From WisPolitics.com/WisBusiness.com …
— In a new video interview series, most of Wisconsin’s Democratic candidates for governor said they favored allowing public employees to negotiate lower healthcare payments.
WisPolitics Editor JR Ross sat down this month with the Democratic candidates for governor and GOP contender Andy Manske for a series of half-hour interviews produced in partnership with WisconsinEye.
GOP Congressman Tom Tiffany, also running for governor, declined to participate in the interview series.
All of the Dem gubernatorial candidates have backed repealing Act 10, the 2011 law that stripped most public sector employees of their bargaining rights, leading to rising healthcare costs for many public sector workers.
Four candidates – former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, state Rep. Francesca Hong, state Sen. Kelda Roys and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley – said restoring bargaining rights should include healthcare costs, regardless of the increased cost to government.
“I can’t say for sure where the negotiations will land, but I do think it’s fair that people should be able to negotiate workplace conditions,” Barnes said. “People should be able to negotiate healthcare. People should be able to negotiate retirement as well.”
Crowley, who oversees more than 4,000 county employees, said labor leaders “understand what local municipalities are facing” and that he believed in negotiating.
Former Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan did not directly address healthcare bargaining but said Act 10 was part of a broader fracture between state and local governments and that the state should “put a stake” in the law.
— SEIU Wisconsin is calling for the start of contract negotiations after the National Labor Relations Board certified a union election for hundreds of nurses at SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison.
The board’s regional office yesterday ruled against objections made by the employer, according to the union’s release. The move officially certifies the election in which nurses last month voted by an 89% margin in favor of unionizing, the announcement notes.
Zach Zahalka, a nurse in the hospital’s cardiac catheterization lab, said forming a union represents an extension of his profession’s patient advocacy role. He noted organizers have begun circulating surveys to determine negotiation proposals.
“We urgently have to solve the crisis of understaffing and loss of experienced nurses at St. Mary’s,” Zahalka said in a statement, adding “SSM needs to stop trying to undermine our union” and focus instead on improving patient care through better staffing and retention.
The union says staffing levels at the hospital are 40% below average for the Madison area.
SSM Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the board’s decision.
Of the 853 eligible voters in the June 11 election, a total of 574 ballots were counted, and 511 nurses voted in favor of unionizing, according to details from NLRB.
See more in the release below.
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