SHARE Updates: MA Apprenticeship Program, UnionPlus How-To, and More

to have a say, we have to participate

SHARE encourages you to get out and vote!

Earn and Learn with the Medical Assistant Training Program

How the pay works for SHARE members who are admitted to the Medical Assistant Registered Apprenticeship program:

The flyer shown above for the Medical Assistant Apprenticeship program only lists the starting pay if you are coming from outside of SHARE. If you are already a SHARE member, your pay rate will be determined by your current grade. The promotional increase rules decide how much your rate would go up. The promotional increase is 5% per grade. (If that math doesn’t land your rate on a platform in the grade, the rate will be rounded up to the next platform.)

Medical Assistant Trainee is a NSG5 title.

Medical Assistant, Certified is a NSG6 title.

  • Example: If you transfer from a NSG3 job, like PCA 1, to the Medical Assistant Trainee title, that’s 2 grades higher. So you would get a 10% increase. You would get an additional 5% when you get certified.

  • Example: If you transfer from a NSG4 job, like PCA 2, to the Medical Assistant Trainee title, that’s 1 grades higher. So you would get a 5% increase. You would get an additional 5% when you get certified.

Note: If you transfer from a title in a higher grade, your pay rate would be decreased 5% per grade.

A Tip for Taking Advantage of Union Plus Programs

In our last email, we highlighted the valuable benefits available through the UnionPlus program, everything from legal help to discounted movie tickets to educational opportunities.

Thank you to those who reached out and reminded us that SHARE is not listed as an option in the registration for the program. To sign up, you’ll need to select our parent union, AFSCME, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, in the dropdown menu. Our union is also identified as AFSCME Local 3900.

SHARE Updates: Make the Most of Your Raise, Career Pathways, and More!

Raises came at the beginning of October, and now that we’re in the Open Enrollment period, it’s a good time to be thinking about your own financial and retirement planning. Below you can find directions on how to check your raise and ways to make your money go further.

Former SHARE union co-president and CT Tech Jay Hagan provided brilliant patient care at UMass Memorial for several decades. And now he’s now making the most of the SHARE retirement benefits!

UMass Memorial Legal Services

In addition to investing in your future self by upping your contribution to your 401k, you might consider using the UMass Memorial Legal Assistance Plan to prepare for the future.

Former SHARE Union President Jay Hagan used those services before his own retirement, and had good things to say about it. “Before, I called a financial advisor, and was told that the services I wanted would cost me three or four thousand dollars. So, instead, I got set up with the Legal Assistance Plan for one year, and saved a lot.

“I called MetLaw and they provided me a list of local lawyers to choose from. I met with one a couple of times . . . he was friendly and competent. There are additional expenses that you have to pay to Massachusetts for things like recording fees, but all of the legal bills get directly to MetLaw. If someone dies, it’s bad enough to grieve, and I don’t want my wife or me to have worry about all this then. I’m so glad I’ve got my will and everything taken care of.”

Could a Health Care Flexible Spending Account Work for You?

UnionPlus Benefits for SHARE Members

If you’re signed up for SHARE, you’re also eligible for the perks, discounts, and low-cost programs for union members through the nationwide UnionPlus program, which also includes financial services such as personal loans, student debt help, credit card debt settlement, and more.

How to Check Your Raise

The recent raise became effective 9/29/24, and was reflected in the first paycheck after that date.

Your raise was 4.5% of your old hourly rate, or $1.00 per hour, whichever amount was larger.

For more information about the structure of the raise, and how to calculate your own, and what happens if your pay has reached the Max Cap, check out this page about raises.

Many more of the most common questions are answered in this FAQ from the last contract agreement. This raise is the third of four annual raises negotiated for this contract period.

You can confirm that your raise was processed in Workday. Just log in and go to your profile, then select “Compensation” (see example image below from the Workday app.)

If you have questions or concerns about your raise, please contact the SHARE Organizer for your area. You can also call SHARE at 508-929-4020 or email share.comment@theshareunion.org.

