2024 Dues Rates Announced
AFSCME, SHARE’s parent union, has announced dues rates increases for the upcoming year. The 2024 regular weekly dues rate for SHARE members will be $10.78. That is an increase of $0.55 per paycheck, or slightly more than one cent per hour. For members working 20 hours/week, the 2024 weekly rate will be $8.07.
To learn more about dues, including how they’re calculated, and why they’re a cost-effective investment in yourself and your co-workers, click here.
Free Surgical Tech Certificate Program
UMass Memorial and Lasell University are partnering to offer a one-year accredited accelerated course for in-demand Surgical Technician jobs. This “earn and learn” program is designed to allow caregivers to do their coursework while working. Learn more, including how to register for one of the two information sessions in January, here.
Partnership growing with Unit Based Teams
The expanded SHARE UMass Memorial Partnership office is hitting its stride, supporting the addition of even more teams. Now, well over half of SHARE members work in departments attached to Unit Based Teams. The coaches are also working with existing teams to further strengthen and develop so that they can fulfill their main purpose: making it easier for SHARE members to enjoy work and do work you can be proud of.
In case you missed it on the Hub, you can read more about the progress here, and take a peak at the first-ever Level 4 Unit Based Team in the Vascular Surgery office. Congratulations all around!
Continued frustration with the Reset of time-off caps
Contrary to what SHARE reported last week, the Paid Time Off cap for part-time employees will be the same as the level for 40-hour employees, not lower. (Which means that the chart at the bottom of this previous blog post contains the accurate information for all members.) Some of you may have cashed out time thinking you would lose it (to your sick bank) when you didn’t need to.
We are really sorry about the bad information. SHARE worked hard to get the correct information from the hospital so that we could get it out to all SHARE members, in an impossibly short time-line. The hospital confirmed the wrong caps for part-timers. We take our role as providing reliable information to SHARE members very seriously, and we are quite frustrated with the hospital about this whole PTO cap-cutting process.
SHARE advocated strongly for a further extension of the higher COVID-temporary PTO caps, since SHARE members got so little notice to remind us when they were going back down. In spite of all the good reasons to extend, or pay out the excess time, or add another cash-out, the hospital leadership ultimately decided to cut the caps back down to the regular, negotiated caps on December 31, 2023, with no flexibility. We know that, due to continued surges in patient volume and short-staffing, some SHARE members still have not been able to spend-down their time-off hours post-COVID. Cutting the PTO banks with so little notice was the wrong thing to do.
About the Hospital’s Vaccination Policy
Although all employees of UMass Memorial are required to take action in accordance with the hospital’s flu and Covid vaccine policies, it is no longer required to get either of the shots as a condition of employment. No one has to get the flu vaccine or the COVID vaccine, they just have to fill out the paperwork to decline, per DPH. If you do decline the flu shot, you will have to wear a mask in clinical areas.
You do not need to mask because you decline the Covid shot. That said, masking has resumed in some areas: the hospital’s masking policy requires everyone, regardless of booster status, to mask for patient encounters when more than ten caregivers are out with COVID.
Happy Holidays from SHARE
The SHARE organizing staff hope that you and yours have a truly wonderful season . . .
