STERLING, Ill. — One year after health care workers at CGH Medical Center voted to unionize, there still is no first contract agreement between employees and the hospital.
Some union members blame hospital management for purposely stalling contract negotiations — a claim CGH is vehemently denying.
On April 28, 2021, roughly 850 hospital and clinic staffers officially formed the CGH Employees Union under the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31. AFSCME staff representative Lori Laidlaw says negotiations over the first contract agreement began that fall but have since dragged on.
"(Management) are very, very anti-union. They don't want the workers to have a voice. They don't want us in there," Laidlaw said. "This is not normal."
Laidlaw said AFSCME and CGH representatives have already conducted 18 meetings and now have two more scheduled in May.
The union said it's working for a clearer conflict resolution process, a $4 per hour wage increase for all members and stronger protections from termination without cause.
CGH Medical Center denied all of the union members' claims. In a statement to News 8, a hospital spokesperson said: "We continue to bargain in good faith with the union and believe the best place to negotiate and make proposals in a unionized environment is at the table."
Last month, a judge with the Illinois Labor Relations Board said CGH and its CEO Dr. Paul Steinke violated state labor law by deterring employees from unionizing.
Judge Anna Hamburg-Gal wrote that a "letter to the editor" penned by Steinke discouraged, deterred and coerced staff members from forming the union and further instructed workers on how to revoke their AFSCME membership.
In response, the hospital told News 8, in part: "We are disappointed in the ALJ’s recommendation to the state labor board. We believe that the First Amendment protects the right of employees to hear from all sides, not just unions. The decision is not final, and we are reviewing our appeal options."
You can view CGH's full response here.
Current employees at CGH said a culture of fear and intimidation, as well as ignored pay scales and deferential treatment from managers, created the need for a union.
In the July-August 2019 edition of "On the Move" AFSCME Council 31 reported that CGH employees were facing a "culture of fear" and worried about staffing levels and high turnover rates.
The hospital denies all of those claims.
"I've worked for the facility for 30 years. And I feel that they don't appreciate what we do," Jodi Thompson said.
A current emergency room RN, Thompson began working at CGH as a receptionist when she was just 19 years old. She was one of the first staffers to sign on to the new union.
Thompson alleged that any employee who speaks out against management gets "blackballed" and now believes the hospital is purposely throwing off contract negotiations with her union.
"I feel management is ... they don't want to give up any power. They don't want to hear what we have to say. They want to still intimidate," Thompson said. "We didn't become a union because we hate CGH. We became a union to better the place so that we can have some pride and know that we will be heard at the table."
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Thompson said she and her coworkers worked tirelessly to care for sick patients. Many of her colleagues, she says, contracted the virus themselves and had to use personal, accrued time off for mandatory quarantines.
"For the last two years, we've (shown) up to work, put our lives on the line and management wasn't there. They were in their offices away from the community," Thompson said. "We shouldn't have to make do anymore. We should be taken care of."
She also said that many of her coworkers are forced to work two jobs to make ends meet. Now, she said she won't give up in the fight for a first contract.
"If it goes six months, if it goes a year, I will still be fighting. I'll still be fighting for this because this isn't about me. This is about our community," Thompson said. "I'm fighting for my coworkers that were let go unfairly. I'm fighting for the next batch of nurses, receptionists, lab techs, housekeepers and anybody that comes to CGH."
One of her colleagues, Manuel Mooney, agreed.
"It has been frustrating. CGH has fought every turn to prevent the union from coming," he said.
Mooney is an RN in CGH's behavioral unit and a current member of the union's bargaining team. He alleges there are many hospital employees who are too scared to sign onto the union for fear of retaliation from management.
"Management is, in my opinion, purposely trying to slow roll our contract negotiations," Mooney said. "We chose, the state recognized us, so just accept that there's going to be a union here now."
He recalled the worst of the pandemic and its many surges, saying isolation protocols meant CGH staff members were often the only people with patients as they died. Most patients that come into the hospital are treated and walk back out, but COVID-19 changed all of that, he said.
"Nurses don't give up," Mooney said. "While management got to work from home, we were on the front lines and we dealt with covid day in and day out. We were always there."
Now, he says those same employees "deserve to be taken seriously" and receive a first contract proposal from their employer.
"It's a poison pill for morale," he said. "But we just keep working until we get it done. The union is here, the union is going to be here, there's nobody that can stop that. So we're going to work until the contract gets done."