You will see your Pay Raise reflected in the “Compensation” section of Workday, as well as in your “Pay Change History”

Do You Know Someone Who Would Like to Become a CT Technologist?

Reminder: SHARE Retirement Info Sessions. Register now!

SHARE Retirement Information Sessions

In case you haven’t heard, raises are coming soon, and raise-time is a great time to re-evaluate your retirement strategy!

SHARE will be hosting three upcoming information sessions to help SHARE members understand more about the retirement benefits available, including the 401k, as well as the Defined Benefit Pension, a valuable asset that has become increasingly rare in American workplaces. (However, SHARE has worked over the years to keep our own pension sustainable, and has negotiated for the hospital to continue providing it to everyone in the SHARE bargaining unit.) Get the link to this virtual event by registering below . . .

Congratulations to Our 2024 Mass AFL-CIO Scholarship Recipient

Leo attends the University of Massachusetts, where he is majoring in Music

Congratulations to Leo Perry, who recently received the $1000 Central Massachusetts AFL-CIO Scholarship, a prize awarded to select rising college students in AFSCME families. Leo’s mother, Laura Perry, is a SHARE member and Respiratory Therapist in the Pulmonary Lab.

Keep your eye on the SHARE blog over the coming school year for more #scholarships. For other educational opportunities, check out posts tagged #education.

Learn About Your Retirement Benefits with SHARE

SHARE Retirement Information Sessions

Raises are coming soon, and raise-time is a great time to re-evaluate your retirement strategy!

SHARE will be hosting three upcoming information sessions to help SHARE members understand more about the retirement benefits available, including the 401k, as well as the Defined Benefit Pension, a valuable asset that has become increasingly rare in American workplaces. However, SHARE has helped to keep our own pension sustainable, and has negotiated for the hospital to continue providing it to everyone in the SHARE bargaining unit. Get the link to this virtual event by registering below . . .

PCA Pathway Grads CELEBRATE!

UMass Memorial’s first cohort of the PCA Pathway training program got paid to learn and are already in their new SHARE positions, caring for patients. Congratulations to all you new grads! Here’s to your new career!

click the image for the short bouncing video

Know someone who would like to get started or advance their career in healthcare? The deadline for the next PCA Pathway Program is September 13th. Learn more here

Or, for more opportunities, check out other SHARE posts tagged #Education

SHARE UBTs Celebrate Reaching Top Level of Path to Performance

UMass Memorial Health and SHARE leaders recently celebrated an impressive milestone reached by two Unit-Based Teams, or UBTs.  A UBT is a frontline-led, department-level improvement system that enables caregivers to work on the process problems that make it hardest for them to feel proud of the care they deliver.

This week, Dr. Eric Dickson and other hospital leaders visited the Vascular Surgery Office and Diabetes/Endocrinology departments to celebrate the teams becoming the first UBTs to reach Level 5 status on the UBT Path to Performance.

While over 75 UBTs have been launched over the last several years across the Medical Center, Medical Group, Revenue Cycle, and Marlborough Hospital, these are the first to have reached this top level of performance.

In order to progress through the Path to Performance, a team, made up of a voluntary group of employees consisting of managers, union organizers, and frontline staff, must demonstrate competence in various ways, with a focus on designing and completing improvement projects in their own department. UBT projects often tackle things such as communication or workflow. The ultimate goal of the UBT is to make their departments better places to work — more enjoyable, smoother running, and easier places to give the high-level patient care that they want to provide.

In addition to delivering to each team a traditional SHARE-UMass Partnership Office award — a balloon shaped like a number “5” — Dr. Dickson heard from caregivers about which UBT projects have meant the most to them, what they are working on now, and how having a UBT has changed how they feel about coming to work.  

Congratulations Vascular Surgery Office and Diabetes/Endocrinology UBTs for leading the pack!

Click here to learn more about UBTs, and to find out more about how to launch one in your department reach out to Will.Erickson@umassmemorial.org.

