, passing by a ratio of close to 5-to-1.

The new contract took effect Dec. 1 and runs through Nov. 30, 2009.

“We are very pleased we were able to reach an accord that benefits all parties involved. We are especially pleased that the negotiations were conducted within an atmosphere of cordiality, mutual respect and professionalism,” Johns Hopkins spokesman Gary Stephenson said.

The contract negotiations produced some significant improvements, and for the first time in many years a successor agreement was reached at the expiration of the previous agreement, Gamble said. In past negotiating cycles, he said, the contract was allowed to expire, and there was an extended period of negotiations while employees worked under temporary contract extensions.

“We've got to give Hopkins Medicine a lot of credit … there was absolute cooperation” during the negotiating process, Gamble said.

Wage, Health Package.

The contract's wage package includes an increase in the minimum wage for all covered employees. Previously $9.14 per hour, the new base wage is $10 per hour, effective Dec. 1, he said.

For workers already above the minimum, wage increases under the new contract are 3.25 percent in the first year, and 3 percent each in the second and third years. Workers must have been employed by Hopkins for at least one year to qualify for the first year 3.25 percent wage hike.

Further, many veteran Hopkins workers will see increases based on a new sliding scale intended to reward workers for long service, according to union organizer Mike Meredith. Wages will be bumped up at five-year increments, starting at 1 percent at the five-year, 10-year, and 15-year marks. The bump goes up to 2 percent at the 20-year and 25-year marks, and to 3 percent at the 30-year and 35-year marks, he said.

“The bumps are really most important for our members who are nearing retirement. These amounts are going to make a difference in how their pension payments are calculated,” Meredith said.

Health insurance premium contributions by union-represented employees are frozen for the first year of the contract. There is a cumulative 10 percent cap on any health insurance premium increases over the second and third year of the contract, Gamble said.

Other Hospitals.

The terms of the Hopkins contract will have a strong influence on negotiations at two other hospitals in the Baltimore area, according to Gamble.

Contracts will expire Jan. 31, 2007, at Sinai Hospital and at Greater Baltimore Medical Center, which together employ about 1,500 workers represented by 1199SEIU. Talks already are under way at Sinai, he said.

“The members have already made themselves very clear. Our position is that we are not going to take anything less” than the Hopkins contract on wage and health insurance issues, Gamble said.

The settlement also may influence an upcoming wage reopener at a large hospital in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, and in some nursing home contracts up for renewal this year, he said.

Organizer Meredith said one feature of the Hopkins contract demonstrated a significant improvement in labor-management relations. Hopkins now will grant access by the union to new employees when they are going through the initial orientation process. This gives the union an opportunity, he said, to talk to new employees directly during their first days on the job.

“It was a real breakthrough. We have this in a lot of our other contracts but we have never had it with Hopkins. I asked for it a couple of times in the past and they turned it down,” he said.

Formed in 2005 through the merger of SEIU locals in Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East represents about 250,000 hospital, nursing home, and other health care workers (19 LRW 854, 6/30/05). It is the largest single unit of the SEIU.