SHARE Digest: Negotiations Info Table, Help SHARE with Market Research, and More

University Campus Negotiations Info Table & Poster Signing

Tuesday, August 9, from 11:30am-1:00pm, SHARE will have an information table set up outside the old main entrance to the hospital, near the Prescription Center. Please come by to talk with SHARE organizers about what’s happening in Contract Negotiations. And, please bring your co-workers to sign the poster in support of good raises and a strong contract.

SHARE Needs Your Info About What Other Employers Pay 

You can help SHARE in a way that no one else can: we need to know what you know about the job market for comparable jobs at other institutions. The SHARE organizing team is compiling stories and data about what we’ve heard about other employers, specifically how their pay, benefits, and culture compete with what UMass Memorial has to offer. We’re advocating for improvements that make it an easier decision to come to work here and a wise choice to stay. Let us know what you’ve experienced in your job search, or about things you’ve heard from your friends in the field. 

SHARE Executive Board Election, University Region C 

Reminder to SHARE members at University in the Technical and Diagnostic areas (region C): please remember that your votes are due by August 9 at noon. Eligible voters have been sent a link to vote from ElectionBuddy at their work email address and cell phone number that SHARE has on file. Find more details, and a list of eligible departments, here. If you have questions, or if you believe you should be eligible but did not receive an email from ElectionBuddy on Friday, 7/22/22 at 12pm, please email share.elections@theshareunion.org.  

Free College Benefit: Continued Complications

Earlier, we reported on the SHARE blog that the AFSCME Free College Benefit was being discontinued. Although the program was briefly re-instated, the free college providers serving Union Plus and the AFSCME Free College Benefit have again suspended some programs. Current enrollees should contact their college for details. Thank you to the SHARE members who reported to the SHARE staff your difficulties contacting the program, and alerting us to a problem. SHARE has been posting more specific updates to the original SHARE blog post, here. SHARE will continue to keep our eye on developments, and to report about educational opportunities for members.

Let’s Keep Connected 

SHARE continues to receive reports that folks aren’t receiving informational emails like this one. Please help SHARE stay strong by making sure that we have good contact information for you and your co-workers.  If you don’t get email from SHARE regularly, please provide us with a cell phone number and/or personal email address (and pass along this notice to any co-workers who might not have seen this. Thanks!) Read more here.  

COVID Test Kits Update 

If you still have older kits on hand, you may still be able to use them. The Boston Globe reports that the FDA has approved expiration extensions for several brands of rapid test kits, according to the agency’s website. Find a list of extensions and learn how you can get new test kits free on this SHARE blog post.

 

Covid Test Kits Update: Testing Options & Test Kit Expirations Extended

HOW TO GET COVID TEST KITS . . . WITHOUT PAYING FOR THEM

In case you missed it, US households are now eligible to receive an additional eight free Covid test kits from the federal government via USPS. Additionally, many health insurance providers offer a test-kit reimbursement program such as this one from Blue Cross Blue Shield. Local drugstores including CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid offer direction for other insurance providers and in-store pickup. Walgreens also provides Drive-Thru PCR testing. You can also find Covid testing sites near you through the mass.gov website.

Test Kit Expirations Extended

If you still have older kits on hand, you may still be able to use them. The Boston Globe reports that the FDA has approved expiration extensions for several brands of rapid test kits, according to the agency’s website, including: 

SHARE Digest: Contested Election in Region C, Negotiations Update, Signature Poster & More

SHARE Rep & Executive Board Elections — Contested in Region C

The SHARE Rep and Executive Board nominations period has closed, and we are excited to see so many members actively engaged to keep our union running strong. There were sufficient openings for all of the nominated SHARE Rep candidates, and most of the open EBoard positions were uncontested. There is one contested election in University Technical & Diagnostic Region C. Eligible voters are being sent a link to vote from ElectionBuddy at their work email address and cell phone number that SHARE has on file. ElectionBuddy, a virtual voting platform, is compliant with Department of Labor standards for union elections. To learn more about this election, including whether you are in a department which is eligible to vote, read more here. We will post a full list of 2022 SHARE EBoard and Reps after August 9 when the election is finalized.

SHARE 2022 Signature Poster

As always, SHARE members are coming together this negotiations in support of our negotiating team and shared interests. One way we’re doing this is through our 2022 Signature Poster. You can find examples of posters from past negotiations in departments throughout UMass Memorial, with thousands of signatures and photos of SHARE members standing together. Our 2022 statement addresses the difficulties we’ve worked through and continue to face: working through Covid, working in short-staffed areas, and working while financially stressed. We’re calling on our hospital to agree to raises that will make it smart and sustainable to stay in our jobs at UMass Memorial, and to recruit and retain co-workers to help us keep our hospital running strong. Read the full statement, and learn how you can sign on, here.

Final SHARE Survey Report

SHARE members completed over 4000 surveys on 4 different subjects earlier this year to help steer the SHARE Negotiating Team’s priorities in our current contract talks. SHARE prepared this comprehensive multi-page Survey Report which served as the core of our opening statement in negotiations with management.

This is only the first page of the full report . . . to read the rest, click the red button below

Contract Negotiations

The central SHARE and UMass Memorial negotiating teams continue to work toward our next Contract Bargaining Agreement. Here are some highlights:

  • Given the primacy and urgency of wages in these negotiations, SHARE and UMass Memorial have taken an unconventional approach, agreeing to begin discussing raise-related issues early in our talks.

  • SHARE presented to management about the needs of SHARE members when it comes to wages, pulling together data about the spikes in living costs, informed predictions about things to come, and stories about hardships currently faced by SHARE members.

  • Management described concerns about absenteeism in the context of the hospital’s staffing shortage.