SHARE Updates: PCA Pathway Program, Free English Classes, and Unit Based Teams

PCA Pathway Program Now Accepting Applications

Congratulations to the first graduating cohort of the PCA Pathway Program! They’re now on-the-job as SHARE members, caring for patients at UMass Memorial.

Do you know someone who wants to begin a career at UMass Memorial working on the nursing floors? The Patient Care Associate Program is now open to friends and family of SHARE members!

A Strong Summer for Unit Based Teams

First, the bittersweet news: after helping establish the SHARE-UMass Memorial Partnership Office over the past few years, our beloved UBT Program Coordinator, Stephanie Pepi, has accepted another job at UMass Memorial. We wish you the best in Ophthamology, Steph!

There was nothing bittersweet about the recent FMCS/LERA conference in NYC, where leaders from SHARE and UMass Memorial presented to an international audience about the importance of UBTs.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su (above, middle left) even pulled the presenters into a meeting to talk about the Labor-Management projects that SHARE members are pioneering on the front lines.

SHARE members Celebrate success — and Share what they’ve Learned — at the 2024 UBT Fairs

The most exciting news for Unit Based Teams this Summer is the fantastic success of the UBT Fairs on both the Memorial and University Campuses, where SHARE members showed off their projects to over 1000 attendees. If you missed it, be sure to check out the most recent UBT Newsletter!

Click the image above for lots more photos of UBT Fair fun

Free English Classes for UMass Memorial Caregivers

Patient Care Associate Pathway Training Program

Does someone you know want to begin a career at UMass Memorial working on the nursing floors? The Patient Care Associate Program is open again to friends and family of SHARE members! Learn more about the PCA Pathway program here, or scroll down to read the announcement flyer.

Participants in the first wave of this program, seen above, recently completed their training and are now on the job, as SHARE members at UMass Memorial, caring for patients.

No Voting Required This Year for SHARE Rep and Executive Board Members

This year there are enough positions for all of the SHARE Executive Board and Representative nominees. A vote is only held when there are more people running than there are positions to run for.

Congratulations to the new and returning SHARE representatives, who are now considered elected! Also, thank you to all of the nominators for honoring your co-workers by submitting their names for these important roles.

A list of all SHARE Reps and Executive Board members will be posted soon to the SHARE website

SHARE Leadership Nominations Closing Soon

Are you looking to have a richer work life? To be in-the-know? To make things better in your department, and across UMass Memorial? To better understand how our hospital works? To share your work experience with other SHARE leaders throughout the system? To increase the impact of your voice and the voices of your co-workers?

Know someone who is?

Nominate yourself or a co-worker to become a SHARE Rep or Executive Board member!

The nominations period closes just after Memorial Day, on Tuesday, May 28. The full nominations notice is below. Learn even more about what SHARE leaders do here.

UMass Memorial works because SHARE members — and elected leaders — do!

For a printer-friendly version of the below elections notice, click here.

Medical Assistant Apprenticeship Program

SHARE is very excited to announce this new apprenticeship program in conjunction with UMass Memorial and QCC. Please disregard the pay minimums listed in the flyer and note the pay guidelines at the end of this post, which pertain exclusively to SHARE members. For a printable version of this flyer, click here.

How the pay works for SHARE members who are admitted to the Medical Assistant Registered Apprenticeship program:

The flyer shown above for the Medical Assistant Apprenticeship program only lists the starting pay if you are coming from outside of SHARE. If you are already a SHARE member, your pay rate will be determined by your current grade. The promotional increase rules decide how much your rate would go up. The promotional increase is 5% per grade. (If that math doesn’t land your rate on a platform in the grade, the rate will be rounded up to the next platform.)

Medical Assistant Trainee is a NSG5 title.

Medical Assistant, Certified is a NSG6 title.

  • Example: If you transfer from a NSG3 job, like PCA 1, to the Medical Assistant Trainee title, that’s 2 grades higher. So you would get a 10% increase. You would get an additional 5% when you get certified.

  • Example: If you transfer from a NSG4 job, like PCA 2, to the Medical Assistant Trainee title, that’s 1 grades higher. So you would get a 5% increase. You would get an additional 5% when you get certified.

