SEIU Local 1199WI

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WI State Professional Patient Care Unit Opinion Editorial

By Dian Palmer, RN, President, SEIU 1199W/UP

We've heard several legislators question whether the State can afford the contracts negotiated by the prior administration. Calls for rejection are in the air. As the union president for our state government's health care workers, I say a better question is whether the state can afford NOT to approve our contract.

For too long our State's health care professionals have remained silent just trying to quietly do their jobs to the best of their ability. And yet, as employees at our correctional and mental health facilities, and in other settings, they all too frequently work unsafe forced overtime to fill open shifts because the State can't retain and recruit nurses due to the State's below market pay. All too frequently, they work side by side with private agency nurses who are paid twice as much as our State's nurses for the same job at double to triple the cost to the State. Before state lawmakers even think about rejecting our contract, they should realize every newspaper in the State advertises openings for nurses with significantly higher pay and multiple bonus opportunities than earned by our members.

We are still gathering data, but believe that the costs to the state for recruiting replacement health care professionals who leave state employment are enormous. Even worse are the costs to the state when it must contract out for health care.

Our members do not work easy jobs. Our members provide high quality services to our veterans, our developmentally disabled children and adults, our mentally ill and our correctional inmates. In addition, these professionals inspect our health care facilities to ensure nursing homes, hospitals and other health care facilities deliver the best possible care under the law.

From a budget sense, we believe it is in the state's interest to approve our contract. From a societal point of view, we believe contract approval is essential. Suppose you were the parent of severely developmentally disabled infant in a State institution or the family member of someone who is criminally insane at Mendota, wouldn't you expect the State of Wisconsin to provide you and your family with the best possible services to protect you, your family and your loved one? The nurses and health care professionals working for the State of Wisconsin are in a real dilemma. As professionals, these state employees are expected to provide the highest quality of health care to each and every person including those who are not our most popular, most outspoken or politically connected.

But how can these professionals continue to provide the quality care and services our citizens expect when the State does not pay adequate wages and cannot retain health care workers to maintain adequate staffing levels. There is a real possibility that the state will need to close facilities because it cannot retain health care professionals and contracted-for health-care workers are too expensive. Where will this lead? Closing a wing at the King Veterans Home? Should we turn the criminally insane back onto the streets? Should we close our Public Health Department and have no population based coordinated health services to eradicate diseases like smallpox and polio and act as our first line of defense against a biological attack? Should we turn our severely developmentally disabled infants over to a community system that is not equipped to care for them? We can't morally and ethically turn our backs on our most needy citizens.

Being pennywise and pound-foolish has been the State's way for too long. It's time we were fiscally responsible. Wisconsin's tradition has been to provide high standards for health care. Let's keep that tradition and grant our State's nurses and health care professionals the Union contract they deserve and ratified nearly a year ago. It's the most cost effective way for us to provide the health care services our citizens want and deserve.