SEIU-UHW Launches $3M Fund for Hospital Accountability Efforts

Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West has launched a new $3 million fund that could be used to support a proposed ballot measure that would cap hospital executives' pay, the Sacramento Business Journal reports (Robertson, Sacramento Business Journal, 12/21).

Background

In November 2013, SEIU-UHW filed two proposed ballot initiatives with the state Attorney General's Office in an effort to engage the state's hospital industry in a public debate over rising costs and high executive salaries. The filing included:

• The Fair Healthcare Pricing Act, which would have banned hospitals from charging more than 25% above the actual cost of care; and
• The Charitable Hospital Executive Compensation Act, which would have barred not-for-profit hospital executives from collecting annual salaries greater than $450,000.

However, SEIU-UHW in May 2014 reached an agreement with the California Hospital Association to end its push for the two ballot initiatives.

The agreement called for:

• CHA and most of the state's 430 hospitals to implement a new "code of conduct" to ban negative campaigning between CHA and SEIU-UHW and make it easier for workers to join unions; and
• The two organizations to jointly fund a $100 million campaign aimed at increasing Medi-Cal payments and reforming the program.

Medi-Cal is California's Medicaid program.

However, the union in November revived the ballot measure that would limit compensation packages to no more than $450,000 annually for:

• Administrators and managers at not-for-profit hospitals;
• Hospital executives; and
• Hospital groups and affiliated medical organizations.

At the time, SEIU-UHW spokesperson Steve Trossman said the union's partnership and labor management agreement with CHA would remain. However, CHA officials said SEIU-UHW's decision violated last year's agreement (California Healthline, 11/23).

Details of Fund

According to the Business Journal, SEIU-UHW said the new fund, which could be used to bolster the revived ballot measure, is intended to ensure hospitals fulfill their responsibilities to patient and community health.

SEIU-UHW is using the fund to "prepar[e] for all potential situations," according to SEIU-UHW spokesperson Sean Wherley.

The union also could use the fund to oppose certain ballot measures, the Business Journal reports.

For example, SEIU-UHW in a release said that two recent proposals -- including one that would increase taxes, in part to fund hospitals -- "potentially put billions of dollars at the disposal of hospital executives with little accountability around access, affordability and quality" (Sacramento Business Journal, 12/21).