Note: If you transfer from a title in a higher grade, your pay rate would be decreased 5% per grade.

Direct File Makes Tax Filing Easier

Filing your taxes has gotten easier for Massachusetts residents. The following message explaining how comes from the AFL-CIO . . .

The average taxpayer spends a whopping $200-plus a year on tax prep services. I bet we can all think of better things we could do with that money instead.

That’s why the Biden administration is launching a new tax filing service called Direct File in 2024 that will allow eligible taxpayers to file their taxes online directly with the IRS—for free.

According to our most recent records, you live in Massachusetts, which is one of 12 states eligible for the pilot program this year: Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

The Direct File service will be available in English and Spanish, works on mobile devices as easily as it does tablets, laptops and desktop computers, and includes direct and dedicated customer support from the IRS. 

During the 2024 pilot, Direct File will support most simple returns for certain kinds of income (such as reporting a W-2 wage income or Social Security and railroad retirement income) and key credits (such as the earned income tax credit [EITC] and the child tax credit [CTC]). If your taxes are more complicated—like self-employment income, business expenses or itemized deductions—then Direct File isn’t supporting that yet and you can keep using the existing filing option that is best for you. 

The Direct File service will include a screener tool that will help you quickly confirm whether your tax situation is supported before you start filing. It also can connect you to alternative filing options if you’re not able to use Direct File this year. No one is required to use Direct File.   

Since Direct File is a new pilot, it will be rolled out in phases—and it’s expected to open to the public by early- to mid-March. For more information and to check your eligibility, visit directfile.irs.gov. You also can click here to subscribe to the IRS’ Direct File pilot newsletter. 

We think this is a pretty great way that the Biden administration is delivering for working families and for workers like you and your family to access free, safe and easy tax filing services. 

In Solidarity,

Team AFL-CIO

SHARE Updates: Quarantine, PCA Pathway Program, Scholarships, and more

Dear SHARE member, we heard last week that some people had issues with the email from SHARE, that it went straight into your work-email’s quarantine system.

So! We’re repeating some important scholarship information below, along with an announcement about UMass Memorial’s PCA Pathway Program: refer a friend or family-member to that, and get a $3,000 referral bonus!

Thank you for understanding about the redundancy. And thank you to those who let us know that SHARE emails weren’t getting through smoothly . . .

Patient Care Associate Pathway

Learn more about the PCA Pathway program here

Couillard Fund Scholarships for Nursing Education

Four (4) Couillard Fund Scholarships of $2,500 each will be awarded to active UMMH Medical Center clinical support staff or LPNs currently enrolled in a program leading to an RN licensure. The scholarship deadline is April 8th. Learn more, and apply, here.

Central Mass AFL/CIO College Scholarships

SHARE members again have the opportunity to apply for a valuable education resource: the Central Massachusetts AFL-CIO College Scholarship. The lottery for these scholarships will be open to any SHARE members, as well as children and grandchildren of our members, who will graduate from high school this year and attend college next year. We’d love to see more winners from SHARE this year. Learn more and apply to this fellowship here

UMass Memorial Hospital Named Among World’s Best

In case you missed it, Newsweek recently named the top 100 best hospitals in the world as ranked by an independent data-gathering firm. Fifteen of those hospitals are right here in Massachusetts, including our own UMass Memorial. UMass Memorial works because SHARE members do, and it’s nice to see that hard work recognized. Read more here.

New “Direct FilE” Service makes Filing for Taxes Easier

A new tax filing service called Direct File will allow eligible taxpayers to file their taxes online directly with the IRS—for free. The Direct File service will be available in English and Spanish, works on mobile devices as easily as it does tablets, laptops and desktop computers, and includes direct and dedicated customer support from the IRS. During the 2024 pilot, Direct File will support most simple returns. Learn more here.

The SHARE Union / 50 Lake Avenue, Worcester, MA 01604 / Phone: (508) 929-4020 / Fax: (508) 929-4040