  • Delegates from both negotiating teams met together with leaders from the Patient and Family Advisory Councils (PFACs) to discuss how to better involve patients’ interests directly in our negotiation process. Although the PFAC will not be bargaining, we do want to recognize where their interests align with those of SHARE members and our hospital.

  • The next proposed negotiation subject will be a presentation by hospital management about UMass Memorial’s finances.

Equity Seed Program Now Accepting Applications

The Health Equity & Inclusion Seed Program is currently accepting grant applications from departments with ideas for projects that use “cutting-edge approaches to generate new findings and resources to eliminate health disparities.” Learn more about this program, including how your department can apply for funding. Grants are already being distributed.

AFSCME Free College Program Discontinued

The SHARE office has received the unhappy news that the US Department of Education now disallows educational programs such as the ones offered through the AFSCME Free College and UnionPlus benefits. Many SHARE members have benefitted from these programs over the past several years. It appears that currently-enrolled students can continue in their programs. Read more here.

Executive Board Election: University Technical and Diagnostic Region C

SHARE Representative and Executive Board nominations are now closed. There are sufficient openings for all of the Rep positions and all EBoard seats, except for one. A contested election will take place in the University Technical and Diagnostic Region C. Departments with eligible voters for this election are listed below.

On Friday 7/22/22 at 12pm, eligible voters will receive a link to vote from ElectionBuddy at their work email address and cell phone number that SHARE has on file. The link will only work once for voting per eligible voter. ElectionBuddy, a virtual voting platform, is compliant with Department of Labor standards for union elections. Eligible voters can use that same link to get those results as soon as the election closes. SHARE will send a full list of 2022 EBoard and Reps following that.

If you have questions, or if you believe you should be eligible but do not receive an email from ElectionBuddy on Friday, 7/22/22 at 12pm, please email share.elections@theshareunion.org.

Departments Eligible to Vote

University Technical and Diagnostic Region C

ACC

EKG

OUTPATIENT INFUSION CEN PHARM

Biotech 3

ANATOMIC PATHOLOGY

ANPA ADMIN

ANPA CYTOPATHOLOGY

ANPA IMMUNOHISTOCHEMIST

ANPA PATH ASSISTANTS

ANPA SURGICAL PATHOLOGY

MOLECULAR DIAGNOSTICS

Fitchburg Cancer

RADIATION ONCOLOGY -HA

Marlboro Cancer

RADIOLOGY ONCOLOGY MARLBOROUGH

Univ

ANGIOGRAPHY

ANPA HEMATOPATHOLOGY

BLOOD BANK

CARDIAC SHORT STAY

CARDIAC ULTRASOUND

CAT SCAN

CRYOPRESERVATION

HEART & VASC INTVL LAB

MAMMOGRAPHY

NEUROINTERVENTIONAL RADIOLOGY

NUCLEAR MEDICINE

PHARMACY

PHARMACY ADMINISTRATION

PRESCRIPTION CENTER UNIVERSITY

RADIATION ONCOLOGY

RADIOLOGY ADMIN

RADIOLOGY ADMINISTRATION

RADIOLOGY CLERICAL

RADIOLOGY DIAGNOSTIC

RADIOLOGY SHORT STAY

RESPIRATORY THERAPY

SURGICAL VASCULAR LAB

ULTRASOUND

AFSCME Free College Program Discontinued

8.8.22 Update: The free college providers serving Union Plus and the AFSCME Free College Benefit have again suspended some programs. EGCC most recently reported that “Students eligible for the Free College Benefit for the Fall 2022 term are students who had final grade for Spring 22 AND/OR active in courses for Summer 22 OR a new student who registered for Fall 22 courses on or before July 18, 2022.” 

Thank you to the SHARE members who reported to the SHARE staff your difficulties contacting the program, and alerting us to a problem. We will continue to keep our eye on developments and to report about educational opportunities for members. The largest of the free online programs, Eastern Gateway Community College, has been providing ongoing updates here: https://egcc.edu/press-release/

7.28.22 Update: SHARE has received word that currently enrolled students can contact the Student Resource Center, 888-590-9009, if they have questions about their status, including whether they are Pell eligible.

Please disregard the contact information that was included in SHARE’s original post. We apologize for any confusion we caused anyone with that.

The SHARE office has received the unhappy news that the US Department of Education now disallows educational programs such as the ones offered through the AFSCME Free College and UnionPlus benefits. Many SHARE members have benefitted from these programs over the past several years.

Note that in the message below, “By offering this benefit, we learned that a large percentage of our members are eligible for Pell Grants,” which will continue to be available and helpful to members and their families. SHARE will continue to seek out more educational and scholarship opportunities, and to post about them on the SHARE website. Look for the #Education tag.

Read on for the official notice . . .

AFSCME Family:

Today we learned that the US Department of Education notified our “Free College” partners - Eastern Gateway Community College (EGCC), Central State University and Paul Quinn College - that they could no longer offer no-cost college to our members and their families. The Department indicated that the financing of the program for students not eligible for Pell Grants is inconsistent with federal requirements. As a result, new students may not enroll.

There is no financial liability owed by any former or existing students who participated in the program. We are engaged in discussions with the Department and EGCC concerning the continuing education of existing students. Continuation at no cost should not be an issue for any student who qualifies for a Pell Grant. For those who are not Pell eligible, and do not have an alternative source of funding, such as an employer or union trust funded tuition assistance program, we are seeking to continue Free College until their education is complete, but we do not now have an assurance that will be the case.

The Free College program is an outstanding benefit, in some cases life-changing, for AFSCME members and their families. I was proud that we could offer the opportunity to obtain a debt free education to our members and I am committed to finding an alternative program.

