Union Members Rally Over Dispute

(Buffalo News)BUFFALO NEWS
October 1, 2008

UNION MEMBERS RALLY OVER DISPUTE

LOCAL 1199 SEIU MEMBERS, SUPPORTERS SEEK RESOLUTION IN CONTRACT TALKS WITH
KALEIDA

By Matt Glynn
News Business Reporter

(Buffalo) - Members of a major union at Kaleida Health System called on
Kaleida to come to agreement on employee retirement benefits, a sticking
point in contract talks.
Hundreds of members of Local 1199 Service Employees International Union
Health Care Workers East and their supporters blew whistles and chanted as
they marched Tuesday to a field near the Larkin at Exchange building. The
office complex is home to Kaleida's human resources and finance
departments.

"We're not standing around anymore and working our whole lives and walking
away without a decent pension," said George Gresham, president of the New
York Citybased union, which has about 300,000 members.

About 3,200 members of Local 1199 work at Kaleida, the largest share of
them at Women and Children's Hospital. Workers represented by the union
include registered nurses and nurse practitioners, administrative workers
and maintenance personnel.

The most recent contract between the two sides expired May 31. Union
members at Tuesday's rally sought to frame the pension dispute as an issue
with implications beyond their own finances.

"We have given a lifetime of service to this community," said Sandra
Harmon, a registered nurse at Women and Children's Hospital for 38

years. "We have loved your children and your families like our own.
Sometimes they came before our own families."

Annie Lewis, a certified nursing assistant at Buffalo General Hospital for
13 years, said the pension issue touches neighborhoods. A good pension
allows people to keep up their homes when they retire, she said.

"If you work hard, you should be able to stay in your home and in the
community when you retire," Lewis said.

Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, D-Buffalo, offered to act as a mediator to help the
two sides reach an agreement. He noted that the union and Kaleida had shown
cooperation before, in keeping Women and Children's Hospital open at its
current location.

"I submit that the same can happen in this case," Hoyt said after the
rally.

Local 1199 wants to shift to a union-administered pension plan that the
union says would provide better coverage for its members. The union also
says there is inequity in the system, contending in some cases, employees
in the same building or in the same job title will receive different
benefits. Kaleida has called what the union has asked for "irresponsible
and beyond the financial reality of Western New York."

"They want us to move to a downstate pension plan that is simply
unaffordable and could bankrupt our organization," Kaleida said in a
statement this week.

Franchelle Hart, a union spokeswoman, estimated more than 900 people
attended the rally. Gresham pledged to return to Buffalo with larger
numbers of supporters if the dispute isn't resolved.

"I give you my word, as your president, that they won't be able to hold us
here in this space if we have to come back here again," he said.

mglynn@buffnews.com