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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Let’s keep local workers working at Ely Bloomenson

Posted 8/21/14

As union members, we are writing to express our disappointment with the recent Ely Bloomenson Community Hospital (EBCH) decision to end their contract with the Boundary Waters Care Center (formerly …

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Let’s keep local workers working at Ely Bloomenson

Posted

As union members, we are writing to express our disappointment with the recent Ely Bloomenson Community Hospital (EBCH) decision to end their contract with the Boundary Waters Care Center (formerly the EBCH Nursing home) Housekeeping Depart-ment for contracted services. At the time of the split of the hospital and nursing home a few years ago, EBCH made a conscious decision to eliminate the housekeeping and dietary departments and have those merged into the new employer, BWCC. They said this would be a beneficial arrangement for both parties. Now, EBCH has notified BWCC they no longer will contract those services from their former employees and that they will instead switch to a private company based out of Duluth.

Five local employees are affected by this decision. Some of these employees have 15 years of combined service as EBCH and BWCC employees. There is a loss of seniority, loss of benefits, and loss of jobs as a result of this decision. We have been told that EBCH never gave prior notice to BWCC stating that they were in any way disappointed with services or that they were considering ending their contract. We have also been told that the contract with this new private company costs more to EBCH as an overall bid.

Our employees have worked with minimal staffing ever since the split of the nursing home and hospital. If, at times, the housekeeping work was less than satisfactory to EBCH, we believe it was due to a lack of resources and staff. As AFSCME union members and citizens who live in the surrounding area, we want the nursing home to continue to be viable and to provide the much needed services of care giving to our residents. We want to continue to make a living wage with benefits so that we can raise our families in this community. It does no good to the residents of Ely to be faced with more layoffs and loss of benefits. An injury to one is an injury to all. A decision to continue service with the former staff and Housekeeping Department that were EBCH employees is the right decision. Let’s keep it local.

Members of AFSCME Local #2815, representing the employees of the Boundary Waters Care Center