By offering this benefit, we learned that a large percentage of our members are eligible for Pell Grants. This federal program provides eligible students with up to $6,895 a year in education assistance depending on various factors such as income, cost of attendance, and full or part-time student status. The grants are portable and can be used at almost any accredited college or university. To find out if you are eligible, you will need to complete an application form and the college’s financial office will calculate your eligibility before you enroll. Click on this link to learn more.

I am sorry to report this disappointing news, but we will make every effort to at least partially fill the void left by the cessation of the Free College program.

Lee Saunders

President

AFSCME

Sign on to the New SHARE Negotiations Poster & Show Your Support for a Strong Contract

Remember this blast from the past? Do you know where your signature appeared on this poster from 2016?

If you’ve been around for SHARE’s previous contract negotiations with the hospital, you know how important it is that management recognizes how connected our union is. Even now, if you look around departments in our hospital, you can find posters we’ve used to demonstrate SHARE’s strength:

  • that SHARE is the biggest union in our hospital, now with almost 3000 members in roughly 170 different job titles,

  • that UMass Memorial works because SHARE members do,

  • and that SHARE members keep informed and will stick together for a strong contract.

The poster we assembled during our last negotiations was a beauty, with hundreds of photos, and in each of those photos, a handful of SHARE members held signs to name a vital function they serve in our community. For negotiations in 2022, we’re putting together another poster to describe to our community what SHARE members have been through and what we need to keep moving forward. We encourage you to put your name on it! SHARE Reps and organizers have already begun collecting signatures around the hospital. We want our community to know we care.

If you’d like to schedule for a SHARE Rep to bring a signature sheet to your area, please call the SHARE office: 508-929-4020.

Here’s what the 2022 SHARE Signature Poster will say:

SHARE Members Are Always Essential 

We are the nearly 3000 SHARE members who – through thick and thin -- keep UMass Memorial Medical Center, UMass Memorial Medical Group, and UMass Memorial Health running. Whether we care directly for patients or work in the background, these last two years have been incredibly difficult:  

Working through COVID.

We maintained the frontline to protect Central Massachusetts throughout the pandemic. We came to work every day, knowing that we could be putting our lives and our families at risk. While COVID surges came and went, patients were our priority. Now we are exhausted, and, at the same time, proud of how well we have taken care of our community. 

Working Short.

In response to the pandemic, across the country, workers continue to leave healthcare. The national staffing shortage has placed an incredible burden on our shoulders – caring for our patients without enough staff. Still, we persevere.   

Working while Financially Stressed.

As if COVID and short staffing aren’t bad enough, inflation is our biggest worry right now. Gas, food, rent – everyone’s costs are rising rapidly. We know that increases in the cost of living hit people at the bottom of the pay scale hardest. We watch as co-workers leave to make more money elsewhere. 

Recruitment and Retention

A good contract is essential for SHARE members and for UMass Memorial. Together we must address our immediate financial challenges, attract new people to fill open positions, and create career pathways for SHARE members to learn and grow at UMass Memorial.  

We want to stay at UMass Memorial

Our work through our Unit Based Teams shows how much we care about making this the best place to give care so it can be the best place to get care. We strive to make this a place where everyone treats each other with genuine kindness and respect. A good contract makes it possible for us to stay. 

We will stand together as the SHARE Union

Our patients, our families, and our community depend on us.

Health Equity & Inclusion Seed Program

The Health Equity & Inclusion Seed Program is currently accepting grant applications from departments with ideas for projects that use “cutting-edge approaches to generate new findings and resources to eliminate health disparities.” Applications for funding will be considered by a diverse committee convened by the the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, which includes representation by SHARE members Kona Enders and Tameka McDaniel Vasquez.

SHARE Rep & Seed program committee member Tameka Vasquez-McDaniel

SHARE Executive Board & Seed program committee member Kona Enders

We expect that this program can have a profound impact on patients, and can help SHARE members give the kind of care they truly care about. We’re excited to see what projects shape up. Tameka McDaniel Vasquez prepared the following information for a recent presentation in our hospital. . . we’re including a copy here to help SHARE members understand the program and how to apply. Download a printer-friendly .pdf version here.

Learn more on the UMass Memorial Hub.

SHARE MEMBERS 2022 CONTRACT SURVEY RESULTS

SHARE members filled out over 4000 surveys to prepare for contract negotiations this year on a range of topics: retention and why staff stay or leave, benefits, career opportunities, our COVID experience, money, and our priorities for contract negotiations. SHARE members have been through a lot, and have a lot to say.

This final report puts it all together under the following headings:

1. Raises Are Our Top Priority

2. Keeping Staff: Pay and Staffing Levels Go Hand and Hand

3. COVID: What We’ve Been Through

4. High Priority: Hold onto Great Benefits

5. Career Opportunities for SHARE Members: So Much Potential

6. Respect and the Daily Experience

The SHARE negotiating team has used this information to help define our union’s priorities. The team presented the report in its entirety to management in negotiations as part of its opening statement.


Blog Digest: Nomination Deadline NOON TODAY & Negotiations Update

Last Call for 2022 SHARE Rep and Executive Board Nominations

Find full details here: https://theshareunion.net/NominationsandElectionNoticeSHARE2022.pdf

If you know someone who would make a good rep, especially in a department that doesn’t have a SHARE rep, please nominate them. Someone from SHARE will call them to see if they accept the nomination.

Contract Negotiations Update

After meeting twice for training and ground-rules discussions, SHARE & UMass Memorial management’s negotiating teams met last Thursday for our first official negotiating session. You can read a more detailed report of that session online. Here’s an overview:

  • Both teams opened with introductory statements (described in the full post). SHARE’s opening statement focused on the results from our series of surveys earlier in the year, and on the need, now more than ever, for meaningful raises.

