Skilled maintenance workers at six Prime Healthcare hospitals in Illinois plan to go on strike July 2, with their union alleging that Prime has interfered with their right to organize and bargain collectively.
The strike will be open-ended at this point, lasting until Prime returns to good faith bargaining, according to a spokesperson for the union, the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 399.
A spokesperson for Prime did not immediately provide comment Tuesday morning.
The union members include workers who maintain HVAC systems, plumbing and other systems, according to the union, and they work across six hospitals: Saint Mary of Nazareth Hospital in Chicago; Saint Elizabeth Hospital in Chicago; Holy Family Medical Center in Des Plaines; Resurrection Medical Center in Chicago; Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston; and Saint Joseph Hospital in Elgin. Saint Elizabeth is closed, but workers still maintain the building, according to a union spokesperson.
The strike comes after the union filed 10 unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board earlier this month against Prime hospitals and MedSpace Services, which is a subsidiary of Prime Healthcare Management, Inc.
Each of the charges alleges that Prime “has intentionally and repeatedly bargained in bad faith with its employees’ exclusive bargaining representative.”
Kendall Paraharm, a business agent for Local 399, previously told the Tribune that Prime, initially, wouldn’t recognize Local 399 as the representative for the bargaining units, even though it represented them under Ascension. Then, Paraharm said, when Prime did recognize Local 399 and start contract negotiations, the offers it made would have meant losses of accrued vacation time and seniority for workers, among other things.
The strike is the latest labor woe facing Prime, which bought eight Illinois hospitals from Ascension last year.
Nurses at Prime’s Saint Mary of Nazareth Hospital in Chicago went on a one-day strike June 11 to protest what they described as Prime’s “illegal firings” of nurses for what they said were protected union activities. Following the strike, the Saint Mary nurses voted to join the union the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC), an affiliate of National Nurses United (NNU).
Also, nurses at Prime’s Saint Joseph Hospital in Joliet filed a lawsuit against Prime and previous owner Ascension alleging “severe understaffing of nurses.” They filed the lawsuit June 4 in Will County Circuit Court.
