100 Community Leaders, CWAers Call for Justice at Catholic Health

CWAers across US show support for Catholic Health employees in upstate NY: https://t.co/DLzWVSAyR3pic.twitter.com/iIBwxPEup3

— CWA District 1 (@CWADistrict1) January 25, 2016

The pressure for justice at Catholic Health in Western New York is is growing both locally and across the nation. On January 1, 100 community leaders in the Greater Buffalo area published an ad in the Buffalo News calling attention to a recent report by the Workers’ Rights Board of Buffalo’s Coalition for Economic Justice which exposes multiple areas where Catholic Health has strayed from its mission and stated values. Catholic Health's behavior has had serious impact on the community and the 3,000 CWA members who work there.

• Catholic Health stands out for having an executive compensation bonus plan that rewards its Human Resources Vice President for extracting financial concessions from employees.
• Catholic Health's own IRS filings indicate that it offers uncompensated charity health care at a rate of only half the national average and half what the other large hospital system here provides.
• Catholic Health has embraced outsourcing jobs to for-profit companies outside of our area and beyond our national borders.
• Catholic Health favors non-union contractors without a commitment to local workers, apprenticeship programs, diversity, and sustainable prevailing wage and benefits packages. In doing so, it violates its own “Memorandum of Understanding,” adopted in the mid-1990’s that constitutes the working arrangement to which both the Diocese and Construction Trades had agreed.
• Catholic Health has repeatedly flaunted both the spirit of its own grievance procedures and the National Labor Relations Act.
• Catholic Health has penalized numerous non-union employees who have special medical or other needs.

Groups of nurses from CWA locals across the United States stood outside the many offices and the headquarters of both Trinity and Ascension Health passing out the open letter and the report, “Breaking Faith: How Catholic Health Executives Abandon Catholic Social Teachings.” The three owners of Catholic Health in both Livonia, Michigan and St. Louis Missouri received copies of the open letter and report.

Community leaders, CWA members from across the country, and a growing number of allies nationwide have our back and want justice at Catholic Health.

It’s time for Catholic Health to treat their employees with the values expressed clearly and persuasively in their own Mission Statement.