  • The teams got to know each other better with introductions from each individual negotiator, in which they described how long they’ve been working with UMass Memorial and/or SHARE, what they do in their current job role, and a bit about their life and interests outside of work. See the list of negotiators in the blog post.

  • Both teams are now preparing financial presentations as a prospective topic for the next negotiation session.

The SHARE 2022 Contract Negotiations Team: (kneeling, left-right): Kim Latrobe, Kellie Morton, Tracy O’Donnell; (middle row): Kathy Girouard, Jana Hollingsworth, Deb Clark, Christean Hughes; (back row): Janet Wilder, Rita Caputo, Deb Largesse, Jay Hagan, Deb Engvall, Carol Hehir, Kona Enders; (not pictured): AJ Iaconi, Armon Rad, Elisabeth Szanto, Kirk Davis, Tameka McDaniel-Vasquez

Contract Negotiations: Opening Statements & Personal Introductions

After meeting twice for training and ground-rules discussions, SHARE & UMass Memorial management’s negotiating teams met last Thursday for our first official negotiating session.

Current Highlights

The SHARE 2022 Contract Negotiations Team: (kneeling, left-right): Kim Latrobe, Kellie Morton, Tracy O’Donnell; (middle row): Kathy Girouard, Jana Hollingsworth, Deb Clark, Christean Hughes; (back row): Janet Wilder, Rita Caputo, Deb Largesse, Jay Hagan, Deb Engvall, Carol Hehir, Kona Enders; (not pictured): AJ Iaconi, Armon Rad, Elisabeth Szanto, Kirk Davis, Tameka McDaniel-Vasquez

  • Both teams opened with introductory statements (described below). SHARE’s opening statement focused on the results from our series of surveys earlier in the year, and on the need, now more than ever, for meaningful raises.

  • The teams got to know each other better with introductions from each individual negotiator, in which they described how long they’ve been working with UMass Memorial and/or SHARE, what they do in their current job role, and a bit about their life and interests outside of work. See the list of negotiators below.

  • Both teams are now preparing financial presentations as a prospective topic for the next negotiation session.

SHARE Opening Statement: Partnership & Hard Conversations

Lead SHARE Negotiator Janet Wilder kicked off the opening statements by providing a broad overview of SHARE’s current relationship with UMass Memorial and our developing Labor Management Partnership, which has worked strategically to align around our common interests. This includes Unit Based Teams, and lobbying together against the expansion of Mass General Brigham’s into Central Massachusetts, a program designed to poach primarily well-insured patients to its own clinics. Janet also pointed out that although SHARE will, as always, maintain respectful discussions, she warned that partnership isn’t about “niceness,” that instead it lays the groundwork to have hard conversations, especially around the issues we would be raising in negotiations.

SHARE Opening Statement: Member Priorities

Based on countless conversations among SHARE members and SHARE leaders, as well as the 4069 completed surveys, Janet described that what’s really clear is that:

1.      Raises are the top priority for members—they always are, but they overshadow SHARE members’ other interests more than usual;

2.      Members have a strong interest in retaining and recruiting co-workers, an issue seen as very interconnected with raises;

3.      SHARE members want to describe their experience working through Covid;

4.      Benefits (especially Health Insurance and the pension), and

5.      Career Opportunities remain extremely important.

Beyond that, there is a basket of issues that are extremely important to large segments of the SHARE membership, including Work-from-Home issues, Unit Based Teams, etc.

Bringing SHARE Member Voice Directly into Negotiations

To round out the Opening Statement, members of the SHARE negotiating team each read from the SHARE Survey Report, which summarizes the results from all four SHARE surveys. SHARE members made a number of powerful comments in the surveys, which the Negotiating Team read aloud as well. We will post that report soon.

UMass Memorial Management Opening Statement

Mike Pacinda delivered the opening statement on behalf of UMass Memorial management, acknowledging challenges that confront the hospital and the SHARE members who work there. He began by crediting front-line staff and management. “Things feel different now . . . they are different now. We all know what we’ve been through,” he said. “Since this pandemic started, people have been working extraordinarily hard in trying times and with new processes.”

Mike went on to describe additional work that he has personally been involved with in partnership with SHARE, including work throughout the pandemic to establish systems for redeployment and the hospital’s labor pools, when some SHARE members had to shift from their regular jobs to serve as screeners and prescription couriers, among other things.

He also recognized the hard conversations we had around vaccine mandate, where SHARE worked in partnership to help SHARE members get access to the vaccine as well as answers to their questions, while at the same time objecting to some of the ways the mandate was implemented: “that was hard for a lot of people,” Mike said.

Which brings us, Mike said, to the perfect storm we’re in now: the short staffing and overtime mandates, people leaving jobs in record numbers, and the unprecedented leaves due to Covid.  “Managers aren’t immune to this either, working hard to keep positions and schedules filled,” he said, describing the recruitment challenges. “We all really want to tail off the use of travelers and focus on full-time staff.”

At same time, Mike maintained that the SHARE-UMass Memorial partnership has helped us get through this . . . and that we would be in a much more difficult place without partnership, without the consistent transparency, bringing together subject matter experts, updates on Covid numbers, redeployment & problem solving teams. Those helped UMass Memorial avoid layoffs and furloughs. Mike described how he spoke daily or more with SHARE leaders. That, coupled with our overlapping interests – interest in fair equitable raises, quick process, maintaining respectful relationships, and a sustainable contract that strengthens the hospital for the future, serve as an important foundation for these negotiations. “My hope is that we have enough tools here, plus trust respect and confidence, that we can address many of these issues and resolve this contract in a way that is positive for both parties,” Mike said. “The management team looks forward to getting going in earnest.”

