August 29, 2013|By Marni Jameson, Orlando Sentinel
Nearly 150 frustrated Orlando Health workers met Thursday afternoon to discuss forming a union. Signs throughout the employee areas of the hospital system invited workers to the union meeting.
To form a union, at least 30 percent of the employees would have to sign up, according to a union representative from National Nurses Organizing Committee.
"A lot of people are heated up and know that if we were unionized we wouldn't be in this situation, so it's only natural for us to want to get there," said Sarah Collins, a nightshift worker in the neonatal intensive care unit at Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies.
Collins is among thousands affected by the decrease in differential pay for working night and weekend shifts. For some employees, that decrease will amount to a 20 percent reduction in their checks when it takes effect Oct. 6.
In a nod to the hospital system's recent recognition for quality health scores, Orlando Health spokesman Geo Morales said, "We do not believe we need a union to achieve this continued success. Unions do not offer value to our goal of achieving optimum patient care."
Florida Hospital employees do not have a union, according to spokeswoman Samantha Olenick.
Collins started a petition earlier this month on change.org protesting the pay cuts. The online petition has attracted more than 4,700 signatures. A group of employees plan to take the petition to CEO Sherrie Sitarik on Tuesday morning, and ask her to not implement the cuts, and to assure they can organize without repercussions.
To combat employees' efforts to unionize, Sitarik has been making the rounds through the eight-hospital system, which includes Orlando Regional Medical Center and Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital, workers report. Orlando Health has nearly 16,000 workers, and is the fifth-largest employer in Central Florida.
On Wednesday night, employees received an internal email from administration containing the health system's position on unions, which said: "We believe that our ability to meet patient care needs, provide quality service, and create a positive and just work environment is best achieved by maintaining a direct working relationship with team members, rather than by working through a third party such as a labor union."
Sitarik has become increasingly unpopular among rank and file employees, particularly after she took a trip to Bermuda in July, paid for by a health organization she works with.
Workers also have criticized her decision to spend hospital resources on an outside consulting firm in search of ways to cut costs.
The hospital confirmed it hired the management consulting firm Deloitte to help the nonprofit "identify opportunities to become more efficient and deliver health care in more affordable ways," said Morales. However, he declined to say how much the nonprofit paid the consulting firm.
Sitarik took over as CEO of Orlando Health in 2010, after working her way up the ranks as a nurse.
While overseeing the biggest layoff in the health system's 100-year history, which began in November and continues, Sitarik gave herself a $120,000 raise, for a total compensation last year of $1,120,633, according to tax reports.
In a letter to employees responding to their pay-cut concerns, Sitarik wrote, "We appreciate that this will require a difficult adjustment for those who will be affected by these cuts, but we must keep our eye on the big picture."
She said the pay cuts would save Orlando Health $18 million a year. "Making these adjustments now will save many jobs," she wrote.
Workers protesting the cuts would like to maintain their pay as well. "We are using all the resources at our disposal," Collins said.
mjameson@tribune.com or 407-420-5158
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