ALAMEDA COUNTY: Mental Health Workers Ratify Contract
Workers at the Gladman Mental Health Rehabilitation Center in Oakland and the Villa Fairmont Mental Health Center in San Leandro ratified a contract with Telecare Corp. late last week, according to Ralph Cornejo, assistant director of Service Employees International Union Local 250's hospital division. The two-year agreement is retroactive to last year and will expire June 20, 2001. Under the terms, workers will receive minimum salary increases of 5% during the contract's first year and 4% in the second year, with additional special adjustments. The union complained that the $8.01 per hour starting salary at the two East Bay facilities, which treat the county's indigent mentally ill, was substantially less than the compensation paid to the county's own mental health workers, who start at $16.39 per hour. Praising the end to the "long, sticky labor dispute," Cornejo said, "We are very, very pleased with the results. It is an impressive start at dealing with some of the inequities that have occurred in the last decade with regard to these psychiatric facilities." Telecare, an Alameda-based, for-profit corporation, operates 31 facilities in California and Texas. Local 250, the largest health care union in the state, represents 46,000 workers, 136 of whom work at Gladman and Villa Fairmont (Richman, Alameda News Group, 4/5).
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