Who’s Who on the Negotiating Teams

Mike Pacinda (Lead Management Negotiator): Senior Labor and Employee Relations Specialist

Janet Wilder (Lead SHARE Negotiator): SHARE Organizer

Shannon Taylor: Human Resources Business Partner

Karen Pendergast: Human Resources Business Partner

Jackie Baronowski: Director, Community Medical Group Billing

Sue McCabe: Vice President of Operations, Community Medical Group

Cassandra Trice: Director of Registration Services

Deb Engvall: SHARE Organizer

Kellie Morton: Medical Assistant, Outpatient Oncology & SHARE Organizer

Kirk Davis: SHARE Organizer

Mabel Romeo: Director, Health Information Management

Christean Hughes: Accounts Receivable Specialist II, Community Medical Group Billing & SHARE Executive Board

Kim Latrobe: Technologist, Surgical Vascular Lab & SHARE Rep

Donna Vickery: Human Resources Business Partner

Dena Briggs: Human Resources Business Partner

Joy Cournoyer: Director, Single Billing Office

Jana Hollingsworth: SHARE Organizer

Zailee Estrada: Director, Patient Access

Nick Potvin: Nurse Manager 3 East

Rachel Carragher: Manager, Respiratory Care

Kathy Girouard: Senior Coding Specialist, Vascular Lab & SHARE Union Treasurer

Deb Largesse: SHARE Organizer

Tracy O’Donnell: Senior Medical Administrative Secretary, Memorial Hospital Medicine & SHARE Executive Board

Stephanie Doan-Soares: UMass Memorial Administrative Fellow, Anchor Mission program

Debra Clark: Unit Secretary, Clinical Decision Unit & SHARE Union Secretary

Rita Caputo: Ambulatory Services Rep, Primary Care Clinic & SHARE Union Co-President, University Campus

Jay Hagan: CT Technologist & SHARE Union Co-President, Memorial Campus

Ian Copland: Financial Planning

Kona Enders: Patient Care Associate, 3 West & SHARE Organizer

Carol Hehir: SHARE Organizer

Shavel Aldolphe: Senior Director, Ambulatory Operations

AJ Iaconi: SHARE Organizer

Tameka McDaniel-Vasquez: Financial Clearance Specialist, Insurance Verification & SHARE Executive Board

Armon Rad: Lead Registration Rep & SHARE Executive Board

Elisabeth Szanto: SHARE Organizer

Partnership Office: Will Erickson, Crystal Swenson & Steph Pepi

Learn more

See all of the published news about negotiations in blog posts labeled #Negotiations

University SHARE Contract Drop-In TODAY

University Campus Info Table

Today, Friday, July 8

11:30am-1pm

OUTSIDE, near the Prescription Center (old west entrance)

Join SHARE organizers today to talk about the upcoming negotiations with UMass Memorial. Share what matters most to you, learn how you can help advocate for a strong contract, and pick up a pin to show your support.

The SHARE 2022 Contract Negotiations Team: (kneeling, left-right): Kim Latrobe, Kellie Morton, Tracy O’Donnell; (middle row): Kathy Girouard, Jana Hollingsworth, Deb Clark, Christean Hughes; (back row): Janet Wilder, Rita Caputo, Deb Largesse, Jay Hagan, Deb Engvall, Carol Hehir, Kona Enders; (not pictured): AJ Iaconi, Armon Rad, Elisabeth Szanto, Kirk Davis, Tameka McDaniel-Vasquez

Blog Digest: Negotiations & Elections Updates

SHARE Executive Board & Representative Nominations Are Now Open

The nomination period for SHARE Representative and open SHARE Executive Board positions is now open through July 12. Official notice and details have been sent to all SHARE members at the home address on file in the SHARE office. On the SHARE website, you can also find a copy of the notice and learn more more about the role of a SHARE Representative.

Don’t forget: because the election will be electronic this year, please make sure that your personal contact information is up-to-date. And, if you haven’t yet joined SHARE, do so now! Only SHARE members can vote. It’s easy to sign up here with SHARE’s new virtual membership card.


Contract Negotiations Update, Week 2 of Training & Ground Rules

Current Highlights 

  • Teams from SHARE and UMass Memorial continue our weekly meeting schedule for Contract Negotiations. This week, both teams will deliver opening statements.

  • Last week was the second of two sessions facilitated by professor Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld to lay the groundwork for our process. The teams worked to set ground rules for negotiations, and to name likely subcommittees that would focus on specific subjects.  

  • Dr. Cutcher-Gershenfeld has told us that leaders at the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) have shown interest in the innovative ways that SHARE and UMass Memorial negotiate together, and have asked to observe some of our discussions.  

  • Read the full post about last week’s session . . .

What are these negotiators scheming about?! Read about our pre=negotiation activities in this week’s update.

2022 Nominations & Elections Notice

The nomination period for SHARE Representatives and open SHARE Executive Board positions is now open through July 12.

The below information has been sent to all SHARE members at the home address on file in the SHARE office.

View or download a printer-friendly version here, which includes a full list of open positions in each region.

Visit this previous blog post to learn more more about the role of a SHARE Representative.

Would you like to be a SHARE leader?

Nominations Open June 27 – July 12, 2022

for SHARE Union Representatives & Executive Board Members

To run for Union Rep or Executive Board Member

1. You must have been a dues-paying SHARE member for at least 6 months prior to the election.

2. You must be nominated in writing by a SHARE member (either a co-worker or yourself).

3. Current SHARE Reps who wish to continue to be Reps need to be nominated again this year.

To nominate someone for Union Rep or Executive Board Member

1. Please send nominations by email to share.elections@theshareunion.org; or by fax to (508) 929-4040; or by U.S. mail to SHARE, 50 Lake Ave, Worcester MA 01604.

