Philly Health Workers Fight Mass Layoffs Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the October 30, 1997 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- PHILLY HEALTH WORKERS FIGHT MASS LAYOFFS By Rosemarie A. Hill Philadelphia The Philadelphia area's biggest hospital system has abruptly laid off 6 percent of its work force. The workers are gearing up to fight back. A union demonstration is set for Oct. 28. Showing that they are more concerned with money than patient care or the needs of long-term employees, the management at Allegheny Health, Education and Research Foundation cut 1,200 employees the morning of Oct. 13. Only the week before making the job cuts, Allegheny executives vehemently denied planning layoffs--which the Philadelphia Daily News had forecast. Workers in the largely non-unionized facilities received no severance pay or advance notice. Seniority just didn't matter as employees with as much as 27 years of service were discarded. In the firm's only unionized hospital--the Medical College of Pennsylvania-- senior nurses were called to a meeting on finances while their junior colleagues were being fired. The "lucky" workers who escaped the ax are now expected to work harder. At the Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute one nurse will care for 20 violent and psychotic patients in a locked unit. Health-care providers are under increased pressure due to Medicare and Medicaid cutbacks. But Allegheny was known as a big spender, buying the practices of prestigious specialists and retaining many of the highest-paid hospital managers in Pennsylvania. These executives--perhaps even including Chief Executive Officer Sherif S. Abdelhak, who "earned" $1.2 million in 1995--will now get 20-percent pay cuts. Other hospitals in the Philadelphia region are threatening up to 30,000 more layoffs. The bosses point to reductions in Medicare and Medicaid, the expansion of health maintenance organizations, and new medical technology as the reasons for the job cuts. They are also looking to replace current workers with people thrown off welfare, who they can pay even less. Leaders of 1199C Health and Hospital Workers Union have called a protest rally for 4 p.m., Oct. 28, at Hahnemann Hospital, Vine and Broad Streets in Philadelphia. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. For subscription info send message to: info@workers.org. Web: http://workers.org) ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-10.22.97-23:14:10-30527