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What is the Hospital Accountability
Project? |
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We
are a research and advocacy
initiative of the Service Employee
International Union (SEIU). Our aim
is to hold nonprofit, tax-exempt
hospitals accountable to their
charitable mission to place the
needs of patients, workers, and the
community ahead of financial
objectives.
Advocate Health Care—the largest
private provider of health care and
second largest private employer—has
the opportunity and an obligation to
set the highest health care and
employment standards in Chicago. Unfortunately,
the bottom-line decision making of
Advocate executives has prevented this
from happening.
In the interest of making Advocate
Health Care the best place to work
and receive care, the Hospital
Accountability Project and our
community partners—including
patients and workers are urging
Advocate to abide by its nonprofit
and faith-based mission. |
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What is the Health Care Justice
Protocol for Agreement? |
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The Health Care Justice Protocol for
Agreement is a framework for
Advocate Health Care, its church
sponsors, SEIU, community advocacy
organizations, and other signatories
to work together to improve
Chicago’s health care delivery
system for workers, patients, and
the community.
The purpose of the protocol is to
foster a constructive and
collaborative relationship between
all parties to restore racial,
social, and economic justice in
health care based on four
principles: the responsibility to
provide community benefits;
patients’ rights to health care;
workers’ rights to a free and fair
union decision process; and
non-discrimination in capital
investment policies. |
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What do the patient care and policy
issues raised by SEIU have to do
with the union? |
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As
a multi-faceted reform campaign, the
SEIU Hospital Accountability Project
is working together with patients,
workers, and the community to raise
awareness about patient care and
policy issues—like discriminatory
pricing and racial health
disparities—to restore justice at
Chicago’s largest private health
care provider,
Advocate Health Care.
As a union we believe that the ultimate
way to raise standards in health
care is by giving caregivers a voice
in decisions that
impact their patients, their
families, and themselves. But we’re
also speaking out on behalf of
patients and communities, too.
Consumers and patients feel the same
frustrations with the bottom-line
decision-making of Advocate
executives as the front line
caregivers who work there.
Every time a patient is price
gouged, every time a hospital unit
is short staffed, and every time a
suburban hospital investment is
proposed while urban communities are
ignored, we all suffer. |
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Why are health care and community
advocacy groups speaking out against
Advocate? |
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Advocate Health Care is a huge part
of our local economy and one of the
largest employers in the Chicago
area. Everyone who lives, works, and
pays taxes in Illinois has a stake
in this debate. Only by working
together can we develop and
implement real, long-term solutions
to problems such as lack of access
to health care, the inequitable
provision of community benefits,
racial redlining in capital
investments, and the rights of
workers to a free and fair union
decision process. |
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Have these issues been taken to
Advocate? |
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Yes. The union raised concerns with
Advocate’s senior management, but
Advocate refused—and continues to
refuse—to make changes.
The union approached Advocate in
good faith over two years ago and
offered to work with executives to
address a series of issues,
including the need for a health
system that provides quality,
affordable health care for all.
Advocate rejected that offer and
refused to address the concerns.
Working together, patients and
community and religious
organizations publicly raised
concerns about how the bottom-line
decision-making by Advocate has
deleterious effects on the lives of
those it has an obligation to serve.
Repeated requests to meet with
Advocate CEO Jim Skogsbergh have
been denied or deferred. |
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Why doesn’t the union seek an NLRB
election? |
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We
want an election in an environment
where workers can hear both sides
and make up their own minds whether
or not to form a union.
Unfortunately, the National Labor
Relations Board (NLRB) no longer
adequately protects workers’ free
choice.
Currently, Advocate management is
interfering in a decision that
belongs to the employees themselves.
Employees are being pulled away from
patients to attend intimidating
meetings with supervisors who let
workers know that there will be
repercussions for those who support
forming a union. That is why a free
and fair union decision process is
needed. |
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Is SEIU insisting on card check and
a neutrality agreement for union
organizing? |
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No. SEIU is not insisting on a card
check procedure or neutrality. We
are asking for fair rules so that
employees can make up their own
decision whether or not to form a
union. Unfortunately, federal labor
law is currently too weak to protect
employees’ rights and allows
management broad leeway to
intimidate and coerce employees.
An election agreement would include:
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A
prohibition against wasting
precious health care resources
on expensive anti-union
consultants;
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A
mutual obligation to campaign
positively and not to disparage
the other party;
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A
prohibition against employees
being pulled away from patients
and forced to attend
intimidation meetings;
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Avoidance of unnecessary delay
or legal challenges.
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As a nonprofit organization, does
Advocate have the finances to live
up to its charitable mission? |
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Advocate is a corporation with $2.8
billion in annual revenues and $3.6
billion in total assets. Advocate
posted nearly $144 million in
profits in 2004. The annual value of its
tax-exempt status is estimated to be
$75 million or more.
Advocate has the necessary resources
to restore racial, social, and
economic justice for patients,
workers, and the community. It is
simply a question of Advocate’s
priorities. |
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How has Advocate created a separate
and unequal system of health care?
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Based on public reports of major
capital investments required of
Illinois hospitals, Advocate has
spent significantly more at its
hospitals serving predominantly
white and affluent communities than
at its hospitals serving minority
communities. From 1995 through 2003,
Advocate invested $232 million in
capital improvements at hospitals
serving primarily white communities
and only $26 million at hospitals
serving predominantly minority
communities.
And since that figure was initially
released, Advocate has secured or
proposed an additional $595 million
in spending at its suburban
hospitals, but only $20.6 million at
its mission hospitals. |
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Doesn’t affordable, accessible
health care require a national
solution? |
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Yes it does. But a national solution
to the health care crisis will not
happen soon.
As the area’s largest private
provider of health care and the
second largest private employer,
Advocate Health Care has the
opportunity and responsibility to set the highest
standard in how patients,
communities, and workers are
treated.
That’s why people who work at,
receive care in, or live in the
communities surrounding Advocate
hospitals are coming together to
raise standards, restore justice,
and hold Advocate to its mission.
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