2. Nominations should include:

• the name, department, and phone number of the person being nominated;

• the position for which they are being nominated; and

• the name and phone number of the person submitting the nomination.

3. Nominations must arrive at the SHARE office by noon on Tuesday, July 12, 2022. We cannot accept late nominations.

4. Nominees will be offered the opportunity to decline the nomination. Anyone who does not decline is then a candidate.

Descriptions of the different roles

Below are brief descriptions of the roles of Union Reps and Executive Board Members. If you want to talk about what it would be like to be a SHARE Rep or to be on the Executive Board, or if you have other questions, please call the SHARE office at 508-929-4020, or talk to someone you know who is involved with SHARE.

SHARE Reps: There is at least one Union Rep for every 25-50 SHARE members. A Rep is a contact person for their area. Union Reps get training from SHARE to move information between co-workers and union leadership. They can also get training in helping co-workers solve problems (for example, with discipline or work schedules) if they want to. Reps are elected for a 1-year term.

SHARE Executive Board Members: Executive Board members have responsibility for the whole union, and in particular for their region (several hundred people). They make decisions about the direction of our union and participate in contract negotiations. They serve for 2-year terms. There are 13 positions on the SHARE Executive Board:

• 4 Officers: A Co-President from University-connected locations and a Co-President from Memorial-connected locations; a Secretary and a Treasurer elected at large (by all SHARE members).

• 9 Regional Executive Board Members: based on what department they are in.

Election: in late July if there are too many nominees for the number of positions

The election will be held by electronic ballot, hosted professionally by ElectionBuddy.com, an online voting service that meets the standards set by the U.S. Department of Labor and by our parent union, AFSCME.

ElectionBuddy will send a link to your cell phone or email account for you to vote securely online. You can provide your cell phone number and/or personal email address, or request a ballot by mail, by emailing SHARE.Elections@theshareunion.org or talking to a SHARE staff organizer. The SHARE office phone number is 508-929-4020. If we don’t have a cell phone or personal email address for you then we will only be able to provide ElectionBuddy with your work email.

If you don’t get email from SHARE regularly, please provide us with a cell phone

number or personal email address . . . use the QR code to the right to learn how →

You must be a SHARE member to vote, to nominate someone, or to run for office.

If you have not yet signed a SHARE membership card, please go to www.sharehospitalunion.org/join

or talk to a SHARE Rep or Organizer.

(508) 929-4020 – SHARE, 50 Lake Avenue, Worcester MA 01604 –www.sharehospitalunion.org

Positions Open for Nomination in 2022

All SHARE Representative positions are up for election every year. Executive Board positions are up for election every two years. See below for the “even year” positions up for election in 2022. Note that there are also two vacant “odd year” positions which are up for election in 2022.*

What is my region?

Rep and Executive Board positions are divided by location and by region. Your region is based on the kind of department you are in, not what kind of job you do. For example, a secretary in a technical department is in the Technical region, and an LPN in a clinic is in the Ambulatory region. If you have questions, please email share.elections@theshareunion.org or leave a message at the SHARE office at 508-929-4020.

Contract Negotiations Update: Week 2 of Training & Ground Rules

Current Highlights 

  • Teams from SHARE and UMass Memorial continue our weekly meeting schedule for Contract Negotiations. This week was the second of two sessions facilitated by professor Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld to lay the groundwork for our process. (Read about our first session here.) 

  • The teams worked to set ground rules for negotiations, and to name likely subcommittees that would focus on specific subjects.  

  • Dr. Cutcher-Gershenfeld has told us that leaders at the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) have shown interest in the innovative ways that SHARE and UMass Memorial negotiate together, and have asked to observe some of our discussions.  

Hopes and Fears, Speed and Money

Last week, each team independently assessed the current union-management relations, and named its hopes and fears for negotiations. During this session, Dr. Cutcher-Gershenfeld shared those results.  

Developing a Winning Strategy : The teams had some “fun with a purpose,” as Dr. Cutcher-Gershenfeld puts it, participating in “The Stakeholder Bargaining Game,” where the objective is to bargain for as much money as you can get. The outcome of our game was typical, we were told, and showed that groups tend to come out better financially if they choose a more cooperative stance rather than a coercive one. The group that came out with the most money – by far – was the most cooperative, and demonstrated that the winning strategy is to change the rules of the game. 

There are a lot of interests to consider. Both teams clearly want to continue our approach to partnership, both want to make our hospital successful, and both agree that the Standards of Respect should be more deeply experienced in the day-to-day by all caregivers.  

At the top of our lists, both teams clearly indicated a strong desire to come to an agreement about raises, recognizing how rapidly the economy is changing, and the importance of retaining and recruiting strong staff for our hospital.

Why is FMCS interested in how we negotiate? 

The FMCS is an independent government agency whose mission is to preserve and promote labor-management peace and cooperation. Though they encourage Labor-Management partnerships and interest-based bargaining methods, those remain relatively uncommon. SHARE and UMass Memorial’s experiences with partnership show that the successes of our strategy continue to build. And we’re continuing to pioneer new ideas.  

Often in bargaining, developing a broader perspective can help drive consensus . . . as negotiator William Ury puts it, two sides often come to agreement by “going to the ‘third side.’” One new development we’re exploring is to get more direct input from patients, consulting with UMass Memorial’s own Patient-Family Advisory Council as a way of aligning our interests and truly making our hospital the best place to get and give care.  

What’s Next? 

Next Thursday, both sides will deliver their introductory statements. And, we will spend time doing individual introductions – we find that improving relationships makes for more productive discussions and better conclusions. 

