Local 34 members discuss hospital monopolies with top state legislators

Because of our union’s leadership on health care reform, we were invited to present to the state’s top legislators about the impact of hospital monopolies on workers, patients and taxpayers. Local 34 Chief Steward Gloria Timpko, Local 34 Health Care Team member Lorraine Skibitcky, and Local 217 Health Care Team member Ken Blair (pictured above from left to right) told legislators that our patients are still being hit with unreasonable facility fees as hospitals, like Yale-New Haven Hospital, buy up doctors practices. They also described the steps our union is taking to engage members in cutting costs and living healthier lives. The group urged legislators to find ways to control hospital prices so that our efforts aren’t undermined by spiraling costs.

Yale’s endowment is at an all-time high, but after five years of budget cuts staff and services in many of our departments have been cut to the bone. In early October, the committee in the Central/Science area met and voted to take these fights from the department level to the central administration, join with our allies on campus to press the administration to rescind the budget cuts, and make our concerns about the consequences of these cuts public. Our first step was sharing our stories of how the cuts have affected our work with the Yale Daily News. Click here to read the article.

In August, Local 34 invited both major gubernatorial candidates to interview for an endorsement. The Executive Board pressed Malloy about his support for workers organizing and about the increasing monopoly of the Yale New Haven Health system.

Our union has become a decisive factor in elections over recent years because of the hard work we do to get out the vote. Again this time, after deciding to support Malloy, we were pivotal in delivering his victory.

Throughout October dozens of Local 34 members volunteered to door knock. Our work paid off on November 4th, with New Haven pulling a nearly 20,000 vote margin for Malloy, ensuring four more years of pro-worker leadership in Hartford.