KINGSTON – Members of local 1199 SEIU brought out the candles around just after dusk, as rain was starting to fall, Thursday to shed light of their struggles involving contract negotiations with the Westchester Medical Center, parent company of the Health Alliance Hospital in Kingston.
The health care workers gathered in front of the Broadway campus of the hospital to make many aware of their frustration during a year of unsuccessful negotiations.
“We are nowhere near a contract agreement right now,” said Gabe Valles, a clinical tech. Valles said the contract negotiations have also coincided with the pandemic that has caused more dangerous working conditions and staff shortages.
“We see a larger influx of patients, longer wait times, and staff are leaving the hospital in droves,” he said.
Valles would like a resolution to these labor problems, so he and his co-workers could dedicate themselves to a single job, have more time for their families and themselves.
“I am hopeful Westchester Medical Center will come to a smart conclusion of having enough staff, and staff that is able to work a single job, will be able to take care of their community more than staff that requires two or three jobs just to pay the rent.”
Lindsey Bradford is a cardiac care monitor, and she said the staff shortages have exacerbated the less than desirable working conditions.
“It’s very difficult to work here now,” she said. “If we are short on staff, I literally have to be up for 12 hours with no lunch break and no bathroom breaks; it’s rough, it’s really rough.”
And better, more competitive wages, said Bradford, could alleviate this problem.
“If we made more like the other companies around here, more people would word here, and they wouldn’t leave to go other places just to make more money. And we’d have safer staffing,” she said.