SHARE Digest -- Union Elections, Negotiations, Kronos, UBT's, and Juneteenth

Get Ready for Elections

In accordance with our union’s constitution, all SHARE members will soon be sent a mailing to their home addresses with details about the upcoming Rep and Executive Board nomination and election process. Learn about the role of a SHARE Representative here.

The mailing will be sent today, Friday, so you should receive it early next week. Because the election will be electronic this year, please make sure that your personal contact information is up-to-date. And, if you haven’t yet joined SHARE, do so now! Only SHARE members can vote. It’s easy to sign up here with SHARE’s new virtual membership card.

Through a variety of exercises, conversations, and simulations, the teams explored how the different negotiation styles bring about different results.

Contract Negotiations Have Begun

Yesterday, SHARE sat down with UMass Memorial management in our first official negotiations event. The session was facilitated by Brandeis professor Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, who taught the teams about Interest Based Bargaining (IBB). Interest-based bargaining differs from traditional negotiations in that both sides work to become joint problem solvers, and recognizes that we can work to maximize our shared interests for mutual gain. Read more about our first session and the IBB principles we will be using over the coming weeks as we work toward an agreement about our new contract policies, raises, and benefits.

Kronos Update

According to UMass Memorial, it has completed roughly three quarters of the 25,000 reported Kronos discrepancies, and expects to complete those corrections in July. Payroll will then run a full audit to capture any unreported discrepancies and correct those before turning full attention to correcting the PTO accruals. In the meanwhile, the accruals will continue to be wrong — and you shouldn’t be denied time off as a result of your current balance. SHARE is urging the hospital to provide individualized information to each member about how Kronos impacted their pay and what corrections have been made. And we’re advocating that overpaid members should have the option to re-pay the hospital using Earned Time rather than cash. Read more . . .

Unit Based Teams Peer-Learning Event

Roughly twenty-five SHARE and management UBT Co-Leads met recently to learn about four different UBT projects and what has made them successful. Teams from Hahnemann Family Health Clinic, Inpatient Pharmacy, Rheumatology, and Respiratory presented at the event. Read more about their projects here. Participants at the event developed a list of worthwhile outcomes that resulted from their projects, including:

  • Increased caregiver happiness,

  • Increased productivity,

  • Decreased wait times,

  • Removal of waste,

  • Teamwork & team building, and

  • Standard work, built by the team who does that work themselves

Honoring Juneteenth

SHARE values the importance that June 19th holds in our national history. The day became a national holiday in 2021. Massachusetts followed to make Juneteenth a state holiday. Institutions including UMass Medical School, officially observe it as a paid day off. The holidays recognized by UMass Memorial are a subject of bargaining, and SHARE’s negotiating team plans to advocate for the day to be recognized as a holiday in our contract as well.

Contract Negotiations Are Underway

On Thursday, June 23rd, SHARE and UMass Memorial officially kicked off negotiations toward our next Contract Bargaining Agreement with a joint-training between the SHARE Team and the Med Center management Team.

Current Highlights

  • The first two sessions are being facilitated by Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, a professor at Brandeis who studies Labor-management partnerships. Joel has worked with unions and management in healthcare and other industries, and has a history of helping SHARE and UMass Memorial work through negotiations. Dr. Cutcher-Gershenfeld is currently teaching both teams about Interest Based Bargaining.

  • Negotiations are currently scheduled to take place weekly, four hours a day, every Thursday

  • We heard from staff that the top bargaining priorities are: pay, followed by respect. SHARE members have a variety of other interests, but it’s clear that we need to keep the health insurance and other benefits strong. And it’s clear that SHARE members often feel burned out and unappreciated (see more highlights of the survey here).

  • SHARE is also paying close attention to what’s happening with other union negotiations, including our sister SHARE Union at Marlborough hospital, as well as our neighboring MNA unions, both at Memorial (which has already reached a Tentative Agreement with the hospital) and University (which has not yet)

About the Teams

SHARE Union Co-Presidents Jay Hagan (Memorial Campus) and Rita Caputo (University Campus) at the table

Roughly forty people attended the Interest Based Bargaining training with Dr. Cutcher-Gershenfeld, including frontline managers, Human Resources Business Partners, representatives from the Partnership Office, the SHARE Executive Board, and the SHARE organizing staff. The lead negotiator for hospital management will be Michael Pacinda, a senior Labor Relations specialist at UMass Memorial; Lead Organizer Janet Wilder will again coordinate the team for SHARE.

Both lead negotiators described the difficulty of negotiating in a moment like this one, when hospitals everywhere are short-handed and caregivers — including SHARE members and managers — are exhausted. And, at the same time, both described the heightened importance of this negotiations to do something good and real and important in the face of that challenge. Janet Wilder encouraged the negotiators to dig into this in a curious way: “We’re more likely to come out with better answers to things if we bring joy and fun to this,” she said.

A History Lesson & Our historical Moment

Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld has helped to lead large-scale change initiatives in public and private sectors in Australia, Bermuda, Canada, England, Iceland, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, Panama, and the United States . . . including at previous negotiations between SHARE and UMass Memorial

Dr. Cutcher-Gershenfeld described that there’s real importance to what we’re doing . . . that SHARE and UMass Memorial are pioneering an uncommon model of partnership, one that has drawn national attention, including from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services leadership in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Cutcher-Gershenfeld opened with the story of a pivotal moment when Ford and the United Auto Workers Union met to negotiate and realized they would have to do something untraditional, working together in ways that they never had before, or they would almost certainly face the catastrophic collapse of their company. (They adopted an IBB model for negotiations and came back strong; meanwhile, GM and Chrysler continued as usual and were forced to file for bankruptcy.)

Learning IBB

There was an unprecedented amount of theatrical shouting in the initial session, which was a lot of fun and served its purpose . . . but wasn’t as productive as we expect our actual negotiations to be. Through a variety of exercises, conversations, and simulations, the teams explored how the different negotiation styles bring about different results.

The teams spent most of the session learning about and discussing the differences between traditional bargaining—which typically begins from strongly held positions and involves coercive forms of power, and Interest Based Bargaining — which aims toward mutual gains and win-win solutions. In IBB, teams follow a series of steps to mutually understand the facts of the current situation and understand the other side’s interests before proposing solutions to the problems.

What’s Next

The teams will meet again next Thursday, when each negotiator will introduce themselves individually, and, with Dr. Cutcher-Gershenfeld’s help, we’ll begin to “bargain about how to bargain,” reviewing and revising the agreements we’ve made in the past about ground rules, how we’ll develop consensus, and ways that we expect to discuss differences.

What Does a SHARE Rep Do?

SHARE leaders have a special role in our community. Together, we work to create one of the most important relationship networks in our hospital.

The main role of a SHARE Rep is to aid communication between members and the SHARE leadership. We continually share information to better understand what is happening across our workplaces, and to make our work better.

As a result, SHARE Reps do all kinds of things, depending on the needs and interests of our union and our members. Ultimately, if you become a SHARE Rep, you decide what to take on . . . each Rep has a different level of involvement. In the beginning, you should simply be prepared to meet new people, and to learn a lot of new things from others throughout the UMass Memorial community.

A SHARE Rep always has support. The SHARE organizing staff and experienced Reps are here to help. We provide training and individual coaching to help you develop new skills. Here’s a list of the kinds of projects that some SHARE Reps commonly do:

  • Meet and develop relationships with every person in their work area

  • Come to the monthly SHARE Rep Meetings

  • Provide information to co-workers, and to the EBoard and Organizers

  • Help other SHARE members to find help when they need it

  • Improve work processes and solve departmental problems

  • Lead and participate in Unit Based Teams

  • Bake for events

  • Participate in a web of support for other members in the unfortunate event of a layoff

  • Serve as a “witness” at a disciplinary meeting for a member

  • Distribute and collect surveys

  • Sign up new members on membership cards

  • Negotiate

There’s a whole lot more. The activities that SHARE Reps do are extremely important, and often a lot of fun. When new challenges arise, we figure things out together. And we know that important things get built just like anything else: one little brick at a time.

If you have questions about what SHARE reps do, please contact the SHARE Office (508-929-4020), or talk to a current SHARE rep.

Reminder & Time Change: Information Meeting TODAY

MEMORIAL CAMPUS CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS INFORMATION MEETING

outside the Memorial Amphitheater

Thursday, June 23

12:30-1:30

Note that, because of a scheduling conflict with our first negotiation session, we have moved the time of this information meeting back slightly.


Join the SHARE organizing staff to discuss the beginning of SHARE’s contract negotiations with UMass Memorial Hospital. We will describe SHARE’s priorities and answer any questions you may have. Also, we will have chocolates. 😎

June Kronos Update

SHARE organizers met recently with UMass Memorial to discuss payroll updates since the international takedown of Kronos in December of last year. (You can find more context and read previous SHARE updates here.) According to Sergio Melgar, UMass Memorial Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: 

  • Payroll has corrected roughly three quarters of the 25,000 reported discrepancies, and issued 5000 payments. (The average is 4 discrepancies per employee). They are currently resolving roughly 500-750 discrepancies per week. They expect to complete those corrections in July, and will then run a comprehensive computerized audit of the system. That audit should catch any Kronos discrepancies that were not reported by employees. Supervisors will have to double-check numbers against their department schedules. 

  • As predicted, fixing the large, complex set of problems is taking many months. Many other businesses, municipal governments, and other institutions continue to be in the same boat. UMass Memorial’s challenge is heightened by outdated software and multiple sets of rules to follow (based on each union’s negotiated agreement, etc.). 

  • Starting in August, attention will move to correcting the PTO. (In the meanwhile, the numbers in the system continue to be incorrect – your accruals balance should NOT be used to deny a vacation request). 

  • Details about employees repaying the hospital for overpayment have not yet been decided. In general, we’re told that employees who owe money will be able to re-pay over about 10 weeks. Employees who want to pay back what they owe in one lump sum will have that option. Employees who recognize that they’ve been overpaid can volunteer to begin paying before the guidelines are established – contact payroll to discuss options. 

  • Payroll aspires to have all PTO corrections completed and have all systems back to normal by the end of the 2022 calendar year. 

Meanwhile, SHARE is advocating for clearer communication. Some SHARE members are having a hard time determining whether Payroll has yet addressed the discrepancies they’ve submitted, or confirm whether they are on the list to get corrected. Some members were surprised to realize that the corrections had been made to their paychecks without their noticing.  

  • SHARE urges UMass Memorial to report out to each employee whether they have been corrected and by how much, so that SHARE members can figure out of it they think it was done correctly. 

  • SHARE supports the idea that SHARE members could repay any money owed through earned time instead of cash. 

Unit Based Teams Peer-Learning Event

Heidi Brazeau, SHARE UBT Co-Lead, describes to the virtual crowd how her department improved tracking the many different forms that patients bring for them to process at the Hahnemann Family Health Clinic

Earlier this month, twenty-plus UBT Co-Leads from SHARE and management met online to compare notes about what makes for a successful project. Four teams — Hahnemann Family Health Clinic, Inpatient Pharmacy, Rheumatology, and Respiratory — each presented about a project their team had undertaken. They described how the project made things easier for staff in their department, what it’s done to improve patient care, and why the department is better able to take pride in their work as a result. In each case, these particular teams chose to develop some kind of system for themselves that created standard work that suited the needs of their department.

Congratulations to each team for these successes! Check out the slides below for details about each. . . .

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